In a few days, we'll be publishing a comprehensive and rather neat history of Electronic Arts over at Gamasutra, thanks to a sterling effort by GSW columnist Jeffrey Fleming.

But, since we had the return of 3DO Kid just the other day, and one of the interviewees for our EA piece is Trip Hawkins, the EA founder and 3DO supremo, nowadays running mobile firm Digital Chocolate, we realized we had some neat out-takes from the Hawkins interview, and they should go up on GameSetWatch.

Thanks again to Trip - watch for his full comments in the imminent Gama piece! Here's what we left out due to space constraints:

Hawkins On Silicon Valley in The ‘70’s

"I might not have discovered Silicon Valley if I had not chosen Stanford for graduate school. I might not have learned about the first computer retail store without the coincidence that I took a summer job in Santa Monica and that is there the world's first computer store opened up. Then the first store in the first chain of stores opened near my home in Mountain View when I was attending Stanford. And I drove past Fairchild on the way to school, and they introduced the first cartridge video game system and I made a cold call on them one day to offer to do some free market research, and they said yes.

Ironically, the major institutions at that time - including Stanford, Berkeley, National Semiconductor, H-P, IBM, and Intel - did NOT grasp the concept of home computing and video games. For example, while I was at Apple a close colleague of mine that had gone to Berkeley tried to get the Computer Science professors interested in Apple, and they thought the Apple II was basically a pointless tinker toy."

Hawkins On 3DO

"After scoring a massively favorable license with Sega, I knew I had a big bull's eye drawn on my chest because the console guys would make sure I could never repeat what I had done with the Genesis. And on the PC side, nothing was going on that would advance the cause of the gamers and the game industry. This was 1990. Nobody liked paying high royalties under restrictive licenses, and what made it even worse was having to build ROM cartridges at great cost and inventory risk.

I knew the Genesis would give EA a great ride at least until 1994, but was afraid for what would happen after that. At that point, Sony had no idea they were going to enter the business and invent the PlayStation. I saw that great software companies like Microsoft and Sega and Nintendo all had created their own platforms. I thought the industry needed one to push forward with 3D graphics and optical disc media and networking capability. Nobody was doing anything, so it seemed like the window was open. That much proved to be true.

3DO was able to raise some money and recruit some big partners. But by 1993 Sony had made a $2 billion commitment, and even with all our partners we could not match what Sony was willing to do. 3DO ended up being a catalyst for many constructive changes. For example, even Sony executives have admitted to me that they copied many aspects of the 3DO licensing program."

Hawkins On His Latest Firm, Digital Chocolate

"By 2003 you could see the mass market adoption of SMS, camera phones, and ringtones, and the early growth of mobile games. Collectively I could see that the public was craving new ways to "reach out and touch someone." I realized that the mobile phone was really the first social computer. Social value will drive market growth, and that includes games. Human beings do not aspire to be alone. Playing by ourselves in isolation is not our quest for meaning.

Digital Chocolate is really catching on. We've won more awards and garnered the highest review scores in the industry in the last two years. This is the result of innovative games like Night Club Empire, Rollercoaster Rush, Brain Juice, and Tower Bloxx, which come with social community features. We're also inventing new social games like MLSN Sports Picks, where you can create a private club with some buddies and compete by predicting sports outcomes.

We're just now launching AvaPeeps, where you create and use an avatar that has its own social life and goes on dates with other avatars. It's fun to have a grown-up "Tamagochi" that is depressed after a bad blind date, but then gets elated over some hottie he met at our virtual beach. And that avatar hook-up might even lead to meeting the love of your life in reality.

The mobile phone could very well be "gaming for the rest of us." Hardcore gamers are about 5% of the population, but everyone has a mobile phone. There is synergy between the markets and traditional gamers will be key influencers and leaders, but in the end the mass market will want a different product experience that has more social value and will adopt a lot of new brands. This gives Digital Chocolate a great opportunity."