EA's bright and shiny new corporate trademark is "Challenge Everything." Where this applies is not exactly clear. Churning out one licensed football game after another doesn't sound like challenging much of anything to me; it sounds like a money farm. To any EA executive that happens to read this, I have a good challenge for you: how about safe and sane labor practices for the people on whose backs you walk for your millions?
I am retaining some anonymity here because I have no illusions about what the consequences would be for my family if I was explicit. However, I also feel no impetus to shy away from sharing our story, because I know that it is too common to stick out among those of the thousands of engineers, artists, and designers that EA employs.
Our adventures with Electronic Arts began less than a year ago. The small game studio that my partner worked for collapsed as a result of foul play on the part of a big publisher -- another common story. Electronic Arts offered a job, the salary was right and the benefits were good, so my SO took it. I remember that they asked him in one of the interviews: "how do you feel about working long hours?" It's just a part of the game industry -- few studios can avoid a crunch as deadlines loom, so we thought nothing of it. When asked for specifics about what "working long hours" meant, the interviewers coughed and glossed on to the next question; now we know why.
Within weeks production had accelerated into a 'mild' crunch: eight hours six days a week. Not bad. Months remained until any real crunch would start, and the team was told that this "pre-crunch" was to prevent a big crunch toward the end; at this point any other need for a crunch seemed unlikely, as the project was dead on schedule. I don't know how many of the developers bought EA's explanation for the extended hours; we were new and naive so we did. The producers even set a deadline; they gave a specific date for the end of the crunch, which was still months away from the title's shipping date, so it seemed safe. That date came and went. And went, and went. When the next news came it was not about a reprieve; it was another acceleration: twelve hours six days a week, 9am to 10pm.
Weeks passed. Again the producers had given a termination date on this crunch that again they failed. Throughout this period the project remained on schedule. The long hours started to take its toll on the team; people grew irritable and some started to get ill. People dropped out in droves for a couple of days at a time, but then the team seemed to reach equilibrium again and they plowed ahead. The managers stopped even talking about a day when the hours would go back to normal.
Now, it seems, is the "real" crunch, the one that the producers of this title so wisely prepared their team for by running them into the ground ahead of time. The current mandatory hours are 9am to 10pm -- seven days a week -- with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30pm). This averages out to an eighty-five hour work week. Complaints that these once more extended hours combined with the team's existing fatigue would result in a greater number of mistakes made and an even greater amount of wasted energy were ignored.
The stress is taking its toll. After a certain number of hours spent working the eyes start to lose focus; after a certain number of weeks with only one day off fatigue starts to accrue and accumulate exponentially. There is a reason why there are two days in a weekend -- bad things happen to one's physical, emotional, and mental health if these days are cut short. The team is rapidly beginning to introduce as many flaws as they are removing.
And the kicker: for the honor of this treatment EA salaried employees receive a) no overtime; b) no compensation time! ('comp' time is the equalization of time off for overtime -- any hours spent during a crunch accrue into days off after the product has shipped); c) no additional sick or vacation leave. The time just goes away. Additionally, EA recently announced that, although in the past they have offered essentially a type of comp time in the form of a few weeks off at the end of a project, they no longer wish to do this, and employees shouldn't expect it. Further, since the production of various games is scattered, there was a concern on the part of the employees that developers would leave one crunch only to join another. EA's response was that they would attempt to minimize this, but would make no guarantees. This is unthinkable; they are pushing the team to individual physical health limits, and literally giving them nothing for it. Comp time is a staple in this industry, but EA as a corporation wishes to "minimize" this reprieve. One would think that the proper way to minimize comp time is to avoid crunch, but this brutal crunch has been on for months, and nary a whisper about any compensation leave, nor indeed of any end of this treatment.
This crunch also differs from crunch time in a smaller studio in that it was not an emergency effort to save a project from failure. Every step of the way, the project remained on schedule. Crunching neither accelerated this nor slowed it down; its effect on the actual product was not measurable. The extended hours were deliberate and planned; the management knew what they were doing as they did it. The love of my life comes home late at night complaining of a headache that will not go away and a chronically upset stomach, and my happy supportive smile is running out.
