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Businesses Entertainment Games

Don Mattrick leaves EA 22

Posted by Zonk from the greener-pastures dept.
Jeku writes "Don Mattrick leaves Electronic Arts after 23 years. From the article, a quote from Larry Probst, EA CEO: 'Don would have been on a short list of internal candidates that might move into the CEO role,' Probst said. 'Don came to the conclusion that he was not interested in running a public company. And that he did not want to be doing the same job in five years or ten years.'" More commentary on the exec shakeup over at Gamasutra.
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Don Mattrick leaves EA More

Don Mattrick leaves EA

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  • Sims Movie? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Tringard ( 595737 )
    FTA:
    "...the company decided to form the division so that it could concentrate all of the resources necessary in developing "The Sims'' as a property, which could be licensed for things such as toys or movies."

    I can sort of (barely) see toys, but a movie?!? Seems like the fast track to another game-to-movie flop.
    • You're going to have real people watch a movie about real people manipulating virtual people engaging in relationship building that includes blurred sex. Like Team America but just dumber. Should win an Oscar nomination.
  • It could be a fun thing to have him start up a private company funded by EA money and create innovative titles, something that is lacking from EA these days.

    Just dreaming of his deep pockets and the possibilities....
  • Of course, he's actually famous for programming the game Evolution. Pretty remarkable career from one minor game.

    I wonder what ever happened to Jeff Sember?

    • God, was that the C64 game where you start as an amoeba and then go through several levels, like a mouse... I don't remember... the final level was a human with a gun that bounced off walls, right?

      Classic. How the mighty have fallen. EA kicked ass back in the C64 days. Too bad they became the monster.
      • Yes, that's the one, though EA had nothing to do with it. EA didn't come into the picture until EA Canada hired Mattrick years later.

        Some pics of the original Apple ][ version they worked on (I'm sure they didn't do the Commodore translations). Apple Screenshots [mobygames.com]

  • I used to do landscaping and weekly maintenance on Don Mattrick's property when I was living in Vancouver and had a job with a gardening company. Nice enough fellow, not the type I would have guessed to be part of a huge evil empire like EA. He had a gigantic bit of land near the University of British Columbia and he had bought two or three surrounding properties which he had contractors leveling. That was three years ago. With the money he's made from the growth of EA over the past ten years, I'm sure
    • I have two young relatives who are sons of this guy who work in EA vancouver. These two kids are respectively 15 and 19. When they visited me in the U.S I told them straight out about the EA monopoly. And about the buyouts and the way they lock up licenses to crush competitors with pure $$$. Nothing that you haven't seen on slashdot.

      They looked at me like deers infront of headlights. I don't know what their father feed them, but they had this 100% positive view of EA as a community contributor and perf
      • I actually knew someone who was working at EA as a peon tester back then and he hated the job passionately. But then, when you look at the job market, getting payed to test NHL 2000 for 5 months at a decent wage is better than slinging fries at Macdonalds for minimum wage. Even though it was mind numbing and he seemed traumatized by the whole ordeal. Emotionally vacant. He was in his mid twenties though, I imagine your relatives haven't had their brains turned to turnip mush yet. Give them time.

  • Any EA employees reading? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by grumpygrodyguy ( 603716 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @01:16AM (#13497137)
    Hey EA!

    Fix EAX sound support in BF2 and TEST YOUR GAMES before you release them!
  • (and I don't mean by walling them in with no potty)

    The sims, like sim city was born from the drive and originality of Maxis' lead, Will Wright. Of course, it also was born from the dedication and sleepless nights of countless programmers, designers, and artists. It was successful because it was freeform, fun, original, emotionally engaging, etc, etc.

    However, with the success of the sims came expansion after expansion [maxis.com]. Since the Sims success caught on, there hasn't been a single original title released by
    • Not sure who is releasing it, but Will Wright is busy writting his next big game; with a guessimated release of fall of 2006.
      It is called Spores and was shown at last year E3 convention to great fanfare.
      It allows you to evolve your family of spores up to a great space going race, a mixture of civilization and the sims(Well maybe this does prove your original thinking) according to the hype.
      You can find screen shots by doing a google search for wright and spores

  • That's unfortunate.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by daVinci1980 ( 73174 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @11:59AM (#13500526) Homepage
    When I worked at EA as a programmer, I had a chance to meet the e-staff. They were all sort of exactly what I'd expected (having worked for the slave drivers for about 5 months at this point) except for Don.

    He was the one guy on the e-staff who didn't seem to like the way the employees were treated, and didn't really like the way the company was headed. I expect that he's probably going to leave the game industry as well, but that's unfortunate.

    What's truly disheartening about this is that it seems to indicate, from a high-level perspective, acceptance of what has become the standard in the game industry. Churn and burn your employees, there will always be two ready to replace any one that falls. The fact that Don disagreed with this worldview, was likely to take over the largest video game publisher, and decided that he didn't want the job would seem to indicate that he couldn't rectify profitability with employee rights / treatment.

    As they would say at EA, Don Mattrick has left EA to pursue other opportunities. We wish him the best on all his future endeavors.

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