Mark Jacobs on his departure from Mythic and EA
by William Dobson 
Jun 26th 2009 at 8:30AM
Filed under: Dark Age of Camelot, MMO industry, Warhammer Online, News items
As for Jacobs' comments on the reasons for him leaving, we don't find it out too much, but he did have have this to say:
Early in May, Electronic Arts let me know that they wanted to make some changes within the Games Label and as a result of those changes I have been out of the office (and out of touch with the team, game, etc.) since that day.
and:
However, if you are looking or expecting me to damn EA or anyone there, you will be sorely disappointed. Over my 23 years of making games professionally I have refrained from attacking the competition, former and/or current partners, other game developers, etc. except on a few very rare instances. I have no intention of breaking with tradition at the present time and I hope my track record in this regard remains unchanged for the rest of my career.
We will be keeping an eye on Jacobs' blog for the additional posts he has promised.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
wufiavelli said on 8:53AM 6-26-2009
Guess we can put settle the argument finally on whether EA has changed. Good bye Mythic, good bye bioware we knew thee well.
Reply
royale said on 8:58AM 6-26-2009
Co-founded the company and now forced out. =( It's sad.
Reply
Leshrac said on 11:46AM 6-26-2009
Sad? He sold his company to EA, he was smiling like he had won the lottery - you make a deal with the devil and you take their money then you deserve what you get. Eff him. Maybe other people will be less reluctant to bend over for EA, I doubt it though, money corrupts all.
Uninvited said on 1:20PM 6-26-2009
Leshrac hit the nail on the head. After sinking 25 million into Imperator and owing close to 40 million to investors, Mythic simply couldn't afford to make a triple-A MMO out of Warhammer. Along comes EA, one in a long line of companies that was looking at Mythic, and Jacobs made a fortune. He was giddy-rich and rolling the cash after the sale -- all the original Mythic dudes were. Now Warhammer has a huge budget. The problem was, Jacobs was still in charge of the thing, and here's the secret: He doesn't know how to make games.
It's like this -- all Mythic had to do to make Warhammer successful was to make DAoC2 skinned as Warhammer. Instead, Jacobs chose to ignore the things that made DAoC successful and try to create something new. What he forgot (and the thing EA didn't realize when they bought Mythic) is that he had gotten lucky with DAoC and he didn't really know how to repeat his success. Combine that with his unyielding lack of trust in his development staff, and you have a genuine clusterf**k. There were many times when WAR almost went the way of Imperator (read: dying on the vine). The only thing that saved that project was Paul Barnett (yes, I know he is a media whore, but he kept Jacobs from totally screwing up the game).
Don't feel bad for Jacobs. He uses one hundred dollar bills as toilet paper. Don't feel bad for Mythic -- they finally have a chance to make cool games. Who knows, maybe EA will greenlight DAoC2.
Nadril said on 2:37PM 6-26-2009
I have to agree with you Uninvited. I think most people tend to "damn" Barnett the most, but in reality I feel like he was the one who actually had a good grip on what we want in an MMO. If you've heard him actually talk about game mechanics you can tell he's a pretty smart guy.
I do think Jacobs screwed up WAR. It's a pity he had to lose his job, but that's what happens...
Xanwryn said on 10:09PM 6-26-2009
I wonder if you realise are primarily a game PUBLISHER? Not developer? Sure, they give out deadlines (shitty deadlines) but ultimately they're not the ONLY people to blame for a shitty game.
I hate EA as much as the next person and was like "OH GOD NO" when I heard BioWare sold out but guess what? EA being idiots doesn't make them the bloody devil, and Mythic and other companies selling out? So what? It's there fucking company, they can do what they bloody want.
Plenty of decent games have come out of the big monopolising corporations (such as EA and Activision, to name a few, I'd put Eidos and Take2 in their too personally). Just cause YOU don't like something does that mean EVERYONE ELSE will hate it too?
Jack said on 9:39AM 6-26-2009
EA did look the numbers of subs for WAR and the numbers of Bioware sales....
Now they will crash the Bioware MMO :(
Reply
JP said on 9:47AM 6-26-2009
At least it's finally answered that yes, he was fired. ... last month to be exact.
Reply
Kinnetik said on 9:52AM 6-26-2009
Mark always stuck me as close to a 'normal' guy as one can be heading up a rather large game development studio.
