With really nothing better to do, I sat down with Scott Jennings, formerly of EA Mythic Entertainment, formerly of NCSoft, and now with some sooooper secret new project and company that no amount of bribery will allow him to divulge.  Trust me.  I’m ashamed of the things I’ve done.

For those that may not know, your progression into the games industry started with you being a jerk.  For those aspiring jerks out there, can you pass along any advice?

A poorly kept secret is that game developers are also jerks. Thus I fit right in. Generally however you have to really excel in your jerk-ness to make yourself stand out amongst the jerkcrowd. This is fairly difficult now since the Internet has refined being a jerk to the point that you never want to turn SafeSearch off in Google, EVER.

Really, the best way to get a job is to be good at what you do and be prepared to demonstrate that. The game industry is only different in that the drug screenings check to make sure you ARE taking some.

If you could describe the game companies for which you’ve worked as participants in a Fight Club, how would each company fit? Which one is the guy sobbing in the corner, who only came into the bar for a cold beer, and on his way to the bathroom, took a horrible wrong turn.

I’m not going to answer this because The First Rule of Fight Club is that You Don’t Talk About Fight Club because Someday You May Have To Work Again With Fight Club Members.

When you started up with Mythic, you weren’t actually a Game Developer. Can you tell us if Jacobs liked his coffee with skim milk? At what point during the morning meetings did he start requesting the “Irish” flavoring? When you got promoted to actual code work, what happened to your Mythic-branded pool-boy thong?

Amazingly, I was not often invited to high tiffin with Mr. Jacobs. I can however report that I learned a great deal about heavy drinking through launching an MMO.

I never got the thong, to everyone’s great relief. We did get issued bowling shirts one E3. Everyone hated the bowling shirts. YOU HEAR THAT ROB? E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E hated those damned bowling shirts. There, it took me 6 years to get that off my chest. I still have that shirt, because I NEVER WORE IT EVER AGAIN. It made us all look like extras from The Big Lebowski.

What was the question, again?

After you left Mythic, you moved from the East Coast and lived in a cardboard shack outside the NCSoft offices until they hired you. It was either that, or fumigate the front lobby. At least that’s what I hear.

This isn’t technically a question.

This isn’t technically my penis.

This still isn’t technically a question.

I was actually somewhat sneaky and had the NCsoft job ready to go before I gave notice at Mythic. This is what most people who, you know, like paying their bills on time do when they switch jobs. However, the job hunt did have its ups and downs. I visited one game company whom I won’t name for an interview, and they gave me a tour of the place. One of the people there IMed one of the people at Mythic, “OMG LUM THE MAD IS HERE AT XXXX!” The gossip network did its usual dance, and the next day I got to reconcile to my producer how I was halfway across the country visiting a competitor when I called in sick that morning. I declined further tours.

At NCSoft, you worked on the NEXT GENERATION of MMOs, with CUTTING EDGE technology and the BOOB RENDERING CAPABILITIES OF TOMORROW. With all those buzzwords, how could a project like that possibly fail?

We used too many capital letters in Powerpoint presentations and ran out.

We also were unwise enough to be after Tabula Rasa in the production schedule. You may have heard that Tabula Rasa was not a smashing success. Trying to produce a game in that environment was… unpleasant. Also, the CUTTING EDGE technology, uh, broke. Whoops!

How many buttons did you press…I mean, how many times were you not in the server room and that’s not your soda and yes, you wore pants to work that day why is everyone asking…before that technology broke?

Time spent from my hiring at NCsoft to the “Keep Scott Away From Anything Important” directive from programming: 4 days.

At your new job, do you go through points in company development meetings where you fully expect for someone to bring up class balance issues, but then it just doesn’t happen? How do you fill that void in your life?

Oh, they happen. Some things are a constant. I have a nerf samurai sword by my desk. It has been used. Hey wait, you’re getting me to talk about the project I absolutely can’t talk about. Sneeeaky. This is part of that “standing out from the crowd with your jerkiness” I recommended earlier.

Did you say something earlier? I spaced out. All I heard was: “Nananananana BOOBS.” Oh, wait, that was me. Anyway, you’ve bounced from Arkansas to Virginia and then down to Austin. You’ve been through Tornados, Nor’easters, and Hurricanes. Any plans on moving to Singapore and trying for a Tsunami?

I am never moving, ever again. My cat would not allow it, you see. Plus, if I leave the country, there’s always that chance they won’t let me back.

What’s this new fangled thing called “the web”, and can anyone actually make money putting games on it?

The Internet is entirely a delivery vehicle for Evony ads.