Mythic Entertainment

I was considering a more catchy title like “EA Mythic is no more…” but then I would have to kick my own arse. The elegant simplicity of this blog entry’s name does great justice to the news that Mythic has gone back to their old (and better might I add) name.

“We are going back to Mythic Entertainment,” said Mark Jacobs, the VP and General Manager of EA Mythic. “I’ve always been a believer of separate branding,” he continued, going on to cite a number of successful companies like Disney and GE that operate subsidiary companies under separate and distinct brands.

“I think that this is a wonderful example of how things at EA are changing,” he continued, “both John (Riccitiello, CEO of EA) and Frank (Gibeau, EA) have spoken multiple times about city states, more freedom, that sort of thing and I think this is an obvious example.”

“We’re still part of EA,” he said, “this is a name change and both Mythic Entertainment and EA are well represented in the game, on the box, etc. but the developer is going to be officially Mythic Entertainment.” Source

I’m extremely pleased to see that resistance isn’t futile and that the borg-like ways of EA might truly be a thing of the past. Congrats Mythic on your much deserved individuality.

Now I have to change my blog tags.

  • This whole “EA screws MMO’s up” thing reminds me of Pirates of the Burning Sea, where everyone paniced about it being published by SOE, which in the end had no impact at all on the game itself – and so it will be with Warhammer Online, but still you will have people flaming it for being a part of EA, it’s trolls nature, so to speak =P

    (btw keen your blog inspired me to make one myself about the games I play, but it is german so you might not understand anything but I thought it could be nice for you to know)

  • This to me is good news.

    When EA announced that Mythic was taking over all of their online offerings, I enthusiastic for a bit with their updates to Ultima Online. But then the nonsense with Sims Online–>EA-Land–>closed as EA-Land so they could close it without tarnishing the Sims name, well that seemed like a move back to EA’s typical corporate manueverings.

    Glad to hear Mythic is pushing back for a bit of independence.

  • Awesome! I’m honored that I inspired someone to blog. That’s very cool.

    @Rog: I see it as an enormous positive as well.

  • I like this move for both EA and Mythic. It shows EA is serious about changing (with Mythic and BioWare being their own separate entities) for the better.

    I never thought I’d say good things about EA again after the past few years, but the way they’ve handled Mythic and BioWare has been pleasantly surprising.

  • Other than the name, does this make them more independent at all? If so, to what degree?

    I know most people reading this blog probably don’t play “The Sims” But look up what they’re doing with their new “Sims2 Store”. Charging a dollar per item download, mostly bugged, poor quality content. Adding small things like a change in color to a “hair” item and expecting to be paid another dollar for practically the same thing. Which is something that in the past, has easily been done by the player in their own “body shop” program, only now these new “pay items” are disabled in it.

    The whole micro transactions gig is some thing EA has big plans for in the future, and they seem to care little about their customers opinion.

    Read up about the uproar in the community of that game about their new pay per item site. People who fix a lot of the bugged mess that comes with each expansion and keep the game alive with their creative custom content are disgusted by this.

  • @sam

    EA still has some questionable tactics no doubt, but the way they’ve handled their most recent studio pickups (Mythic, BioWare) has been very different from what they’ve done in the past I believe.

    EA is basically the cash cow for them, and they let them design the game their way. Look at WAR for example, it’ll be ready when it’s ready type thing it has going. Whens the last time you thought an EA game would have that kind of motto?

    So while they still have some questionable tactics about making money, they are moving in the right direction I think. That direction is – let the product do the selling, because if it’s a good solid game, it will do just that.

  • I’d also like to input that there’s a history of game developers that have bucked, or even kicked back at their corporate owners or publishers.

    I’ve never had any doubts regarding BioWare for instance, because I’m very much aware of how they handled Interplay in the past. Psygnosis is another example, they sued Sony for independence in their development decisions, but still came away with it under the Sony umbrella to their own advantage.

    I was in doubt over the Mythic issue, the happy-to-be-under-EA’s wing press-releases smelled funny to me and Keen’s watched me make it a point of contention– so for me, this is a very big positive deal in Mythic’s favour, it instills a lot of faith.