How to get free EA games: one student's story

Many students would consider it a dream job.\nWhile others toil away at cash registers or deep fryers to make slightly better than minimum wage, sophomore Zach Yarnoff's job is to play the latest and greatest video games from EA.\nYarnoff is the campus representative for the company, the largest video game publisher in the world, known for such hit titles as "The Sims" and the Madden football franchise.\nAs campus representative, it's his job to promote EA's newest titles through contests and events throughout Bloomington.\n"There's a lot of creativity involved in figuring out what works and what doesn't," Yarnoff said of planning events.\nDespite the large number of college students who play video games, Yarnoff says that the hardest part of his job is often getting a big crowd of students out at an event. \n"You have to go out to get people motivated," he said, "They don't motivate themselves."\nStill, since he started the job in January after answering a Facebook ad, his fame has grown around campus, and he is now regularly recognized by other students.\n"Having a job where people like you for what you do is nice," he said.\nYarnoff takes over as the campus's EA rep at an interesting time for the video game industry, as the three console makers, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, have all recently launched new systems.\nHe says that right now people are most excited for Nintendo Wii games and the system's innovative motion-sensing controller, while gamers go wild for the Sony Playstation 3's advanced graphics.\nHe calls Microsoft's Xbox 360 the "classic" system that just about everyone enjoys playing.\nYarnoff began playing video games on the NES, with an early baseball game he now fondly remembers. \n"Video games make time go by when you're bored," he said. "They're a lot better than TV."\nAnd while his job might seem like all fun and games, as a student in the Kelley School of Business, his work with EA might lead him to a job higher up in the billion-dollar-a-year video game industry.\n"It's certainly possible," he said. "I think it's grooming me for bigger things"