ea_spouse (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ea_spouse) wrote,@ 2004-11-01 16:30:00 |
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Press Page
Direct Contacts
The following reporters spoke with us either in person, on the phone, or via email, and so are included here at the top.
New York Times: "When a Video Game Stops Being Fun", by Randall Stross :
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/busin
Los Angeles Times: "Working Too Hard in an Industry of Fun and Games", by Alex Pham :
http://www.latimes.com/classified/j
Salon.com: "Santa's Sweatshop", by Katharine Mieszkowski
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2
and follow-up, "A change of heart for Scrooge?":
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2
CNet News: "For developers, it's not all fun and games" :
http://news.com.com/For+developers%2C+i
National Public Radio: "Stressed-Out Game Designers Sue Software Maker", by Laura Sydell :
http://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.p
Editor's note: For the following I have to extend a personal apology. Rick Healey from NetJak was one of the first to contact me via email regarding the ea_spouse story. We exchanged a few emails and he sent me a list of interview questions. In the following email deluge, I mistook someone else's questions for his, and answered them, but did not get to Rick's until he sent me a reminder email much later. Visit his site, and help me atone for being a flake. =)
Netjak.com: "A Call for Solidarity" (editorial) :
http://www.netjak.com/review.php/75
Netjak.com: "Interview with EA_Spouse" :
http://www.netjak.com/review.php/76
While our contact was limited to the blog, I do need to mention Paul from snarkyspot.blogspot.com here, who faithfully reported on happenings in the blog and surrounding it for quite a long time. His post provides a neat cross-section of events as they occurred as far as press is concerned, and a number of the non-obvious links (NYT, LAT, WSJ, etc) listed here came from his site:
http://snarkyspot.blogspot.com/2004/1
Other Features
Wall Street Journal: "Workers at EA Claim They Are Owed Overtime" :
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spo
CNN.com: "Gaming's growing pains" :
http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/15/comment
San Francisco Examiner: "Long hours spur online rant" :
http://www.examiner.com/article/index.c
Lockergnome.com: "When A Video Game Stops Being Fun" :
http://channels.lockergnome.com/news/ar
Prior to its extended article, and after, CNet released a few others:
http://news.com.com/2061-1043-5449296.h
http://news.com.com/Electronic+Arts+fac
http://news.com.com/5208-1043-0.html?fo
http://news.com.com/Electronic+Arts+pro
InsertCredit.com: "News: EA: The Human Story" :
http://www.insertcredit.com/archives/00
Kotaku: "Fear and loathing at Electronic Arts" :
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/industry-n
BluesNews: "Op Ed" (with comments) :
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/b
Gamasutra News: "'EA Spouse' Weblog Raises Issues On Game Development Quality of Life" :
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_i
Enginesofmischief.com (Evan Robinson): "It's Not Just Abusive. It's Stupid." :
http://enginesofmischief.com/blogs/ramb
GameStar.de: "Krasse Arbeitsbedingungen in den USA" :
http://www.gamestar.de/news/branchen/21
Heise.de: "Kein Spaß bei Electronic Arts" :
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/mel
WorldAccess.nl: "Slavenarbeid bij EA?" :
http://www.worldaccess.nl/planet/show/i
ForeverGeek.com: "EA Employees Unhappy, Attempt Class Action Lawsuit" (with comments) :
http://forevergeek.com/games/ea_employe
Pagtech.com: "EA Work Conditions" :
http://www.pagtech.com/News/EAWorkCondi
Homelanfed.com: "A Spouse's Look At Electronic Arts" :
http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?mod
FiringSquad.com: "Corporate culture problem at EA?" (with comments) :
http://firingsquad.com/news/newsar
Cinescape.com: "Electronic Arts: Innocent or Guilty?" :
http://www.cinescape.com/0/editorial.as
Joystiq.com: "'EA spouse' speaks out!" :
http://www.joystiq.com/entry/2500628063
Totalgaming.net: "EA Spouse talks about life as a PC game developer" :
http://totalgaming.stardock.com/fo
TechReview.com: "Gamer Overtime" :
http://www.techreview.com/blog/blo
Auxiliary Stories
Kotaku: "Former EA employee speaks out under real name" :
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/industry-n
Kotaku: "EA promises changes in leaked internal memo" :
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/busine
Kotaku: "Exclusive: EA confirms memo is real" :
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/busine
Kotaku: "EA suit could change the face of the gaming industry" :
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/legal/ea-s
