Why I left my job at EA

[zoeherriot]

Why I left my job at EA. They laid me and the team off. At Christmas. :)

[truthteller]

Long Story Short: "It was sunny and I wanted to play outside."

[randomrandom]

That's basically why I left my job too. I worked as a gameplay programmer for 12 years in a game studio which has been bought by Activision, so I worked for Activision for 10 years there. I started in a team of 2 gameplay programmer, then 10, then 40, then 200 hundreds. I was used to make mostly everything, the playable character, the camera, the AI, the animation programming, at the end I was working on Call of Duty with 9 other studios spread around the world in a team of hundred of programmers, not even making gameplay anymore. That was my cue to go indie and go back to making pretty much everything.
My last game at Activision was Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, one of the worse received CoD, but I didnt care, at all, I had such a low impact on the game, that if it was bad, I couldn't feel responsible and most importantly, if it was good, I couldn't either. Making games as always been my passion, having 0 creative impact on a creative media is taking away your soul.

[cjbeira]

EA the same guys that hired a mod team to make BF2 and fired them all just weeks before the launch, never has a battlefield game been even close to the quality of BF2

[OPDlab]

"so many things I want to learn, so many things I want to build" I know exactly what you mean. There isn't enough time in the day, I'm in my 50s and for some reason time speeds up as you get older. That's why I really like your programming channel. Learning C++ from scratch, the videos are very clear, very detailed and very efficient. Thank you The Cherno!

[mikeyknight]

*The Cherno* “So much about programming I didn’t know yet” * Me* “So how do I initialize an array again”

[KyleHarrisonRedacted]

I didnt leave my job at EA as a software engineer, my one year contract expired and we parted ways. Thing is, I didn't fight to stay. I was miserable at the thought of leaving but I was miserable doing the work itself. I felt like such a number, just another cog in the machine, and the tasks felt uncomfortably unimportant. I wasn't allowed to work on anything game related outside of the company, wasn't even allowed to talk about anything game or game industry related with anybody, couldn't participate in game jams, and due to the unique nature of my job I also wasn't allowed to build websites for public consumption. The job stripped what made me.. me.. when around non EA people, it felt like I was in a prison. A very sexy looking prison, I REALLY LOVED the campus and my environment and how well the company itself took care of me... but I was miserable otherwise. I had just gotten married when I got that job, and my first child was ready to be born any minute. And while my very pregnant wife was at home alone all day, sometimes she'd be alone at night too as I'd be working super late because someone had a real desire to get me to finish yet another batch of unit tests before I go home. I've been working as a web engineer at a different company for the following 7 years and I've been much happier, while I pursue indie dev efforts at home, and still get to hang out with my wife and children. Work life balance is important.
I gave up, effectively, trying to make doing youtube a thing, I just don't have the energy for it among everything else so I took the opposite approach, though I still like to occasionally pretend I can lol

[MegaBsterling]

I had a very similar experience with EA, I also got my first job out of college with EA and listening to this really touched a note. Same feelings about not understanding how systems worked together, same feelings about wanting to touch different things from time to time, same feelings about burn-out. 10 years, 4 companies, 6 languages, 3 engines, and 19 projects later, I'm interviewing with EA to return as a senior engineer. Honestly I feel so much more prepared and in a better head space for it. Maybe you will too some day :)

[chrisrocks]

Here's some life advice, everyone at all stages of their life, at every age, feels like they're a fraud at what they do. Like they've somehow gamed the system into getting this job that they don't belong in. Never think you're not good enough, everyone else is just an average adult too probably feeling the same thing too. It's only through teamwork, a bunch of average people working together, that we can build great things. Never say "I was too young, I didn't know enough".

[dandymcgee]

Thanks for the insights and honesty. This hits me on a very personal level, as I've been in this situation twice and both were quite difficult decisions to say goodbye, but I knew it was time. Neither was a sudden decision, I thought about them for months before I actually did it. To anyone else in this situation: you need to leave your job. Maybe not today, maybe not next week, but you need to start pulling together a plan to bring your life back to a happy place, whatever that means for you. It's extremely important for your mental health, for your career health, for motivation, for relationships, etc. Don't quit today, but start making a plan today.

[osere]

This is a story all about how my job got flipped turned upside down

[Seb_Ibrahim]

This was a trippy experience of listening to my own thoughts come out of a different person's mouth. Thank you for sharing this and I can't wait for the next story time with The Cherno :)

[CyTic]

Thank you so much for making this video. I've been interested in getting work in some form of software development and was watching your videos to see your experience and learn from it. Something clicked for me when you were talking about the aircraft analogy that makes my path forward somewhat more clear. Thanks for being you and keep doing what your doing. :)

[prashkd]

I've been working for a multi national company since graduation and know exactly what you mean. Good pay but little personal growth. It's been over 6 years now and am planning to quit for same reason

[charliezhu]

Man, it's all about being a better self, a meaning that's bound to life. Love your videos, both technical and aesthetic aspects!

[HazStepFTW]

I'd love to hear more about your time at university. Was it how you expected it to be? Did you attend any hackathons/competitive programming competitions? Which units did you specify in? Love the videos :)

[Elnica]

You're Amazing! That was a nice story and I personally get the feeling of learning on your own and the fun/difficult challenges it provides no matter what we are doing

I am in a similar, maybe a bit riskier situation right now and making such hard choices with everything that happened recently is, ugh, a challenge. However nothing can beat the rush and pure satisfaction of doing things on your terms and working diligently to grab onto your dreams and bring them into the reality.
I'm glad I discovered your yt challenge this morning and I'm even happier that you made this video. Thanks!

[greniacd]

If the Cherno didn't become an ace game dev, he'd definitely become an ace barrista judging by that awesome coffee in the intro..

[dreamwalker]

I liked the "in the future, ...maybe I make my own game studio" option, the best😊
Wish you the best regardless