Jeff’s Mailbag #9: Post-PAXum Blues

EA.com editor Jeff Green posted a new mailbag which features a few questions from members of our community!  Both Simillion‘s and ConnorJack‘s emails made their way thru the mailbag.

Good day, Jeff. I hope you answer my questions cause they’ve been stuck in my head for quite some time.

1. Has EA been treating you well? Lately?
2. Are the employees in the corner offices being nice?
3. Can you easily view the future developments of games at each glance?
4. Has EA given you anything huge for the hard work you put it?
5. What image do you have of EA? Like, as the Ronald McDonald clown image or the Godfather?
6. Do you think you’ll be CEO?
7. Would you recommend your job to people?
8. How many nickles do you have left :P?
9. How many coffEA’s do you have in a day?
10. Do you have any advice for fansites on how to get insider news?

Good day, truly,
Artyo Aiden More a.k.a. Simillion (simillion.com, simillions on twitter)

That’s a lot of questions. And I even cut a few out. But, okay, I asked for them, so I guess it’s my BURDEN now to answer them.

1.  Yes. And, err, yes. As well as I deserved.
2.  As long as they keep paying me, that’s nice enough.
3. Yes.  I can totally predict the future. You won’t believe who’s going to be president in 25 years.
4. Yes.  They haven’t taken away my key card yet. That’s huge!
5.  I like to think of it as something like the Old Testament god. Ya know: omniscient, sometimes generous, sometimes vengeful. That plus a little Jim Belushi. So kind of like Charlton Heston meets Jim Belushi. Charlton Belushi.
6. I’d say the odds of that are actually lower than that of me winning American Idol.  And if you’ve ever heard me sing, you’d know the chances of that.  However, if offered, I will accept.
7.   I’d recommend it to some people, yes. The kind of people that enjoy hitting themselves in the head with a brick, repeatedly.
8.  I wasn’t aware that I was counting nickels. And if I was, how would you know? Who are you, anyway? … Mommy?
9   At least 3 or 4. I’m addicted to the Nespresso machine. I’ll fire up one of them strong, black capsules of espresso, then fill the rest of my cup with regular coffee. Result: BRAIN FIRE.
10. 1) Follow me on Twitter. 2) Send me tasty treats in the mail. 3) Follow up those tasty treats with an envelope full of unmarked cash money. 4) Wait for confidential info to arrive. 5) Deny any knowledge of my existence.

With the success of the Modern Warfare 2 stimulus DLC package launching on Xbox 360 last night, will EA be following with feature-based DLC for popular PC games such as The Sims or Spore? It would be great to buy DLC like weather for The Sims 3 without needing it in a full expansion pack.
–ConnorJack

I think that we are going to be seeing more and more DLC of all kinds coming, for all sorts of games. That’s not a confirmation of specifically what you’re asking about, but I think ideas like yours are ones that we’ll be seeing, yes. The big shift now is that you’re starting to see DLC plans being developed even before an original game is even finished. It’s part of many studios’ and publishers’ overall launch strategy.

Hey, guys from EA
I’ve got a question about The Sims 3 Ambitions: Will there be more new jobs than shown yet, like a model or an actor? Would be nice, if you could answer my question.
Greetings,
besim.

Indeed. Many more new jobs and professions, in fact.  I’m not sure what’s been officially revealed or not yet, so I’m gonna keep my mouth shut.  But given that that’s what the main theme of the expansion is, it’s guaranteed that there will be plenty of new ones to choose from.

Hmmm…more careers than the ones we already know about?  While I’d like to keep a positive thought that there would be more…something tells me Jeff may not know.  Of course, it may be possible, we still don’t know a whole lot about the next expansion!  Oh, and on a high note to end this post, here’s Jeff Green browsing at the EA Cafeteria (they sure know how to treat their employees!)