For being the two largest videogame producing companies, EA and Activision sure don't have a lot in common.

EA is trying to become a major corporate company - which it already is, but its striving to become more easily comparable to the rest of the business world. This means more management and beaurocracy and red tape.

Activison, on the other hand, is merely a loose connector of 10-15 smaller studios/producers. They are lessed focused on management and documentation. This may seem good - but it also means less job security (since one studio could suffer severe cutbacks that would have been less noticeable in EA b/c they would be spread out across the country). It also means less mobility since the studios have their own identity to the point of rivalry. Not to mention i don't think their facilities are as nice as EA (see previous blog post) :D

However, Activision pays royalties and EA does not. That means that if your on an EA team that makes a game that sells like crazy - you don't see any of the extra money that you would have if you worked for Activision. Although i can't imagine their salaries are much different or everyone would leave EA right?

The speaker was the lead technical programmer for Spiderman 2.

The guy also went into a LOT of technical detail about teh new problems faced when working with the PS3! it was over my head but very cool - he said the graphics are going to blow the xbox360 out of the water (once they figure everything out). Also he said that the Revolution would be released this Thanksgiving!! He sounded pretty confidant in this assertion and bragged about how cool the revolution controller was.