No one works in the game industry unless they love what they do. No one on that team is interested in producing an inferior product. My heart bleeds for this team precisely BECAUSE they are brilliant, talented individuals out to create something great. They are and were more than willing to work hard for the success of the title. But that good will has only been met with abuse. Amazingly, Electronic Arts was listed #91 on Fortune magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For" in 2003.
EA's attitude toward this -- which is actually a part of company policy, it now appears -- has been (in an anonymous quotation that I've heard repeated by multiple managers), "If they don't like it, they can work someplace else." Put up or shut up and leave: this is the core of EA's Human Resources policy. The concept of ethics or compassion or even intelligence with regard to getting the most out of one's workforce never enters the equation: if they don't want to sacrifice their lives and their health and their talent so that a multibillion dollar corporation can continue its Godzilla-stomp through the game industry, they can work someplace else.
But can they?
The EA Mambo, paired with other giants such as Vivendi, Sony, and Microsoft, is rapidly either crushing or absorbing the vast majority of the business in game development. A few standalone studios that made their fortunes in previous eras -- Blizzard, Bioware, and Id come to mind -- manage to still survive, but 2004 saw the collapse of dozens of small game studios, no longer able to acquire contracts in the face of rapid and massive consolidation of game publishing companies. This is an epidemic hardly unfamiliar to anyone working in the industry. Though, of course, it is always the option of talent to go outside the industry, perhaps venturing into the booming commercial software development arena. (Read my tired attempt at sarcasm.)
To put some of this in perspective, I myself consider some figures. If EA truly believes that it needs to push its employees this hard -- I actually believe that they don't, and that it is a skewed operations perspective alone that results in the severity of their crunching, coupled with a certain expected amount of the inefficiency involved in running an enterprise as large as theirs -- the solution therefore should be to hire more engineers, or artists, or designers, as the case may be. Never should it be an option to punish one's workforce with ninety hour weeks; in any other industry the company in question would find itself sued out of business so fast its stock wouldn't even have time to tank. In its first weekend, Madden 2005 grossed $65 million. EA's annual revenue is approximately $2.5 billion. This company is not strapped for cash; their labor practices are inexcusable.
The interesting thing about this is an assumption that most of the employees seem to be operating under. Whenever the subject of hours come up, inevitably, it seems, someone mentions 'exemption'. They refer to a California law that supposedly exempts businesses from having to pay overtime to certain 'specialty' employees, including software programmers. This is Senate Bill 88. However, Senate Bill 88 specifically does not apply to the entertainment industry -- television, motion picture, and theater industries are specifically mentioned. Further, even in software, there is a pay minimum on the exemption: those exempt must be paid at least $90,000 annually. I can assure you that the majority of EA employees are in fact not in this pay bracket; ergo, these practices are not only unethical, they are illegal.
I look at our situation and I ask 'us': why do you stay? And the answer is that in all likelihood we won't; and in all likelihood if we had known that this would be the result of working for EA, we would have stayed far away in the first place. But all along the way there were deceptions, there were promises, there were assurances -- there was a big fancy office building with an expensive fish tank -- all of which in the end look like an elaborate scheme to keep a crop of employees on the project just long enough to get it shipped. And then if they need to, they hire in a new batch, fresh and ready to hear more promises that will not be kept; EA's turnover rate in engineering is approximately 50%. This is how EA works. So now we know, now we can move on, right? That seems to be what happens to everyone else. But it's not enough. Because in the end, regardless of what happens with our particular situation, this kind of "business" isn't right, and people need to know about it, which is why I write this today.
If I could get EA CEO Larry Probst on the phone, there are a few things I would ask him. "What's your salary?" would be merely a point of curiosity. The main thing I want to know is, Larry: you do realize what you're doing to your people, right? And you do realize that they ARE people, with physical limits, emotional lives, and families, right? Voices and talents and senses of humor and all that? That when you keep our husbands and wives and children in the office for ninety hours a week, sending them home exhausted and numb and frustrated with their lives, it's not just them you're hurting, but everyone around them, everyone who loves them? When you make your profit calculations and your cost analyses, you know that a great measure of that cost is being paid in raw human dignity, right?