Kotaku: "EA keeps the promises coming" :
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/busine
GameDaily.biz: "EA Feeling Pressure, May Reclassify Overtime" :
http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?a
Mercury News.com: "EA to reconsider OT-eligible jobs" :
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/dulut
BluesNews: "EA Class Action Suit Coming?" (with comments) :
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/bo
Salon.com: "Raking muck in 'The Sims Online'" :
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2
Gamespot.com: "Employees readying class-action lawsuit against EA" :
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/1
1up.com: "EA Faces Class-Action Overtime Suit" :
http://cgw.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=313
Wargamer.com: "EA Facing Lawsuit Over Worker Pay" :
http://www.wargamer.com/news/news.asp?n
Lunabean.com: "EA Not One of the 100 Best Places to Work?" :
http://www.lunabean.com/news/00079
TheSimsZone.co.uk: "EA Employees sue Company" :
http://news.thesimszone.co.uk/archive.p
GamesIndustry.biz: "Developer working conditions hide a cancer in the games industry" :
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_pa
Gamespot.com: "Neil Young heads to EALA" :
http://www.gamespot.com/news/production
Gamepro.com: "Top Gaming Lows of 2004" :
http://www.gamepro.com/gamepro/dom
Penny Arcade news items:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?d
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?d
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?d
Slashdot
Slashdot has covered a couple of different facets of the story (likely they were responsible for more than one of the original boosts in hits), and they have a few thousand comments on the story collectively as well, so I figured they deserved their own section:
"EA Games: The Human Story" :
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?si
"Electronic Arts Facing Possible Class Action Lawsuit" :
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?s
"Quality of Life Issues Holding Back Game Industry" :
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?si
"NYT on EA Games" :
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/1
"EA_Spouse Forum Becoming Thriving Community" :
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?si
"EA Spouse Posts Plans for Watchdog [Organization]" :
http://developers.slashdot.org/arti
"A College Guide to EA" :
http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/11/1
In a poll: "I Give Thanks For" (one answer: "A day off from my job at EA Games")
http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=12
IGDA
The IGDA produced a Quality of Life White Paper in 2003, first bringing up some of these issues; they broke the ice, but then the discussion dwindled. This year there will be an entire Summit at the Game Developers Conference to address these issues. Jason Della Roca, IGDA Program Director, has mentioned a possible negotiation with CMP to arrange for an inexpensive Summit-only pass as an attachment to the Classic Pass -- here's hoping they come through, I'd like to be there. (For non-GDC-goers, the main part of the GDC is Wednesday through Friday; Monday and Tuesday are tutorial days, covered by a separate pass or a larger comprehensive "GigaPass", which is correspondingly significantly more expensive.)
The IGDA Quality of Life website:
http://www.igda.org/qol/
The White Paper:
http://www.igda.org/qol/whitepaper.php
The QoL discussion forum:
http://www.igda.org/Forums/forumdis
Discussion Boards
While not precisely press, here are some links to other forums where the story has appeared.
IGDA: http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.p
ShackNews: http://www.shacknews.com/ja.zz?id=89650
InsertCredit.com: http://forums.insertcredit.com/viewtopi
Tokyopia.com: http://tokyopia.com/tk/forum/index.p
Penny-arcade.com: http://www.penny-arcade.com/forums/view
The-nexlevel.com: http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/arch
GameDev.net: http://www.gamedev.net/community/fo
RottenTomatoes.com: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/show
ems-quarters.com: http://ems-quarters.com/teamxk/index.ph
Fark.com: http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comment
PocketPCThoughts.com: http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/fo
AnimationNation: http://www.animationnation.com/cgi-b
CGChar: http://cgchar.toonstruck.com/forum/inde
Sherman3D: http://www.sherman3d.net/Sherman3D/foru
NeoSeeker: http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/index.p
Fatwallet.com: http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/message
Igromania.ru: http://www.igromania.ru/forums/index.ph
Blogs
If you would like your blog listed here, email me and I'll add a link.
