Edit: Hello all. I'm sorry about this, but I've turned on screening for anonymous comments in this thread and the top one on the blog. We have a troll who has been spamming comments every few hours or so, and I just don't have time to keep coming in here and deleting them. Rest assured if you post anything that ISN'T vulgar, I will unscreen it as soon as I see it. Hopefully the troll will lose interest soon and I can lift this.
Edit 1/4/2005: Comment screening turned back off; thank you all for your patience. =)
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Anonymous
December 15 2004, 15:53:18 UTC 16 years ago
Thank you for all your efforts, Mrs. Spouse. You have a following, and it is great.
Hello there, it's me again.
December 15 2004, 23:18:17 UTC 16 years ago
After sleeping on it, and thinking about the future, when GameWatch.org becomes a reality - and then seeing the trolls and guerrillas which have a faint yet pestilent presence in your comment threads - I see both great potential for this watchdog organization, but even greater potential for abuse. While anyone can post their stories in a journal or public forum, such mediums do not leave them free of slander, bias, or even dishonesty - not to imply anything about your journals, but those who clearly very blindly support EA commenting on your entries leads me to anticipate that they will try to submit fabrications to GameWatch (maybe not to further their own ends, but to damage those who exposed them, for instance).
I'm going to look into ways such things can be avoided, aside from an obvious restriction that entries must be viewed before going public; in terms of screening and such. I will let you know what I find - though the internet is a big place... it might take a while to come up with something solid. :)
Re: Hello there, it's me again.
Anonymous
December 16 2004, 00:50:18 UTC 16 years ago
Long hours...to rack up experience points
Working at Electronic Arts is a lot like playing the games it produces - very fun and very intense. "Because they let us have so much fun, we work like maniacs," one employee says. Another employee reports that "about three times a year, I'll work 80- to 90-hour weeks for a month. Two years ago, I frequently worked 100-plus hours a week to get a product to ship, though I've lost some steam since then." Employees offer mixed reviews on salaries. Though one reports, "The pay is fine. I'm happy with my salary," another says that "the work......
Re: Hello there, it's me again.
16 years ago
Re: Hello there, it's me again.
Anonymous
16 years ago
Re: Hello there, it's me again.
16 years ago
December 16 2004, 06:11:33 UTC 16 years ago
I'd also like to see a nice list of companies with a rating system for users to rate and review each company they've worked for, somewhat like Amazon.com's review system or similar examples. Could be a powerful community effort there.
December 16 2004, 07:58:12 UTC 16 years ago
There should indeed be a standard rating system in addition to text testimonials, perhaps similar to the 'star' rating system for movies, and in different categories: compensation, comp time, crunch ratio, benefits. I'd appreciate any suggestions having to do with what categories we should focus on in the ratings, and also if anyone has a clever idea of what to use instead of 'stars'.
Anonymous
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Anonymous
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December 16 2004, 20:47:58 UTC 16 years ago
I'm just recording that comment here, and would be interested in discussion on it. I have a proposed notion for how it might somewhat be avoided, but it's not complete: essentially, verification would indeed be through email -- a user would create their account and prove that they worked for the company they claimed by providing an email address in that company's domain. The website would then send a verification email with a link to that address. ONLY the verification email would be sent. Once the account was created, the user could set another email account as the primary address for it, and have all correspondence shunted through that; no email or information other than the initial verification would be sent to the company address.
December 18 2004, 07:34:18 UTC 16 years ago
One way of encouraging companies to adopt the certification, of course, might be to permit anonymous and largely uncontrolled posting on companies that haven't.
December 16 2004, 20:51:13 UTC 16 years ago
Validation is addressed in the above comment, but the point about relinquishing anonymity is a new one, and one that my SO and I have been discussing at length over the past couple of days. Input is as always welcome.
December 17 2004, 06:37:34 UTC 16 years ago
Having an account they have to be using, and rated by, makes them take their review a bit more responsibly, as well as eliminates people writing a hundred different reviews for the same company. Yet they can call their account whatever they want and retain anonymity while still having to put some effort into the account creation.
I think the above comment about not taking anything but company emails would be a relevant case, in some claims, but if they had to sign up an account and provide a valid email address, they could always be contacted about their credentials if they were needed. So you wouldn't need to require a company email, per se, just require something that wasn't a freely available completely anonymous email, like Hotmail or Yahoo, etc. Fairly standard par for the course in account setups.
Meh, I'm just rambling now. Hope somebody gets something from my late babbling. =cP
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if u can spare half an hour i would like to have ur that time
15 years ago
Re: if u can spare half an hour i would like to have ur that time
15 years ago
Creating the site
Anonymous
December 16 2004, 22:10:43 UTC 16 years ago
Javi
I truly feel for you and yours
Anonymous
December 19 2004, 02:11:29 UTC 16 years ago
Though, the case with EA seems to be much more severe. I have never really been a supporter of Electronic Arts for many reasons including lack of originality and the fact that they have swallowed so many promising development houses and turned their once great games into cookie-cutter sequels.