Right?
===
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Anonymous
November 12 2004, 23:26:40 UTC 15 years ago
Thank you, from one ea_spouse to another!
Anonymous
November 12 2004, 23:53:47 UTC 15 years ago
I personally have endured many nights of waiting up alone in a new city (which we moved to for a "better life") for my hubby to get home. I have waited until the wee hours of the morning on more than one occasion and have definitely had weeks and weeks in a row where I’ve spent less than an hour per day with him. I have spent tons and tons of weekends alone while his "crunch mode" time lasted eight months rather than eight days or eight weeks. I have put off going home to see our families for holidays because he was "strongly encouraged" not to take time off. Man, the list goes on and on -- those are just the highlights.
Many of us have been passing around via email the original post and the comments about it -- both on this site and the many other sites that have referenced it. I have to say that after reading some of the comments, I am really sickened by some of the posts. They are obviously written by people who have NO idea about the level of abuse that is taking place on employees (and their families) in the gaming industry, and specifically at EA.
In an effort to educate, I set out to answer at least the top three questions about this situation that I saw posted over and over again. I couldn't fit the entire response here, so please view it at: workingweek.blogspot.com
EA_Spouse, I know that you must have thought long and hard about hitting "submit" on your post, knowing all too well the ramifications that might ensue. EA employees have been let go for less and if found out, your SO's job could be in serious jeopardy. I commend you for taking the step to hit "submit" -- you, no doubt, did it in an attempt to help your husband and your family. What you also did was create an open and honest dialogue about this issue. You helped to bring it out into the open. For those of us who previously were too scared to do something so bold...Thank you and God bless you!
Re: Thank you, from one ea_spouse to another!
November 13 2004, 20:12:24 UTC 15 years ago
Re: Thank you, from one ea_spouse to another!
Anonymous
15 years ago
Re: Thank you, from one ea_spouse to another!
15 years ago
QA
Anonymous
November 13 2004, 00:07:50 UTC 15 years ago
Re: QA
Anonymous
November 13 2004, 00:40:17 UTC 15 years ago
Not being a gamer, my passion was towards the artistic side of the industry. I hoped to be a world designer or even a texture artist. I advanced quickly, by staying late (we WERE payed overtime, not being on salary) and helping CQC (Customer Quality Control - a group which gets the games just before release and is relied upon to find any issues that the QA process somehow missed) with their last push before the title was released. I had success there and was fortunate to work for this group for nearly a year. This was a great position and a team that was managed efficiently and and with consideration. Overtime was still expected on occasion, but only 50 to 60 hours at the most, one month at the most.
Unfortunately (for me), after displaying the ability to manage a small group of testers in CQC, we were recruited to lead test teams in QA. The QA process takes anywhere from 2 to 9 months for most titles. 9 months working on the same title. This was hell after the variety experienced in CQC. The QA "area" of the building is rarely visited by anyone not in QA. Only the lowly Assistant Producer will dare venture there... for good reason. Many gamers insist upon not taking showers, creating pyramids of mountain dew cans, etc... which EA is fine with... so long as you are willing to sleep under your desks on occasion.
Up until this time my relationship with my girlfriend from college has sustained wonderfully. Despite having been driving from Aptos to Redwood City (the old EA building), depending on the hour of the day, taking 2 to 3 hours round-trip... we were golden. We later moved to Mountain View, and things were still fine... until "crunch time".
Crunch time covered the next three titles I led... one of which was finished ahead of time, and "saved the day" for the company as were able to ship it before the end of a quarter... we saw nothing for it as a team, and during the meeting, Probst was quick to congratulate the producer and assistant producer, but there was no mention of the artists, developers, or qa. I averaged 60 hours a week, and enjoyed a couple of 100 hour work weeks, twice actually sleeping under my desk. I saw my girlfriend from 6 AM to 6:15 when she got ready for work and I woke up to her alarm.
We broke up 28 months into my EA career... what time we had left to spend together was often spent by me trying to justify the amount of time I was at work... that this was a career in a field for which my college degree wasn't any help... that I had to work extra hard to advance, yada, yada yada.
