Most N.B.A. players want their face on the cover of a video game. Ike Diogu wants to be in the credits, which is why he was in Phoenix for All-Star weekend.
Diogu, a Portland Trail Blazers forward, met Saturday with executives from EA Sports to arrange an internship this summer. Diogu studied digital animation at Arizona State before declaring for the 2005 draft as a junior. He is 12 units shy of his degree and attends classes every summer.
“I just want to get as much information as I can,” said Diogu, who wants to work in the video-game business after his playing career is over. “I’ve always been a video-game player, from the time I was young, so it just made sense to me.”
This season Diogu toured the EA offices in Redwood Shores, Calif., on a day off during a Blazers trip. His weekend meeting with Sean O’Brien and David Rosen, two EA executives from the headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia, was arranged through the N.B.A.’s player programs group. League officials hope it could provide a model for connecting active players and corporate sponsors.
“We’ve always had guys who are interested in what we do, and interested to come in and do motion-capture and to see the building and see the game in development,” O’Brien said, “but never to this level. This is why it’s a pretty cool opportunity to get him, someone who’s really been proactive and interested involved in our process.”
While he’s there, Diogu may want to adjust the programming on the game NBA Live, at least for the Ike Diogu character.
“Most of my friends, we don’t play as ourselves, because the guys never do you justice,” Diogu said. “You end up getting more frustrated that your player might be too slow or he doesn’t jump high enough or he can’t shoot good enough. If I am going to play as myself, the first thing I do is go to the edit menu and make the ratings the way I feel that they should be.”
