Get the Inside Scoop on What's Happening at EA

Hi kidz!  Well, it took us awhile to get this one up, but we have a great excuse!  The hamsters that power our mixing board came down with a rare case of hamster flu, which made them incapable of running fast enough to keep the gears moving.  We had to nurse them awhile and read them stories, but now they're feeling fine again, thank goodness.  It was a scary couple days there.

Anyway, look, we're on Episode 10 already! What a milestone!  Why, it seems like it was only two weeks ago when we weren't even in double digits yet!

To help us celebrate this big occasion, we brought in Sims senior producer and Jeff's former boss Rachel Bernstein, who just finished up MySims Agents, but has lots more interesting stuff to talk about besides that.  Not that that part isn't interesting. It is!  Also, the game is pretty rockin' too, which I say with all the credibility I can bring as a former games journalist who also happened to work on the game.  I'm particularly fond of the parts that I did.

Okay, so, here it is. Podcast 10.  Bask in the glory!

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I was sitting here trying to come up with some clever way to introduce this blog with Beatles lyrics, but, sadly, the Muse has failed me today.

Here's a few sample attempts:
1) Would what you think if I blogged out of tune, would you listen to this podcast anyway?
2) I am he as you are he as you are me and we just recorded this podcast.
3) Let me take you down cuz I'm going to Podcast Episode 9.

See? Pathetic. On the plus side, you still get a podcast about The Beatles: Rock Band! Woot! Chris Foster, the lead designer of the game at Harmonix, graciously sat in with us (via the magic of that newfangled "telephone" contraption) and weathered all the questions we could throw at him, about the game, the Beatles, the Rock Band franchise in general, and more. On a sadder note, this podcast was recorded on the last day of Intern Extraordinaire Dan "Husky Hog" Lingen, who sat in with us one last time to go out all blaze of glory style. But who knows? Maybe if we all protest loudly enough, and, say, storm the EA offices with torches and pitchforks (just kidding, you psychos!) we can get Husky Hog back in the game.

Anyway, stop reading this drivel! Listen to the podcast! You know you will be glad!

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Sometimes you plan things.  And sometimes those plans fail.

In this particular case, our plan was to have Chris Foster, the lead designer of The Beatles: Rock Band as our guest on the podcast.  It was all worked out.  It was like science that way.  Chris was going to call in to our podcast studio from the Harmonix office in Boston  at 2:30 PM. Which he did, in fact, do.  The problem?  We meant 2:30 Pacific time, and he meant 2:30 Eastern time.  This is what you call "miscommunication. The good news is that Chris is going to be on our podcast next week.  So at that time we will be all about Rock Band, both Beatles and otherwise.

Not that this week is bad!  Au contraire, mes petits cochons! For while we did not get Chris Foster,  we DID get our very own Daniel Lingen, a.k.a. "Husky Hog" (@huskyhog), who might just be the hardest working intern EA has ever had in the entire history of the universe.  And boy does this kid have stories to tell! Some of them even made it onto the show! (The rest will be featured some day in a special "EA Podcast Gone Wild!" DVD).

Listen, learn, laugh, love now, as we present you with The EA Podcast, Episode 8!  And as always, leave your feedback here, or at @greenspeak and/or @samanthics!

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Hi kids!  Jeff Green here! How are you? Good! I'm good too! I had swine flu, but now I'm back! So don't worry, this blog post is not contaminated! LOL!  Sorry, this is a little too perky.  That's what happens after you drink 3 cups of coffee, 1 Coke Zero, and then decide to blog. Maybe now I'll have 3 candy bars!

Anyway, I was gone from here for awhile, but now I'm back. And, uhh, you're gonna see a lot more of me too. Well, not "see" me, as we're not going to install a live webcam over my cubicle,  but I will be posting more. Honest! And this would be the first of those posts, in which I am here to tell you that the brand spankin' new EA Podcast Episode 7 is now up and live and available via RSS, iTunes, or--hey HEY hey--right here!  You don't even have to leave! You can stay here and hang with us! And why should you leave! We're cool, we smell nice, and we have fruit punch!