I then moved on to the ill-fated ea.com qa department... what a joke. I quit 2 months before the whole department was scrapped.
I'm still in the software industry, still in QA, not designing worlds, but not working much overtime (I will be coming in tomorrow, a Saturday)... but its no big deal because I haven't found any woman that compares to the girl EA took away from me.
The stock options are great, the 401K, the gym (I was one of the lucky few QA people that got to use it because I had been there early on) .. the cafeteria... but the hours and the pay are not fair... I still have a lot of friends there, and there are fair departments, but as an entry level programmer, artist, and especially QA rep, expect to suffer until something changes.
Re: QA
15 years ago
November 13 2004, 00:18:47 UTC 15 years ago
Anonymous
November 13 2004, 01:09:57 UTC 15 years ago
Anonymous
15 years ago
15 years ago
Anonymous
November 13 2004, 00:52:42 UTC 15 years ago
Suspended comment
Anonymous
November 13 2004, 01:16:26 UTC 15 years ago
Suspended comment
EA operates on a culture of guilt...
Anonymous
November 13 2004, 01:06:30 UTC 15 years ago
Re: EA operates on a culture of guilt...
November 13 2004, 01:18:03 UTC 15 years ago
The problem is that there is always the feelings of guilt over this. I know people that would work late when they didn't have to out of guilt for leaving those that still had work to do. While the sentiment and spirit of team unity here is excellent, as it often at game companies, this is only adding to the problem. In fact, I've had game company managers bring up guilt and try to exploit these feelings to keep me at my desk longer. Of course, I know that any team friends of mine would want me to leave when I was done with my work.
This brings up another issue, the "sympathetic crunch." On my first game, the programmers were way behind and had to crunch extensively, but art was effectively done with all of their work. Management "asked" them to stay and crunch alongside the programmers "to show their support," but no doubt hoping to get more work out of them. This was the dumbest example of "butts in seats" management I had seen, as the company was effectively asking the artists to dink around on the 'Net for a few hours, eat a free dinner, and go home angry.
So, remember - if some people are crunching and you don't need to, go home. If they are really good team mates or friends, they will want you to go home.
-Peter
Re: EA operates on a culture of guilt...
15 years ago
Re: EA operates on a culture of guilt...
Anonymous
15 years ago
Re: EA operates on a culture of guilt...
Anonymous
15 years ago
Re: EA operates on a culture of guilt...
15 years ago
Re: EA operates on a culture of guilt...
15 years ago
Re: EA operates on a culture of guilt...
15 years ago
Re: EA operates on a culture of guilt...
Anonymous
15 years ago
This is so true...
November 13 2004, 01:14:41 UTC 15 years ago
it's been even worse in the past?
Anonymous
November 13 2004, 01:21:56 UTC 15 years ago
80 hour weeks at this particular studio is an *improvement*.
There used to be peaks of 100 to 120 hour weeks at that same location. I know which one it is and I used to work there. And yep that's mathematically possible. It translates in this particual case to working every single day with about 6-7 hours off out of the 24 hour period. To go home and sleep. This was not a shocker when I was there...it was becoming part of a yearly cycle: 50 hour weeks for about 5 months, 60 or so for the next 2, 80 for the next 2, and then "the crunch". I remember one peak stint in particular: post-alpha for 2 1/2 months, at 100-120 hour weeks. That's working seven days a week for 16-18 hours a day. For about 70 days.
If you think watching someone you love come home with a headache and sour stomach is bad (and believe me I feel *dearly* for you because it IS bad), imagine coming home and wondering if you're starting to lose it. When I say "lose it" I mean "starting to have a nervous breakdown".
You and your husband, along with others in the same trap (it is a trap until you can convince yourself that it's safe financially and career-wise to leave) are in my thoughts, I wish you the best.
Positive Examples...
November 13 2004, 01:24:22 UTC 15 years ago
Point of View Software
This Orange County-based studio was crunching on a project, pulling this sort of EA-esque deathmarch. One day, management was called into the meeting room, and were surprised to find the team waiting for them. The team basically said they would finish the project, but if things didn't change on the next project they would all walk out, which would have effectively destroyed the company. Management changed, and apparently POV's a pretty good place to work now.
