What if the “dream job” you applied for was never real? What if the company behind it had no intention of hiring you — only of reading your ideas?
That’s the uncomfortable question facing anyone who’s come across Daybreak Game Company’s long-running listing for Creative Director – Darkpaw Games — the studio responsible for the EverQuest franchise. Touted as a remote-friendly leadership role on an “unannounced title,” the posting paints a golden opportunity for MMO veterans to help shape the future of a legendary IP.
There’s just one problem: the listing has been active in some form for over a year — with no public hires, no interviews, no visible development, and no movement.
This isn’t a job opening.
It’s bait.
The Setup: A Job Listing With No Destination
According to LinkedIn, the job was “1 day ago” from the date this article was published. But that’s a technical trick — a backend refresh to make it look recent. The content is identical to the original version that first appeared as far back as mid-2023.
Over 139 applicants have thrown their hats into the ring. Yet not a single public hire. Not even a whisper of interviews. No dev blogs. No producer updates. No internal promotion from within the team. Just the same static, dreambait post hanging like flypaper for ambitious designers.
This has all the hallmarks of a ghost job — a listing with no real intention of being filled.
The Racket: Vision Harvesting Disguised as Recruitment
Read the job description closely and the strategy becomes clear.
Applicants are asked to:
- “Provide visionary oversight and creative direction for an unannounced title”
- “Establish and refine the high-level core gameplay loops”
- “Design systems that reinforce pillars like exploration, fairness, and teamwork”
This isn’t a role with defined deliverables or team goals. It’s a blank slate designed to pull high-concept creative pitches from hopeful candidates. It invites the submission of personal MMO philosophies, speculative design frameworks, and world-building ideas — all under the pretense of “screening” for leadership potential.
Let’s call it what it is: free R&D.
No contracts, no NDAs, no compensation. Just a pipeline of unpaid creative labor flowing into a dead-end inbox.
And it’s working. Every time the listing resets, another batch of desperate creatives dutifully sends in their best thinking, hoping for a callback that never comes.
The Silence of Leadership: Jenn Chan’s Boilerplate Reassurances
If the studio were truly preparing for a new era of EverQuest, you’d expect its Head of Studio to speak with conviction — to signal change, inspire confidence, and actively recruit visionary talent.
Instead, Jenn Chan’s public statements are textbook maintenance-mode PR: full of warmth, nostalgia, and platitudes — and completely devoid of creative leadership.
In every “future of EQ” update, Chan delivers some version of the following:
- “We’re always looking at what’s next”
- “We love our players and this amazing community”
- “We’re working hard behind the scenes”
- “We’re proud of our legacy”
And that’s it.
No vision. No roadmap. No meaningful commentary on the Creative Director role, despite the job listing sitting in public view for over a year.
This is not the language of a leader building a new chapter. It’s the language of a custodian buying time.
One of the few concrete terms Chan has used is “reimagining” — a word that sounds bold but delivers nothing. She never says what’s being reimagined, by whom, or when. It’s camouflage.
Even worse is the phrase “we are in the ideation phase” — corporate fog that signals no team, no plan, no leadership. Ideation is where accountability goes to die.
The Idea Farm Grift: A Tactic Perfected by Other Industries
Daybreak didn’t invent this trick.
They just picked it up and polished it — quietly, cynically, and in broad daylight.
The practice of using fake job listings or open calls to harvest ideas without compensation has been circulating in creative industries for years. And wherever you find desperate talent and IP-hungry gatekeepers, you find this scam.
Hollywood: The Original Scam Factory
- Open calls for screenwriters
- Fellowships, contests, and “labs”
- Pitch meetings that go nowhere — until your idea appears on screen, uncredited
Writers have long accused studios of ghosting them after meetings, only to see elements of their work appear months later in altered form.
Tech Startups: Hackathons as Free R&D
In Silicon Valley, this grift evolved into the hackathon: lure college grads and indie devs to build prototypes, wave a prize in front of them, and quietly walk away with their code.
Accelerators and fake internships did the same thing with business plans.
Game Studios: Open-Ended Listings with No Intent to Hire
Stagnating studios began asking applicants to send in design docs, story arcs, mechanic systems — not to vet their ability, but to stockpile creative ideas under the guise of “application materials.”
Daybreak’s behavior isn’t new. It’s just now being seen clearly for what it is.
When you see the same job listed for 12+ months with no hire, no updates, and no roadmap, you’re not looking at a recruitment campaign. You’re looking at a harvesting operation.
Who’s Behind It?
The likeliest internal sponsor is Jenn Chan, Head of Studio at Darkpaw Games. Her record shows a preference for low-risk live ops and creative stasis. This ghost listing allows her to appear open to vision while maintaining total control.
But it likely goes higher.
Ji Ham, acting CEO of Daybreak and board member of parent company Enad Global 7, is known for cost-cutting and monetization-first thinking. This fits his playbook: look busy, spend nothing, own everything.
And then there’s Jason Epstein, the financier behind Daybreak’s sale to EG7 and ongoing strategic advisor. Epstein isn’t a creator. He’s a tactician. To him, a ghost job isn’t dishonest — it’s efficient.
As for Chan? She needs the ideas. She’s studio head. But unlike true creative leaders, she has no demonstrated track record of vision, innovation, or engagement. She never participates in community discussions, never articulates bold concepts, and has shown no original thinking in her tenure. She is not driving EverQuest forward — she’s coasting on its fumes.
This job listing is her cheat sheet. Every application is a shortcut: a way to absorb the language and proposals of real creatives, then regurgitate them upward to her bosses as proof that she’s “on the cutting edge.”
If someone at Daybreak is reading these applications, they’re not looking for a leader. They’re looking for ideas. And if no one is reading them? That’s worse — it means the job posting is just a baited hook, left dangling to see what it catches.
Have You Applied for the Daybreak Creative Director Role?
If you’ve submitted an application or vision document to Daybreak or Darkpaw Games for the Creative Director position and never heard back, I want to hear your story.
I’m collecting accounts in strict confidence to help shed light on what may be a broader pattern of creative idea harvesting. All correspondence will remain private unless you explicitly grant permission.
You can contact me securely at here.
Conclusion: Why It Matters
The EverQuest franchise deserves better. So do the people who poured hours into writing vision documents and design pitches for a position that likely never existed in earnest.
This kind of behavior degrades trust — not just in Daybreak, but in the industry as a whole.
When studios dangle fake roles to mine the creative class, it sends a clear message:
We don’t want you. We want what’s in your head — and we’re not going to pay for it.
This isn’t just lazy. It’s parasitic.
And it should be called out.
—Wolfshead