Here ya go:
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This week's podcast features two of the team members of the illustrious Need for Speed team at EA Black Box--Producer Jesse Abney and Art Director Mark Raham--talking about the just-released Need for Speed: Shift, which I am here to tell you is like a gazillion degrees of fun, even though I'm a non-car guy.  You car guys, I don't know. That's for you to decide.  But I think it's fun, and this is my blog post, so there. Anyway, these two guys are on the podcast, and they were real good sports as we grilled them with super tough questions like, "How awesome is your game?"   There'd be like this totally awkward silence as they tried to deal with this kind of 60 Minutes style interrogation, but then they'd justify their million dollar salaries by responding, "So awesome!"

Anyway, we hope you like it.  And by "we"  I am do not mean the royal we, which means "me", as in, "We would like to have our hot toddy now!"   I mean "we" as in Samantha LaPerre, Jon Long, Jay Eckert, and me.   Leave comments here, at podcast@ea.com, and on our various twitter feeds: @greenspeak, @samanthics, and @weezul.

Thanks!

Hey EA Fans!
Hosted by Jon (@weezul) & Samantha (@samanthics) Episode 6 of the EA Podcast is now online and ready for download via RSS or your favorite podnet. This week's episode features an interview with Jay Eckert (aka @sargonas) discussing his role in PC Compliance as well as Julie Wynn who heads up our EA Outreach program.

Leave plenty of feedback and comments as we definitely listen to them all or drop us a line at podcast@ea.com. But please leave your name so we can give you props!

Happy Friday!

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Hello Listeners!

Sorry to take so long to post this episode in the blog, hopefully you got it via RSS or your chosen podcatcher.  Even though it is a couple weeks overdue, I wanted to make sure to provide an opportunity for you to post your feedback on each episode so we can continue to try new things and improve upon content, quality and structure...  Also, want to know if you have ideas of what you'd like us to cover!

If you'd like, you can include a handle or name in your post so we can give you a shout out for your idea if we use it.  We are working on a podcast page which will make all this easier, so keep an eye out for that!

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Thanks for listening, hope you enjoy the show!

This week we took a more casual approach to the podcast... Now that we're getting the hang of this podcast thing, we decided it might be a good time to tell you more about us and what we do at EA.

Many of you know Jeff Green, but do you know what his work on producing MySims Agents has been like?  (Maybe you do, but don't you want to hear more??) Jon Long works on production of game content on EA.com, but do you know what he calls his "night job" at EA? (Or what illegal activities were involved in his recent trip to Vegas?)

Also joining us in episode 3 is Ben Swanson, Community Manager for Visceral Games and EA Partners, who talks about what it's like to work between the studio and marketing to create a compelling community experience around a game.

And what do I, a managing editor who manages a website for 1 (albeit HUGE) videogame company do with my time?? Am I marketing, am I an editor??  What does the universe WANT FROM US??

Ok.  Taking a breath. Sorry, I got a little carried away...

Find out the answers to (most of) these questions and more, in episode 3 of the EA podcast!

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As usual, please post your feedback and suggestions, please!  If you'd like to post with your EA ID, please log in before posting.

Thanks for listening!!

Episode 2 is now on iTunes! Listen as Jeff Green, guest host Dana Jongewaard and I interview Visceral GM Glen Schofield about the renaming of the studio, and what Visceral will bring to the games they create.

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=320772999

We're still getting the hang of this whole podcast thing, so please give us your feedback- what didn't you like? What do you want to hear more about? Please leave your comments and feedback below.

Big thanks to Glen for making time for EA.com! Also, we can't go any further without bestowing our undying gratitude to Christopher Davidson our audio technician who works all those fancy switches and buttons in the booth. :-)

We'll be on hiatus this week, so the next episode will be out around July 13th. You can subscribe to automatically receive future episode at the iTunes link above or on our RSS: http://www.ea.com/rest/podcast

Thanks for listening!!
Samantha

This week, we're kicking off EA's new weekly podcast! Hosted by (your favorite!) Jeff Green along with me and my team mate Jon Long who work on EA.com, we'll bring you an insider look at what it's like working for EA, not to mention all the cool behind the scenes stuff that goes into making games you won't find anywhere else! In our first episode, we chat about E3 and feature an interview with John Calhoun, the story designer for Dead Space Extraction.

Now on iTunes, click here to launch.

In the meantime, what do YOU want to hear about in our podcast?