Joe Straitiff, ex-EA: http://www.livejournal.com/users/joestr
Another_EA_Spouse: http://workingweek.blogspot.com/
Jason Della Rocca: http://www.igda.org/blogs/realitypa
SnarkySpot, also listed above: http://snarkyspot.blogspot.com/2004/1
Evan Robinson: http://enginesofmischief.com/blogs/ramb
Kylov, interesting student perspective: http://khylov.deviantart.com/journal/40
John Dvorak: http://www.dvorak.org/blog/index.ph
Code Monkey: http://thepixelmine.blogspot.com/
Tossed.org: http://www.tossed.org/modules.php?n
Charles Miller: http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2004/1
Samus: http://samoose.blogspot.com/2004/11/nut
Malevolent.com: http://www.malevolent.com/weblog/archiv
Inordinate.net: http://inordinate.net/wordpress/index.p
Darren Barefoot: http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/arch
Adeliedreams: http://www.livejournal.com/users/adelie
GameGirlAdvance: http://www.gamegirladvance.com/arc
CGAnimation: http://cganimation.blogspot.com/20
Thealguy: http://thealguy.blogspot.com/2004/11/th
Suberfantacularizzle: http://suberfantacularizzle.blogspot.co
Skor Grimm: http://skorgrimm.blogspot.com/2004/11/b
Pingz.com: http://www.pingz.com/2004/11/when-spous
Room101: http://www.drakkos.pwp.blueyonder.c
Onyxorison: http://onyxorison.blogspot.com/200
Interestingdrug: http://interestingdrug.blogspot.com/200
Mark Raimondi: http://mraimondi.blogspot.com/2004/11/a
Harold "AlphaTwo Vaughan": http://alphatwo.blogspot.com/2004/11/wh
Blog247.blogspot: http://blog247.blogspot.com/2004/11/pow
Limshengming.com: http://www.limshengming.com/index.p
Longklaw.com: http://www.longklaw.com/archives/2004/1
No Status Quo: http://www.nosq.com/leaderhsip/200
Keith Soltys: http://www.soltys.ca/coredump/2004/11/p
Bruce (bigkid.com.au): http://www.bigkid.com.au/2004/11/12/ea_
Guilesworld.com: http://www.guilesworld.com/blog/_archiv
Stuart Moulder: http://www.livejournal.com/users/stuart
Genoism: http://flashmade.com/genoism/forum
Webcomics
UserFriendly.org ran two comics featuring the EA story:
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?i
and
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?i
VGCats: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip
Direct Contacts
The following reporters spoke with us either in person, on the phone, or via email, and so are included here at the top.
New York Times: "When a Video Game Stops Being Fun", by Randall Stross :
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/busin
Los Angeles Times: "Working Too Hard in an Industry of Fun and Games", by Alex Pham :
http://www.latimes.com/classified/j
Salon.com: "Santa's Sweatshop", by Katharine Mieszkowski
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2
and follow-up, "A change of heart for Scrooge?":
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2
CNet News: "For developers, it's not all fun and games" :
http://news.com.com/For+developers%2C+i
National Public Radio: "Stressed-Out Game Designers Sue Software Maker", by Laura Sydell :
http://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.p
Editor's note: For the following I have to extend a personal apology. Rick Healey from NetJak was one of the first to contact me via email regarding the ea_spouse story. We exchanged a few emails and he sent me a list of interview questions. In the following email deluge, I mistook someone else's questions for his, and answered them, but did not get to Rick's until he sent me a reminder email much later. Visit his site, and help me atone for being a flake. =)
Netjak.com: "A Call for Solidarity" (editorial) :
http://www.netjak.com/review.php/75
Netjak.com: "Interview with EA_Spouse" :
http://www.netjak.com/review.php/76
While our contact was limited to the blog, I do need to mention Paul from snarkyspot.blogspot.com here, who faithfully reported on happenings in the blog and surrounding it for quite a long time. His post provides a neat cross-section of events as they occurred as far as press is concerned, and a number of the non-obvious links (NYT, LAT, WSJ, etc) listed here came from his site:
http://snarkyspot.blogspot.com/2004/1
Other Features
Wall Street Journal: "Workers at EA Claim They Are Owed Overtime" :
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spo
CNN.com: "Gaming's growing pains" :
http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/15/comment
San Francisco Examiner: "Long hours spur online rant" :
http://www.examiner.com/article/index.c
Lockergnome.com: "When A Video Game Stops Being Fun" :
http://channels.lockergnome.com/news/ar
Prior to its extended article, and after, CNet released a few others:
http://news.com.com/2061-1043-5449296.h
http://news.com.com/Electronic+Arts+fac
http://news.com.com/5208-1043-0.html?fo
http://news.com.com/Electronic+Arts+pro
InsertCredit.com: "News: EA: The Human Story" :
http://www.insertcredit.com/archives/00
Kotaku: "Fear and loathing at Electronic Arts" :
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/industry-n
BluesNews: "Op Ed" (with comments) :
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/b
Gamasutra News: "'EA Spouse' Weblog Raises Issues On Game Development Quality of Life" :
