The Sims studio Maxis hiring creative director for 'live service' game based on new IP

Maxis, the EA-owned developer of The Sims series, is hiring a creative director for a new IP. We don't know much about what the studio has planned, but it's looking for a developer with experience "designing a game with a long-term live service", and with a track record on both PC and mobile.

The new hire will take the lead on future projects for Maxis's Austin, Texas team, and should "understand how user-generated content and experiences are shaping products in the market", according to the job advert.

The advert is the first real mention of a Maxis office in Austin, TX, where EA has an existing base. The Sims series is developed by a team based in Redwood Shores, California, where EA is headquartered.

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The job advert further mentions that applicants are expected to have "experience designing, launching, monitoring and evolving a live service title", and says that experience working with "licensing partners" is a plus, which suggests the new IP could well be a licensed game.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.