Hey guys.

Put this in the other comments section, and I'm putting it here now. This is a pretty good article showing how crunch isn't fiscally responsible, either, even if it may seem so to the people mandating it.

http://www.igda.org/articles/erobinson_crunch.php

Enjoy and discuss!

-Peter

Stop Genocide in Sudan

This just came up on the Register... it seemed kind of relevant. It might be interesting to look at the approaches they're taking to help raise awareness of unpaid overtime.

TUC to IT workers: 'You're working too hard'

IT workers put in more unpaid overtime than almost any other profession, according to the TUC (Trades Union Congress). The organisation is calling on managers to recognise the extra time their staff puts in, and has declared Friday 25 February "Work your proper hours day".

And this is what happens when the uneducated enter the world of Capitalism. It's labor vs capital. Always has been, always will be. I suggest those in the IT industry take heart from their counterparts in Europe and understand this concept called "collective bargaining." Smartly designed unions will set you free. Brush up on your labor history and economics, to all those that are wailing in this thread about injustice and how the workers should just "suck it up." I also suggest the same to those that wish to improve the situation. US Labor laws, and laws concerning capital in general, need improvement. Stop in by your local I.W.W. office and say, "Hi."

Is the IWW still beset with internal strife, ineffective leadership, and drunks??

There must be a better way.

my cousin applied to an EA job at their orlando place, and he would have had to work 80 hours a week! he said he didn't listen much more after hearing that.

80 hours a week?! Was that quoted to him during employment interviews or did they jsut flat out told him that's "the deal"? Most importantly -- what was your cousin smoking when he told you about it and quoted that exact amount of hours?! Even if this was true (which I sincerely doubt), no self respecting HR person, recruiter or interviewer would quote such a bridiculous amount of hours or such a innane condition for employment to a prospective new hire.

I took a brief look over at gamewatch.org earlier (I stumbled on this journal from the UO Stratics forums, of all places). I was wondering if you ever got a logo designed for the site?

I'll be sending you an email about it. :)


Btw, I had a roommate who worked for EA in Maitland, FL - EA Tiburon - as a tester. He also worked these horrible hours for a year and a half as a "contracted" employee. No benefits. He did get some overtime, however. That was the only saving grace. Unfortunately when the hours began to deteriorate his health (He suffers from an autoimmune disease where his white blood cells attack his red), they had no sympathy for him.

I'm kind of glad I didn't get the job I interviewed for.

i want to thank you for what you do.. the world needs more corporate watch dogs.

I’ve followed all the various EA-related work horror stories, and I feel it is extremely important to make two comments regarding them.

I’ll say up front that I am in fact a former EA employee (was only there for the duration of a project…well, two projects, really). Additionally, I am a happy EA former employee. I was treated well while there, our schedule was reasonable, no one ever got seriously angry over anything that I saw, etc. etc. I had a good experience working there and if I thought I would again, I would do it again. I’ve also worked for a couple other game companies.

That said, I also want to say that I have no doubt that the EA_Spouse and related stories are true! I’m not going to try to debunk them for even a second. However, I believe that much of the following discussion has been somewhat miss focused and more than a bit unfair.

#1 – The problem described is endemic of the industry. It is NOT a problem isolated to EA.

#2 – It is also not even a problem pervasive through EA.

I say these things, because I hope people focus on the right issues rather than the wrong ones. With regards to the first comment, these quality-of-life issues are a serious problem throughout the game industry. Check out various IGDA reports and the QoL group to see more. Talk to any friends you may have in the game industry, and hear how many of them have war stories of the long hours, difficult job, etc. And then there’s the former industry vets that completely switched over to another industry altogether; various surveys have found startlingly low percentages of industry retention compared to most others.

EA gets the brunt of the blame by being the biggest – just like the biggest corporation in any industry will be the first-attacked for any industry-wide problems. Do these things take place at EA? Absolutely! However, are they company wide policies that all EA employees are regularly subjected to? Not at all. It’s important to remember that when dealing with any organization of the size that EA is, with all the various studios all over the world, that there is going to be very little standardized management at the lower levels. The team in England working on the Harry Potter game might have completely different working conditions than the guys in Florida working on the NASCAR game who might have completely different working conditions as the guys in Canada making the soccer example, for example. If one of those studios has some producers that are harder on their workers than other studios, the stories will grow, and taint the entire corporation. Additionally, the larger number of workers referring to the same name aggregates to more than might be referring to one small studio somewhere. 1% of EA employees complaining is a whole lot more than even 95% of some one-game independent studio.

But I’m not sitting here and trying to defend EA. I merely want the focus to be a little more broad, and a little less specific. EA definitely has these problems with some of its teams, just like probably every other large games entity does (Nintendo? Sony? Take Two? Ubisoft? VU? Midway? THQ?, etc.). Maybe EA should try harder to actually get more company-wide policies for quality of life in place. It would be a start. And if they do, I hope other places follow their lead and do the same. And also, remember, there are a lot of great producers and managers within EA who make reasonable schedules and are very concerned about their teams’ quality of life. Don’t let the actions of the some taint the many.

I whole-heartedly applaud the efforts of people attempting to bring these issues into the spotlight; they are doing a brave and wonderful thing. I only hope people don’t place all of the blame on EA’s shoulders, and assume that EA is 100% pure evil. Recognize that it is a problem that many – if not most – game companies currently have, and also that there’s some good teams within EA that aren’t run by demon-spawn…

“Game Developer X”

I don't get it.


"I only hope people don’t place all of the blame on EA’s shoulders, and assume that EA is 100% pure evil."

If tens of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of present and former EA employees come forward to share EA-specific horror stories about being mis-managed, and these horror stories support and echo EA Spouse's original posting, why suggest diminishing the company's responsibility for contributing to the problem just because other companies suffer similar problems?

As much as EA prides itself on being the biggest, baddest, kick ass, most successful player on the field, it equally must own its process and people management problems. The fact that other companies suffer similar problems does not detract from EA's responsibility to fix itself.


"#2 – It is also not even a problem pervasive through EA."

You're a former EA employee with experience on 2 projects and you have the facts, data and knowledge to say conclusively that the problem is not pervasive throughout Electronic Arts' 13 worldwide studios? Indeed, your explanation is that: "If one of those studios has some producers that are harder on their workers than other studios, the stories will grow, and taint the entire corporation."

"I merely want the focus to be a little more broad, and a little less specific." EA's issues start from specific circumstances that, repeated time and time and time again, built up to create broader issues. The problems do not require a rocket scientist to fix them.


Why is it reasonable that those who have had pleasant EA experiences cast questions over those who have had unpleasant experiences? And suggest that EA isn't so bad -- even though others have had to experience unpleasant/unacceptable circumstances?

I'd just like to mention that I'm using your essay and the subsequent appropriate comments that follow as my primary sources for a college paper on Marxian Theory of Capitalism. The title for the work is Under the Whip: The Surviving Practice of Laborer Exploitation in Silicon Valley