Neversoft
The makers on Tony Hawk produce consistently excellent games, and have developered a unique work schedule. A normal work week is 40 hours...spread out over four days, Monday through Thursday. Lunch is provided free for all employees every day of the week. When crunch rolls around, they work an additional 10-hour day on Friday. From what I am told, the company is closed and the office is locked on Saturdays to prevent people from coming in.
There are other ways and people are experimenting and finding success - now to convince the rest of the industry to do the same.
-Peter
Re: Positive Examples...
Anonymous
November 13 2004, 07:34:18 UTC 15 years ago
Ask QA @ Ubisoft Montreal
Anonymous
November 13 2004, 01:25:11 UTC 15 years ago
Another Press Mention...
November 13 2004, 01:27:53 UTC 15 years ago
http://news.com.com/Electronic+Arts+faces+overtime+lawsuit/2100-1043_3-5450316.html?tag=nefd.top
-Peter
November 13 2004, 01:32:05 UTC 15 years ago
First of all, I'm very glad I've never had to work in a company with its head so firmly up its ass. My best wishes to you both.
Second, to all of you who have reduced the solutions down to "it's similar everywhere" and "just get another job"... Well, it's not quite that easy. First off, these practices are illegal. If you are employed by any company at all, this is meaningful to you - if one company is allowed to break the rules on a whim, others will follow suit.
If you work for a game developer yourself - even one of the good ones - you might not realize how directly this will affect you.
Let's say EA is allowed to get away with this and the employees don't raise a stink, or don't unionize. What's the result? A whole lot of underpaid employees doing a whole lot of work. This drives the employer's costs down considerably - which in turn, passes profits on to upper management and the company's shareholders. It also will allow them to put product on the market for lower prices, undercutting competition.
Its competitors at that point will only have 2 real options - joining the game or quitting it. If Company A is able slash its costs and churn out games rapidly by mistreating its employees, Company B will need to find other ways to keep up in order to stay competitive. If Company A fucks over its designers, Company B may try other options - like reducing benefits, changing time off procedures, etc. - but increasing costs will probably not be one of them because, nowadays, cost is the single biggest determining factor on whether or not customers will actually buy your product. Quality matters, yeah. But I haven't seen EA's game quality suffer that much of late, you know?
The key point is that software companies are in direct competition with one another. Their sole purpose is to make profits for their shareholders or owners. The employees, however, should all be on the same team - if employees at one company are getting screwed, eventually that screwing will make its way over to you.
I'm fortunate enough to work for a company that treats its employees well. I'm glad to be where I am. But I sincerely feel for the employees at EA who need to deal with this kind of thing.
"Unionization" is an ugly word, and unions have been responsible for horrible abuses of companies' time and money. But when shit like this is going on, it seems like the only real option.
Bill
November 13 2004, 08:22:52 UTC 15 years ago
I've said this before in response to a few posts, so I'll be brief.
The problem is, the seatshop approach simply doesn't work. Time at work is simply not a measure of productivity. More hours make people more tired. They spedn the extra hours adding bugs and the next day fixing them, or zoning out in front of the monitor.
15 years ago
Anonymous
15 years ago
I got my solution
Anonymous
November 13 2004, 01:38:18 UTC 15 years ago
It is utterly disgusting and dishonorable to see EA treat people like this. I hope what goes around comes around. Best of luck to all the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against this pitiful corporation.
Re: I got my solution
November 13 2004, 08:25:22 UTC 15 years ago
Essentially, I don't think this is a problem the customers can solve. The employees will have to deal with it themselves.
the internet is amazing
Anonymous
November 13 2004, 01:42:18 UTC 15 years ago
> http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/11/11/news_6112998.html
Along with the class action lawsuit. , you did the right thing. With fire and attention like this, something is bound to change. Ignore your detractors...those who tell you to stop complaining. This is a valid issue.
Re: the internet is amazing
Anonymous
November 13 2004, 01:44:46 UTC 15 years ago
;P
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