A Look Back on Two Years of Full Circle
VP & GM Dan McCulloch shares how Full Circle studio has changed, grown, and come into its own over the past two years.
Back in January 2021, Full Circle™ was created as the first fully remote studio at Electronic Arts™. Our goal was to craft amazing gaming experiences for our players, but it was also important to us to have fun while doing it. Two years later, we’ve come a long way, and I thought it was about time to reintroduce you to Full Circle and what we’re all about.
OUR TEAM, OUR CULTURE
I’m so proud of the team we’ve built to date. Crafting a strong culture can be a difficult task for any new studio. Add that to coming of age during a global pandemic with a fully remote team, and the results could have been disastrous. But for us, it’s working. That’s not to say there haven’t been a few bumps along the road. We learn more about what works best for our team every day and pivot when necessary. That’s the beauty, and the challenge, of pioneering something new.
Today, the Full Circle team spans 3 continents, 6 countries, and 7 time zones. You’ll find industry vets with decades of experience, recently graduated co-op students we just couldn’t say goodbye to, and everyone in between.
Operating as a remote studio offers great benefits for our employees, such as increased flexibility around their schedules and living arrangements. It’s also a big win for our team as a whole. Being remote allows us to hire the best person for the job, wherever they live. That means incorporating even more diverse perspectives into our process and working with incredibly talented people from across the globe with whom we may have never had a chance to interact otherwise.
It boils down to this: we’ve given our team the tools and resources to do their job from wherever they are, and we trust them to do it. We recognize that not everybody works the same; what works for one person may not work for the next. What works best for us is holding space for collaboration and interactive team building while maintaining enough flexibility to let our team members create in the way they find most impactful. From team playtests to town halls and Q&As with leadership, we stay connected, transparent, and accountable to each other, even when we’re apart.
OUR COMMUNITY
I look forward to the day when everyone feels entirely safe and supported within the gaming industry. Until that day, diversity, equity, and inclusion will remain a top priority for our studio. When we limit those who feel welcome within the gaming industry, we only serve to limit the worlds we can create and the stories we can tell - and those limits have no place at Full Circle. We are artists, designers, engineers, and gamers, but above all, we are multi-dimensional humans with an eclectic mix of backgrounds, passions, and hobbies; a reflection of the community we make games for.
And we are so thankful for that community.
CO-CREATING WITH OUR COMMUNITY
Creating the new chapter for a game like skate. is a huge undertaking. This franchise comes with a long legacy and a fanbase so dedicated that they kept the campaign for a new game alive for over a decade. Not only do we want to make them proud, but we’re also bringing them into the fold.
Since day one, our goal has been to break the mold through radical transparency that reaches beyond the industry status quo. With the support of Electronic Arts and our Group GM, Samantha Ryan, we’ve been able to do just that, empowering our team to try new things and take risks in the name of innovation. Through the release of pre-pre-pre alpha gameplay in skate.’s still working on it trailer last year and ongoing skate. insider playtests, we’re not just letting players peek behind the curtain, we’re tearing it down. We’re also inviting players along for the ride in The Board Room, a series where the Full Circle team gives our community an inside look at the game’s development, what to expect and more. The next episode of The Board Room is dropping this Thursday, April 20th, so make sure to tune in.
Listening and being accountable to our passionate player community is something we keep at the core of everything we do. Since we launched our skate. insiders program in July of 2022, we’ve hosted four insider playtests and welcomed thousands of players to the streets of San Vansterdam, with plans to keep growing that number in the future. This has already created some amazing learning moments. Fuelled by our community’s feedback, ideas get conceptualized, tested, thrown out, reworked, brought back, and changed, all in the pursuit of getting things just right. We’re seeing a new level of collaboration between developers and players, shaping our process into something truly dynamic.
It’s been an incredible two years, and we’re just getting started. I’m so excited for the world to join us on this wild ride as we continue to grow, learn and push the boundaries of game development.
If you think you would be a good fit for the Full Circle team, check out our careers page.
For all the latest updates on skate., visit the website.
- Dan