The problem inherent in that is he was prone to doing many things normal people do. Like being proud (almost to arrogance) on things you feel good about, getting defensive when being attacked, and other things that people are not used to expecting from a high level executive of a major company.
I can't say I care much for him personally, but I will say I enjoyed the products his company produced. (DAOC immensely, WAR disappointed me slightly, but was still a decent product)
Reply
wolfsterne said on 10:19AM 6-26-2009
EA is evil pure and simple......I know Mark will be back with either his own company or heading up another company inside a year...I just hope when EA bails on Warhammer Games Workshop takes it to another publisher that actually gives a damn about the IP.
Reply
Korz said on 10:52AM 6-26-2009
I won't miss him. See ya later! After dealing with him through DAoC beta, and Warhammer beta all I can say is "Good bye, and thanks for all the fish!" From threatening people who gave feedback he didn't want to hear with bans, to allowing his "e-friends" in beta to exploit bugs and terrain problems (Anyone from Beta remember letting romple, zarbix and co RoF one shot people while warband camping during testing of Empire/Chaos t3?)
Telling people they would get banned if they brought up again the fact Bright Wizards had major major design flaws that brought them far above the rest of the classes?
Telling people they would be banned if they would bring up the fact that T4 and pvp in general was missing something important?
Sorry, but the last thing I want this guy to do is touch another game I love, I feel like his desire to make money led him to try and clone EQ with the ToA expansion in ToA, tried to make a WoW clone with War and basically signed the death slip for his career in the fact that he tried to push content out to hide the problems with his games and get players back instead of fixing the problems.
Reply
Korz said on 10:54AM 6-26-2009
and I actually it wasn't RoF they were using it was bugged Fire ball barrage with a couple of tactics that would proc insane numbers multiple times at once.
charl_ton said on 11:02AM 6-26-2009
Isn't there a "good" missing from that blog title?
Reply
Jess said on 11:20AM 6-26-2009
Sadly for him, Mark Jacobs' self-appointed great reputation has, and will forever be, completely overshadowed by all his smack-talk, ignorant statements and hyped-up bragging about WAR. That is the Mark Jacobs people will remember.
Good riddance.
Reply
Abriael said on 11:58AM 6-26-2009
yeah, I can see that trolls like you can be very angry and foaming at the mouth about a game developer that doesn't blow smoke up your rears.
Too bad.
Jess said on 12:43PM 6-26-2009
Once again, anyone with a negative opinion or shares the slightest amount of criticism towards WAR or anything related to it is automatically called a troll by Massively's redsident raging WAR fanboi: Abriael.
Abriael said on 3:51PM 6-26-2009
No, my dear Jess. It's not enough to have a negative opinion to be a troll. But people like you that spouted hate on every single warhammer-related thread since several months ago, sorry if it sounds harsh, but cannot be defined in any other way than trolls.
Learn to live with it. You probably spent more time trolling on warhammer-related news than actually playing. If you don't define it trolling, I wouldn't know how to define it.
Jess said on 1:25PM 6-26-2009
"like you that spouted hate on every single warhammer-related thread since several months ago"
Right there you've already done yourself in. I can't remember the last WAR-related thread I posted on; I have generally ignored the MMORPG and threads about it as of 2009. Yet you say "every single" one? Back that claim up; I dare you.
Mark Jacobs getting canned sparked some interest from me, but I hardly match the criteria you so confidently throw down, far from it.
Besides, you're the one with all the greyed-out posts here, not me, so it appears according to this site and its community, you're the very thing which you accuse so many others of.
Irony can be so beautiful.
Abriael said on 1:37PM 6-26-2009
LOL. You're actually right. I was mistaking you for JP. I apologize for the mistake. Check his posting history (or that of MrAngry and others) to understand what I mean.
Can't really be bothered to remember exactly the names of the resident trolls that do nothing that spout their usual hate.
About being grayed out, I'm afraid that a few warhammer-haters voting them down doesn't change their validity. Quite the contrary.
JP said on 3:03PM 6-26-2009
I can't belivie I let this guy get under my skin:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2376/2247519070_406611efc8.jpg
A) Being Italian doesn't make mock turtle necks ok
B) Maybe your English is the reason your posts are so intrepidly stupid.
C) ………. Troll.