C Is For Credits And That's Good Enough For Me

Mark Jacobs, EA VP and head of Mythic, had this to say about the Warhammer credits foo frah.

There is a fate reserved for those who betray the Emperor’s trust. It is not death. It is not life. What is it when flesh and mind are taken into the body of the Golden Throne? What is it when organs are absorbed slowly into the flesh of the living machine? Is there a mind that suffers for eons as the Emperor suffers, or does the personality fade and melt away as the flesh that houses it dissolves into nothing?

OK, he didn’t say that. But admit it – that’d be cool. He said this instead.

[Leaving the person out of the credits] could be a mistake. I’m not saying it’s not happening. I just don’t know who the heck this person is. So come out, stop hiding behind the anonymity of the internet and the legal shield of ‘I’m going to sue EA.’”

If the three years is correct, there’s only a few people it can be. But I don’t know if the three years is correct because I know who was working on it three years ago, and most of those people are still with the company. Maybe this person was fired from Mythic and they don’t want to say who they were publicly.

In some of the cases that people left, some of them hadn’t done a great job for us. Or some left just in a lurch. Do I feel badly for that? No, I don’t feel badly at all. I’m not going to shed a single tear for any of those guys.

So there you have it – the Mysterious Anonymous Ex-Mythic Developer sucked at his/her job, left them hanging, and should go public because Mark just wants to make things right.

So, as a few of you probably know, I left Mythic… about three years ago. HEY! Maybe the Immortal God Emperor is talking about ME! Hmm. Let’s break this down.

• Did leave Mythic in 2006, 2 1/2 years ago, as apparently did Mysterious Anonymous Ex-Mythic Developer (MAEMD). Hmm. This could be incriminating!
• Did not actually work on Warhammer, ever. Not even for a picosecond. I did harass Paul Barnett in a Chinese restaurant once. But I’m pretty sure that does NOT earn you a spot on the credits.
• Was not actually fired from Mythic. No, really! Although I hear the rumor mill since tells a different tale, which makes me quite amused. It’s hard to say WHAT that tale is though, because the most I ever hear about it is “YOU LEFT AND NO ONE TALKS ABOUT IT”. But, regardless, office drama also does not get you a spot on the credits, no matter how funny.
• Was a heretic in good standing, which means that under the Barnett Inquisition, I would have been burned AT THE STAKE while monks and executive producers would have chanted in Latin and PR filmed the whole thing for Youtube viral video distribution. Again, too cool for words, but still, didn’t actually happen.

So, short version: call off the Officio Assassinorum, it wasn’t me. (Which I’m pretty certain wasn’t ever seriously considered, but hey, it made for a funny blog post.) Plus, to be honest, when it comes to MMOs, credits just aren’t that big a deal. MobyGames is a joke (the only reason DAOC has ANY credits at all on there is because… um… I typed them in myself in 2003 so I could have SOMETHING credited there, back when I DID think it was a big deal) and everyone just uses LinkedIn anyway.

If you WOULD like to come out from the shadows and unmask yourself as a Secret Furious Ex-Mythic Uncredited Developer, feel free to do so in the comments! I mean, it would be a creditable thing to do.