AFROTECH™ 2025 — EA Game Designer Cam Jones Shares How He’s Using His Love For The Game To Inform His Approach

Cam Jones is helping amplify pioneers in sports as a game designer at EA Games.

The EA SPORTS Madden NFL Black History Month program was established in 2021 to honor the legacy and excellence of current and former Black trailblazers in the NFL, according to information shared on LinkedIn.

During AFROTECH™ Conference 2025 in Houston, TX, Jones shared that the program’s first year featured Doug Williams, who was the first Black NFL quarterback to win a Super Bowl (Washington Redskins, 1988). Also recognized at that time were Ozzie Newsome, the first Black general manager in the NFL (Baltimore Ravens, 2002-2018), and Fritz Pollard, one of the first Black players in the NFL (Akron Pros, 1920) and the first Black NFL head coach (Akron Pros, 1921).

“One key note about the program is that every year it’s always free to play,” Jones explained to the audience at Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center. “We make sure that it’s not monetized in any way, and that’s to keep the integrity of the program and to ensure that all of our players have equal opportunity to come into the mold and engage and get to learn more about these athletes’ history.”

He continued, “A key goal with this program every year is highlighting who these athletes are off the field because we know most of our players are familiar with who they are on Sundays and who they are under the helmet. But what they do off the field and how they impact their communities is just as important, and this is the time for us to shed light on that.”

Jones also shared the labor of love behind the program, which includes a game design document (GDD) that can span 10 to 20 pages as well as in-game item creation, which begins with a ratings tool for the players.

“That was my first role when I got to the company, it was to actually rate players. So, if you get in the game and you don’t like that Mike [Michael] Vick is not fast enough, you’re probably mad at me,” he joked.

“This is kind of where we go in and make their in-game counterparts play similar to how they played in real life,” he continued. “It’s the big thing that our players chase after. They always want the next best item in the game.”

As far as the EA program’s implementation for gamers, they can utilize the “Solo Challenge” to unlock mini-game experiences after reading information about athletes. The late Derrick Thomas had been featured previously in this for his time with the Kansas City Chiefs and the establishment of the Third and Long Foundation, which he founded to improve childhood literacy.

Jones added that the EA program has evolved and is now spotlighting current and former players in the league.

“Our main mission is to keep up with what’s going on in the league. We also want our players to know that these are people too, and it kind of helps to put a little more context into why they’re playing the game,” Jones explained.

Reflecting on his career trajectory at EA Sports, Jones said it’s his knowledge of the game as a player that has carried him through his time at EA Sports. He joined the company at 26 years old for his first job out of college in 2022. At the time he was a graduate of the University of Alabama with a bachelor’s degree in computer science.

“I can’t even put an amount to how much that helps me in my day-to-day workflow of just being able to know the game from that standpoint because it does change,” Jones said. “Like once you get under the hood, it opens your eyes to a lot of the why. Because like a lot of times, that’s the question I would tell them. Always ask them when they’re playing, like ‘Why did they do it like this? Why is this designed this way?’ Try to think through like, ‘OK, if you don’t like it, what would you do? What would you do differently? What roadblocks do you think we hit?’ Because there’s always roadblocks.”

He also encourages the next generation of Black youth to have stake in gaming.

“Young women, if you know any that are gamers, please keep them in the field. I think we need more of them, especially young Black women and young Black boys, too,” he expressed.