Though I am extremely busy with my own work schedule and personal life, I look forward to reading everything that comes from your site in the future. It is my hope that the backlash EA receives both through negative press and (hopefully) a drop in sales will force them to re-evaluate the working conditions and situations that they put their employees in. I for one no longer plan on purchasing Need For Speed Underground 2, Medal of Honor Pacific Assault or Oddworld-Stranger (the only EA games I had on my personal gaming radar). In all likelihood, my personal decision to not purchase these three titles won't have any effect at all on EA that is measurable. But if others follow my example, perhaps it will. After all, that is $150 out of EA's money-grubbing pockets.
And on one final note, I hope that your family is in a position where it can afford a job change and get away from EA. I can't imagine that all development houses out there treat their employees with such disregard.
Screening
Anonymous
December 22 2004, 23:29:30 UTC 16 years ago
Steve
PC Gamer Article
Anonymous
December 29 2004, 03:07:00 UTC 16 years ago
"Some brotherly gamers have even talked of boycotting games from publishers and developers with bad employment records. But while you might boycott EA's Madden 2005 with a smile, would you shun Half-Life 3 if Valve was implicated in such an uproar? Theres now talk in the US of developers sueing there employers. Perhaps only the courts can make every company take its responsibilities towards it's staff seriously, and end this unhealthy working hours arms race"
Possible solution
January 4 2005, 02:11:59 UTC 16 years ago
If people researched criticized companies and published findings in reports or something, it would provide more backed up idea criticism of the company. Here is a link to a basic guide on how to research companies.
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/publications/diy_research_2002.htm
This along with links to relevant topics regarding Quality of Life issues in companies would provide a good basis for the site.
Obviously this would be costly and time consuming, but it would definitely provide credibility.
Feel free to put any comments as this was just a quick idea and I'm sure some points can be made regarding this suggestion.
Re: Possible solution
Anonymous
January 4 2005, 07:37:07 UTC 16 years ago
I have 2 possible, imperfect suggestions:
-the phone method... some game subscription sites now call you for verification. You or someone working for gamewatch.org could call to confirm the person, with a phone number that is not just a dumped phone number... sure this can still be abused a little, but its not like people making 20 email address, people can only have so many phone numbers.
-The "verified by a friend" method. After you recieve comments that youc an prove are true, those persons could gain access to confirm that others within their companies are really them. Example: bob posts his comment about EA treating him bad. After spending time confirming his claim is true, Bob can then enter Bills name in you site, so when Bill posts, he dosnt have to go through any streanous verification system (saving time for both you and bill).
Sadly, the abuse can still happen, but these are just some things that might ease the mayhem you could face...
gamewatch.org domain name registration
Anonymous
January 4 2005, 13:10:34 UTC 16 years ago
If you are going to set up such site (which sounds like a great idea, BTW) shouldn't you reserve the domain name www.gamewatch.org before someone else registers it? I guess you can say even your "enemies" are reading your posts and may try to prevent you from going ahead with such a site...
Although I may have just given them an idea, for a small fee you should register this (and any possible alternative domain names - check out http://www.whois.net ) as soon as you can!
Hurry!
Re: gamewatch.org domain name registration
January 4 2005, 19:34:17 UTC 16 years ago
Expand this past dev houses?
Anonymous
January 28 2005, 14:45:59 UTC 16 years ago
Re: Expand this past dev houses?
February 1 2005, 21:43:33 UTC 15 years ago
If we establish standards for the way games are made -- which is what is ultimately necessary to obtain consistent, livable working environments -- the benefits will carry over to publishers, who will then have a rubric to request of a given developer and ask if they are meeting those production standards before signing a contract.
In the cases that you mention, where a publisher deliberately under-reports sales, that's something of a different matter, and falls into the arena of the lawyers. As far as an overview of good and bad publishers... that gets into somewhat foggier legal territory, and tends to occur more behind the scenes than in the public eye. I'm not sure that Gamewatch has any ability to change that, or should.
Your efforts are noble and wonderful.
Anonymous
February 7 2005, 02:31:50 UTC 15 years ago
BTW, I bought the game so I could do online gaming. In other words, I acceped a promise, and the promise was broken.
I believe that creating gamewatch.org is a truly noble effort, and I thank you for it. I hope to see EA LA clean up its act very soon to avoid more bad publicity.
Sweatshop pratice is common in other software industry as well
Anonymous
March 11 2005, 18:28:30 UTC 15 years ago
Black Ball List
Anonymous
May 13 2005, 22:21:35 UTC 15 years ago
Since this site or Gamewatch.org can be anonymous, these lists would be tremendously helpful to people worldwide and employers would not be able to hide behind their lies and misrepresentations.
It's just a thought.
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