
Interviewing at EA Mythic (2006) - luu
http://seanmountcastle.com/blog/2006/12/10/interviewing-at-ea-mythic/
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hatenberg
Do your research.

EA can be good - for a time - when the studio is in the initial investment
phase after acquisition.

EA can be a soul sucking experience in slowly seeing all passion and enjoyment
die if the studio is in the advanced monetization phase.

EA, unlike for example Ubisoft or 2K does not take innovation risk. They buy
studios with innovative IP and successful innovations that can be scaled by
infusing cash.

Once the monetization engine is running, the creative people who built the
studio will leave on their own after their Stock Options and RSUs are cashed
in and they realized they won't ever get to do anything new again ... just
more of the same. Once the genre wanes due to overexploitation and stale ness
sets in, promotion freezes and yearly 10-20% staff purges will eventually do
their thing.

So there is a great opportunity to move forward your career, learn and spend a
lot of money in the scaling phase but when the first layoffs happen you better
get into the boat if you lasted that long in the boredom of financial
innovations to meet responsibility profit

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Thaxll
There is no such thing as studio purge at EA, I'm actually pretty sure the
turnover rate is lower or equal than other bug publisher.

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hatenberg
There is yearly purges in any studio past its profit zenith.

Source: Industry and multi times EA veteran

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Thaxll
What studio had a purge recently?

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akurilin
I actually interned at EA Mythic in summer 2007 and remember everybody out
there being talented, obsessed with games (I miss those lunch chats, people
would work on games and talk about games when not working on games) and great
to work with. It felt idyllic at the time, didn't at all match the "EA spouse"
experience I was half-expecting. Maybe it was too early in the studio's
relationship with EA for that to become reality.

Too bad Warhammer Online ended up flopping and sealing the company's fate,
given all of the hard work put into it. Not clear if the market had room for
one more ultra-successful MMO after WoW at that point.

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smountcastle
I’m the author of the original post. Re-reading it now nearly 14 years later
is a bit embarrassing. I love where I ended up so it was all for the best that
they didn’t offer me a job.

As akurilin stated, they had an immensely talented and very passionate group
of gamers. I think everyone wants to work with folks that are passionate about
their work and their field. It is a shame that WAR didn’t succeed as it was an
ambitious vision. Many of the folks I interviewed with have gone on to end up
elsewhere with successful careers—which I’m very glad to see.

I do wonder how Dan Luu came across my old blog post. I really enjoy his blog.
Maybe I need to start blogging again.

