EA Mythic

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Electronic Arts Mythic
Type Public (NASDAQ: ERTS)
Founded 1995
Headquarters Fairfax, Virginia
Key people Mark Jacobs, General Manager
Rob Denton, Chief Operations Officer
Matt Shaw, Chief Technical Officer
Industry Computer and video game industry
Entertainment industry
Website www.mythicentertainment.com

EA Mythic (formerly Mythic Entertainment, Inc. and Interworld Productions) is a computer game developer in Fairfax, Virginia which is most widely recognized for developing the 2001 massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dark Age of Camelot. Mythic has been a prolific creator of multiplayer online games since its formation in the mid 1990s.

Electronic Arts purchased Mythic Entertainment and renamed the company EA Mythic on June 20, 2006. [1]

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[edit] History

Mythic Entertainment (after August 2006, EA Mythic) is one of the pioneers in online game development. It is best known for its 2001 #1 world bestselling MMORPG, Dark Age of Camelot, although it has developed many other smaller titles as well. EA Mythic is currently working on the MMO Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, which is slated for release in Autumn 2008.

Mythic originally evolved from two early Washington, DC (USA) area online game development companies. The first was Adventures Unlimited Software Inc. (AUSI), was founded in 1984 By Mark Jacobs when it launched Aradath, a commercial online RPG which charged US$40 per month. AUSI later developed games for GEnie, creating an online version of Diplomacy with Eric Raymond in 1990, and Dragon's Gate in 1985, originally inspired by Aradath. Mark Jacobs was the president of AUSI and other developers there would later work for Mythic. [2]

The other half of Mythic Entertanment was Interesting Systems, Inc., founded by Rob Denton, Matt Firor, Don Cambpell, and Roger Shropshire in Fairfax, VA, in 1990. Prior to the founding of Mythic Entertainment, ISI had developed one multi-user BBS text-based roleplaying game called "Tempest", which was later renamed Darkness Falls. Darkness Falls would later provide the codebase for Dark Age of Camelot, Mythic's hugely successful MMORPG released in 2001.

Mythic Entertainment was officially formed in 1995 when AUSI (Mark Jacobs) and ISI (Rob Denton) joined together. Its original name was Interworld Productions, but due to a conflict with another "Interworld" (a web development company), in November 1997 the name was changed to Mythic Entertainment.

Mythic made numerous online games in the mid and late 1990s, ranging from online action first-person shooters to online RPGs. Some titles include Silent Death Online, Magestorm Millennium, Darkness Falls: The Crusade, ID4 Online, Spellbinder: The Nexus Conflict, and Splatterball. The original AUSI game Dragon's Gate was transferred from GEnie to America Online in 1996.

In March 2001, Silent Death: Online was transferred from AOL to the EA.com Platinum game service, where it resided for 8 months, before EA's "sunset announcement" in November 2001, announced the shutting down of the game on December 6. For several years, the game has retained a large fanbase, and many still hope for the resurrection of the game some day.

[edit] Dark Age of Camelot

Mythic started Dark Age of Camelot development in late 1999. The company invested $3.2 million developing the game, a significant budgetary leap for the company considering this amount was more than double the sum used for all its previous games. Dark Age of Camelot was also the company's first massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

Dark Age of Camelot development was led by Rob Denton, as lead programmer, and by Matt Firor as Producer. The original concept for the game was conceived by Mark Jacobs. Design for the game was accomplished by a team of Mythic employees, including Denton, Firor, and Jacobs, as well as programmer Brian Axelson, who designed the game's innovative (for its time) combat system.

Dark Age of Camelot was published by Vivendi Universal and launched smoothly in October 2001, earning respect and commercial success in the market. The game continues its success and has spawned several expansions.

Dark Age of Camelot support and development continues, in parallel with other EA Mythic projects, such as the 2005-announced Warhammer Online.

[edit] Mythic / Microsoft Lawsuit

Mythic sued Microsoft in December 2003 for trademark infringement and unfair competition regarding the name of Microsoft's Mythica MMORPG, which was in development at that time. On May 25, 2004, three months after the game was cancelled, Mythic announced that the case was settled and that Microsoft agreed to not use the Mythica name on new online computer games and to not register it as a trademark. Also as part of the deal, Microsoft gave all Mythica-related trademarks and domain names to Mythic. [3]

[edit] Corporate Honors

Mythic Entertainment is one of the fastest growing private technology companies. It has been listed on the Deloitte Technology 500 list of fastest growing (by revenue) technology companies in North America since 2002. In 2004 it ranked 106th with a 2,226% increase in revenue over the past five years. It also ranked 36th on Inc. magazine's 500 fastest growing private companies in America in 2003. Mythic also received the largest investment given to an independent game developer when TA Associates invested $32 million in March 2003. Mythic is also notable for sharing earnings with its employees, which they credit as contributing to strong employee retention. [4]

[edit] Imperator

In 2002, Mythic announced it was working on a new title, a science-fiction themed MMO called Imperator Online. This MMORPG based on an alternate history where the Roman Republic never fell, and advanced to be a space-travelling multi-planet Empire. Imperator was originally slated to be launched in winter 2005, but on July 17, 2005 Mythic announced that it was being postponed indefinitely, with no new release date announced.

[edit] List of Games

[edit] Electronic Arts

Mythic was purchased by Electronic Arts in the summer of 2006. Mark Jacobs continues as General Manager of EA Mythic, which is now an Electronic Arts studio. As part of the acquisition, EA Mythic now controls not only Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, but also the older EA MMORPG, Ultima Online.

[edit] Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

During the E3 trade show, on May 18, 2005, Mythic announced that it had licensed the Warhammer IP and was starting to work on a new MMO, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. This title is scheduled for release in the third Quarter of 2008.

[edit] External links

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