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_i
Enginesofmischief.com (Evan Robinson): "It's Not Just Abusive. It's Stupid." :
http://enginesofmischief.com/blogs/ramb
GameStar.de: "Krasse Arbeitsbedingungen in den USA" :
http://www.gamestar.de/news/branchen/21
Heise.de: "Kein Spaß bei Electronic Arts" :
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/mel
WorldAccess.nl: "Slavenarbeid bij EA?" :
http://www.worldaccess.nl/planet/show/i
ForeverGeek.com: "EA Employees Unhappy, Attempt Class Action Lawsuit" (with comments) :
http://forevergeek.com/games/ea_employe
Pagtech.com: "EA Work Conditions" :
http://www.pagtech.com/News/EAWorkCondi
Homelanfed.com: "A Spouse's Look At Electronic Arts" :
http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?mod
FiringSquad.com: "Corporate culture problem at EA?" (with comments) :
http://firingsquad.com/news/newsar
Cinescape.com: "Electronic Arts: Innocent or Guilty?" :
http://www.cinescape.com/0/editorial.as
Joystiq.com: "'EA spouse' speaks out!" :
http://www.joystiq.com/entry/2500628063
Totalgaming.net: "EA Spouse talks about life as a PC game developer" :
http://totalgaming.stardock.com/fo
TechReview.com: "Gamer Overtime" :
http://www.techreview.com/blog/blo
Auxiliary Stories
Kotaku: "Former EA employee speaks out under real name" :
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/industry-n
Kotaku: "EA promises changes in leaked internal memo" :
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/busine
Kotaku: "Exclusive: EA confirms memo is real" :
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/busine
Kotaku: "EA suit could change the face of the gaming industry" :
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/legal/ea-s
Kotaku: "EA keeps the promises coming" :
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/busine
GameDaily.biz: "EA Feeling Pressure, May Reclassify Overtime" :
http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?a
Mercury News.com: "EA to reconsider OT-eligible jobs" :
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/dulut
BluesNews: "EA Class Action Suit Coming?" (with comments) :
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/bo
Salon.com: "Raking muck in 'The Sims Online'" :
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2
Gamespot.com: "Employees readying class-action lawsuit against EA" :
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/1
1up.com: "EA Faces Class-Action Overtime Suit" :
http://cgw.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=313
Wargamer.com: "EA Facing Lawsuit Over Worker Pay" :
http://www.wargamer.com/news/news.asp?n
Lunabean.com: "EA Not One of the 100 Best Places to Work?" :
http://www.lunabean.com/news/00079
TheSimsZone.co.uk: "EA Employees sue Company" :
http://news.thesimszone.co.uk/archive.p
GamesIndustry.biz: "Developer working conditions hide a cancer in the games industry" :
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_pa
Gamespot.com: "Neil Young heads to EALA" :
http://www.gamespot.com/news/production
Gamepro.com: "Top Gaming Lows of 2004" :
http://www.gamepro.com/gamepro/dom
Penny Arcade news items:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?d
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?d
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?d
Slashdot
Slashdot has covered a couple of different facets of the story (likely they were responsible for more than one of the original boosts in hits), and they have a few thousand comments on the story collectively as well, so I figured they deserved their own section:
"EA Games: The Human Story" :
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?si
"Electronic Arts Facing Possible Class Action Lawsuit" :
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?s
"Quality of Life Issues Holding Back Game Industry" :
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?si
"NYT on EA Games" :
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/1
"EA_Spouse Forum Becoming Thriving Community" :
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?si
"EA Spouse Posts Plans for Watchdog [Organization]" :
http://developers.slashdot.org/arti
"A College Guide to EA" :
http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/11/1
In a poll: "I Give Thanks For" (one answer: "A day off from my job at EA Games")
http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=12
IGDA
The IGDA produced a Quality of Life White Paper in 2003, first bringing up some of these issues; they broke the ice, but then the discussion dwindled. This year there will be an entire Summit at the Game Developers Conference to address these issues. Jason Della Roca, IGDA Program Director, has mentioned a possible negotiation with CMP to arrange for an inexpensive Summit-only pass as an attachment to the Classic Pass -- here's hoping they come through, I'd like to be there. (For non-GDC-goers, the main part of the GDC is Wednesday through Friday; Monday and Tuesday are tutorial days, covered by a separate pass or a larger comprehensive "GigaPass", which is correspondingly significantly more expensive.)
The IGDA Quality of Life website:
http://www.igda.org/qol/
The White Paper:
http://www.igda.org/qol/whitepaper.php
The QoL discussion forum:
http://www.igda.org/Forums/forumdis
Discussion Boards
While not precisely press, here are some links to other forums where the story has appeared.
IGDA: http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.p
ShackNews: http://www.shacknews.com/ja.zz?id=89650
InsertCredit.com: http://forums.insertcredit.com/viewtopi
Tokyopia.com: http://tokyopia.com/tk/forum/index.p
Penny-arcade.com: http://www.penny-arcade.com/forums/view
The-nexlevel.com: http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/arch
GameDev.net: http://www.gamedev.net/community/fo
RottenTomatoes.com: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/show
ems-quarters.com: http://ems-quarters.com/teamxk/index.ph
Fark.com: http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comment
PocketPCThoughts.com: http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/fo
AnimationNation: http://www.animationnation.com/cgi-b
CGChar: http://cgchar.toonstruck.com/forum/inde
Sherman3D: http://www.sherman3d.net/Sherman3D/foru
NeoSeeker: http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/index.p
Fatwallet.com: http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/message
Igromania.ru: http://www.igromania.ru/forums/index.ph
Blogs
If you would like your blog listed here, email me and I'll add a link.
Joe Straitiff, ex-EA: http://www.livejournal.com/users/joestr
Another_EA_Spouse: http://workingweek.blogspot.com/
Jason Della Rocca: http://www.igda.org/blogs/realitypa
SnarkySpot, also listed above: http://snarkyspot.blogspot.com/2004/1
Evan Robinson: http://enginesofmischief.com/blogs/ramb
Kylov, interesting student perspective: http://khylov.deviantart.com/journal/40
John Dvorak: http://www.dvorak.org/blog/index.ph
Code Monkey: http://thepixelmine.blogspot.com/
Tossed.org: http://www.tossed.org/modules.php?n
Charles Miller: http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2004/1
Samus: http://samoose.blogspot.com/2004/11/nut
Malevolent.com: http://www.malevolent.com/weblog/archiv
Inordinate.net: http://inordinate.net/wordpress/index.p
Darren Barefoot: http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/arch
Adeliedreams: http://www.livejournal.com/users/adelie
GameGirlAdvance: http://www.gamegirladvance.com/arc
CGAnimation: http://cganimation.blogspot.com/20
Thealguy: http://thealguy.blogspot.com/2004/11/th
Suberfantacularizzle: http://suberfantacularizzle.blogspot.co
Skor Grimm: http://skorgrimm.blogspot.com/2004/11/b
Pingz.com: http://www.pingz.com/2004/11/when-spous
Room101: http://www.drakkos.pwp.blueyonder.c
Onyxorison: http://onyxorison.blogspot.com/200
Interestingdrug: http://interestingdrug.blogspot.com/200
Mark Raimondi: http://mraimondi.blogspot.com/2004/11/a
Harold "AlphaTwo Vaughan": http://alphatwo.blogspot.com/2004/11/wh
Blog247.blogspot: http://blog247.blogspot.com/2004/11/pow
Limshengming.com: http://www.limshengming.com/index.p
Longklaw.com: http://www.longklaw.com/archives/2004/1
No Status Quo: http://www.nosq.com/leaderhsip/200
Keith Soltys: http://www.soltys.ca/coredump/2004/11/p
Bruce (bigkid.com.au): http://www.bigkid.com.au/2004/11/12/ea_
Guilesworld.com: http://www.guilesworld.com/blog/_archiv
Stuart Moulder: http://www.livejournal.com/users/stuart
Genoism: http://flashmade.com/genoism/forum
Webcomics
UserFriendly.org ran two comics featuring the EA story:
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?i
and
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?i
VGCats: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip
