One of the good things about EA is that its possible to work for them, develop games, and not live in California. Does anyone have input on good, stable, video game companies who are hiring, treat their employees decently, and are NOT in California?

A lot of people have been coming forward with testaments about studios that do not treat their people this way. I will be compiling a list of them and backdating a journal entry with that list of reccomended studios. =)

I know your pain.

My marriage was ripped to shreds because my husband was overworked by a particular online company in the bay area that is generally regarded as an excellent company to work for!

When my husband was on call (usually a full week, every other week) he was not allowed to be more than 15 minutes from a secure internet connection. This meant that every weekend was ruined. When he was on call we could not go to the park with the kids, or do anything outside of the house together. I would end up taking the kids out myself while he stayed home, waiting for the inevitable call. On the weekends he was not on-call, he was so exhausted from being called in every night (on-call was just another name for mandatory overtime) that he wasn't really available emotionally, physically, or psychologically, as a husband or a father. Even now that we're divorced, he's still breaking his back with the same company to support his children, while he scarcely gets to see them.

I was so angry at his company that I called around to see exactly what the legality was of what they were subjecting us to. Of course it turned out that it was all legal because the prevailing attitude is that people can choose to work where they feel comfortable. But this attitude doesn't take into account a couple of things: One, is the lack of jobs in this industry means that people are desperate for work. Many highly qualified people are unemployed right now, and it frightens those who *are* employed enough that they put up with abusive standards. Two, is that if all tech companies treat their employees the same way, there is no place to find respite. There are no options when every choice is the same.

I see two possibilities to remedy this situation. The first possibility is to change the law so that it is illegal to expect overtime without appropriate compensation (and set an overtime limit regardless of pay so that people are not dangerously overworked). The second possibility is to create an IT union so that workers' rights are not steamrolled by the corporations for an extra buck here and there.


We also need to address the culture that puts work above family. Employees often defend the company that abuses them, because the abuse is treated as "normal" by other employees, and by the company itself. The employee is immersed in the culture and there is a sense of working toward a common goal - that helps to provide some purpose. A wife who complains that her husband hasn't been home long enough to spend any time with his children is seen as a b%^%.

I lived as a single mother when I was married - and our family was tethered to my husband's company even when he was supposed to have time off. My husband didn't have enough time for anything but sleeping and recuperating when he was home, let alone any kind of productive communication.

We are now divorced - a marriage cannot survive a complete disconnect like that for long. We only saw each other when it was time to sleep, and we were so stressed out when we spoke to each other that it was like speaking through a brick wall.

I hope that some day the demolition of family is prevented by forcing companies to hire enough people that they don't have to make their employees work overtime on a regular basis.

I really feel for them. I used to constantly work 60-100 hours a week as a developer. I completely burnt out after 5 years and am now disabled. I cannot work or stay awake for 8 hours (I have M.E / C.F.S) any more.
If anyone is this situation, my advice is GET OUT before your body is beyond recovery. Working in a factory or store may not be intellectually stimulating but it keeps the bills paid until you can find a good employer.
If I knew what was I was doing to my body before I got ill, I would have quit the industry and walked away. If I could go back I would turn down the £40,000 a year salary and worked in a factory for £12,000. I will never have my health back and may never be able to hold down a full time job again. All because I really cared about what I was producing.
Companies better realise soon that development is a very tolling activity on the miind and body. Most problems arise from bad management and unrealistic expectations. If you stop saying ´You can have it six months´ and start being realistic, programmers will create better quality, bug free-ish code and be happy to do 100 hour weeks as deadlines approach. Expecting them to work 100 weeks all through the project will eventually destroy them. Not that companies give a damn nowadays.
The days of an employee being valued are long over. ´You can be replaced´ is all you hear nowadays. Companies should actually take care of the good employees and replace the lamers. If your staff actually want to come to work, they produce better products, actually care about what they do and will help out as much as they can.

To the 2 companies that drove me into the ground. F$*! YOU. You have destroyed my life and bailed when it came to my health insurance. You worked me death. I made over 2 million pounds for you B*&$%*DS and you cut me loose to live my life unable to work or even have a social life because I am so ill.

I hope you all rot.

I'm sorry, I almost lost my hands to carpal tunnel because I was young and didn't know how to stand up for myself when the pressure came. It was probably the scariest thing in my life. I was blessed that I healed almost completely. I hope things get better for you.

Leo

what do you expect in america? this country is powered by money and greed. its sad.

...this sounds right on target.
i always wondered if the managers got overtime? the artists certainly didn't.
but we got free video games. i guess that made up for it.*

* Yes, i am being sarcastic

If you want to get paid for the hours you worked, I am helping with a class action lawsuit against EA for overtime violations. I am also a union organizer and I am looking for more information about the company. Most people are scared to even talk to me, but I am hoping that a former employee might not be so intimidated. I am at 415-441-6400 or unionjosh@local16.org
you can remain anonymous if you wish.
josh

I'm just a gamer and value all the wonderful work you guys do and it makes me sad to hear you are all treated this way, my heart really goes out to you guys and want to say thanks for all your hard work, you've made my world a happy place I enjoy waking up to.

It's look like some kind of article here relating to this, don't know if anyone has seen it, since it's too much to read 21 pages. It'a about an EA lawsuit. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=5463

I realized myself as a gamer that EA was a horrible company years ago back when I beta tested Battletech. It became evident to me EA's strategy of buying good companies with passionate people and laying the people off, as alot of good people where let go and that project canceled. They also cancelled Air Warrior around that time those people were pissed too and their spooky spy game bombed, can't remember the name. I swore off ever buying another EA product then at the dissolutionment they caused then to employees and passionate fans.

Years later the publisher of the great Total War series had a distribution deal with them and I was forced as well as other gamers to be on the short end of the stick as they once again attempted to screw this company over and left us with a bad expansion without the features we were promised. We all railed against EA on the boards and luckily the studio listened and left EA for their next release.

The point is big companies need to know their are consequences for not being forthright and honest with their employees and customers. Eventually you piss off enough people and it will bite them back their track record proves it. So as a consumer I'm with you guys and I hope EA gets theirs. The brain power you programmers can muster is amazing and if you did focus on this one problem you could all certainly defeat it and change things for the better. Goodluck and thanks for the wonderful years past and future!

Most interesting. Me and most fellow European gamers did not know how bad EA is. Fellows, let's go and meet in the forums and talk about what we can do.

Just a simple introduction into HRM, maybe it's just plain ignorance of them;)

Human Resource management- gaining a competitive advantage(international edition)
Noe,Hollenbeck,Gerhart,Wright
fourth edition
Publisher McGraw-Hill

I am a gamer. Not the sort of gamer that EA and relative companies target. In fact apart from Desert Strike and the first FIFA on Megadrive, I have never enjoyed playing a single 'game' pumped out of the licence-based powerhouse of EA. Even then I was not impressed at these two games. I just rented then for a day or so.

EA is evil because its all about the money. It doesnt give a f**k about how games are or should be made. Where is the intelligence put into games by companies like SEGA, CAPCOM or ATARI in their golden days??? -to name a few that cross my mind- That is how I understand evil EA as a gamer. It screwed the gaming world and it continues to do so. I see now that this evil is reflected on its employing policies.

Personally I dont care about sleak graphics and licenced crap. I like innovation, immersive, subtle control and passion in games. I refuse to give my money to EA! Their games are not even worth downloading...

But nothing will change. And in fact I dont blame EA. It just wanna make MONEY! The real problem is that the gamer does not exist. He has become a stupid consumer. It not about innovation anymore. Its all about demographics and marketing. Sorry for the guys working in the EA. They are slaves.

LONG LIVE SUPER MONKEY BALL!!!!!!!!!!!

Ever heard of medical residency? Although there is now a cap on the number of hours worked per week (80), the government didn't legislate that there could be less patients, and hospitals didn't add more residencies to programs, so they're now working harder with less hours doing the same theoretical amount of work. Couple that with the fact that the average resident's salary is only in the $40,000 range, and it sounds like a pretty similar arrangement.

Although I guess physicians do have the financial security of post-residency life as a light at the end of the tunnel. ;)

EA MAKES TOYS THEY DON’T SAVE LIVES

I am a gamer. Not the sort of gamer that EA and relative companies target. In fact apart from Desert Strike and the first FIFA on Megadrive, I have never enjoyed playing a single 'game' pumped out of the licence-based powerhouse of EA. Even then I was not impressed at these two games. I just rented then for a day or so.

EA is evil because its all about the money. It doesnt give a f**k about how games are or should be made. Where is the intelligence put into games by companies like SEGA, CAPCOM or ATARI in their golden days??? -to name a few that cross my mind- That is how I understand evil EA as a gamer. It screwed the gaming world and it continues to do so. I see now that this evil is reflected on its employing policies.

Personally I dont care about sleak graphics and licenced crap. I like innovation, immersive, subtle control and passion in games. I refuse to give my money to EA! Their games are not even worth downloading...

But nothing will change. And in fact I dont blame EA. It just wanna make MONEY! The real problem is that the gamer does not exist. He has become a stupid consumer. It not about innovation anymore. Its all about demographics and marketing. Sorry for the guys working in the EA. They are slaves.

LONG LIVE SUPER MONKEY BALL!!!!!!!!!!!

I worked as a tester there for a couple of months and had to work in different studios all over the world, as well in Redwood Shores. Every project we did was a crunch. I think there are no projects without crunches as long as enough money flows into the pockets of the big manager. EA really doesn't care about your health. You are nothing and easy to replace if you do not become this job as full time job for your private life.
You can't compare the working conditions for tester and developer, but for our job we need to work on weekends and 12 hours a day as well. This kind of working conditions is common for ea... Only the mangagers are going home just in time for their weekend.....

I want to thank the workers of EA for their incredible hard work. The conditions are not fair in the least, and I know this story is 100% true. Just know that people like me on the consumer side do appreciate your genius and hard work.

The shit is hitting the fan next week, folks. Rumor has it that labor people are coming soon. Grab a chair and watch!

First of all I want to tell you how much I feel for your situation, but I have to agree with those who say "get out". I know that might not be possible immediately, but you guys have to plan for it and esacpe that madness. I'll explain why I feel this is the only solution, by telling you a story about my own life. I aspired to be a game developer, since I was a teenager growing up in the early-80's I wanted to develop game software. Before I entered college I was able to get in touch with game developers working at Origin systems based in my hometown (Austin, TX), (side note: Origin was bought by EA in the mid 90's. I was told 50 hour weeks were the norm, but I was also told that there was rising pressure to be able to put out product for less money (isn't this always the case?), and the game industry was quickly being obsorbed by the corporation. The other thing I was told was that to be in a creative position as a coder in game development, you have to be at the top of your game (where else are you going to model the laws of physics in real-time and incorporate linear algebra on a daily basis?).

Just on the principle of knowledge/education over base payrate, Game developers are grossly underpaid. When you factor in the horrific, unrealisitic work schedule, your SO is probably in a worse situtation than if he were working in a sweet shop in Indonesia.

Unfortunately, I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel. You could get legal action against EA, but here's the thing... There are many, many, many kids coming into the workforce who have dreamed about being a game developer their entire life. I'm willing to bet EA is banking on this. While their model doesn't make sense to most of us, it may very well be part of a larger strategy. Once the current crop of developers are exhausted after 2-3 projects, they quit (EA doesn't have to pay unemployeement) and a new crop is hired.

This is too high of a cost to pay to do "something you love". I have found business software development to be a very rewarding alternative. Even in these "hard times" with overshoring more and more popular, most of our junior developers make $40k with a fair benefits package. Sr developers can make $60-$70k, Architect developers can make even more. I suggest crossing over now. Now depending on where he lands, a normal workweek isn't always 40 hours. For IT thisn't haven't been a reality in a long while. 45-50 hour work weeks are more the norm, but that's a hell of a lot better than what you're use to now, and in some of his new found free time he could program for himself building small games for J2ME (cell phone games) or writing web based games, something fun that he can control.

I wish you guys the best, you have to get out!













I choice to go down the path of business software development

You can't compare untrained blue collar work to white collar labour abuses. Ditch diggers and computer programmers are not in the same league. Many of these people invested thousands of dollars and a lot of time into their training and they should be duly compensated. The fact that this company is growing so quickly at the expense of it's employees is completely unjust. Supporting this kind of abuse will inevitably result in more and more infringements on our rights down the road until we end up having no better standards than people in India or China. Is that what you want? You need to get some PERSPECTIVE, man!

Not to mention that if there are this many people in North America who feel that something is _very wrong_ then something has to change.That right there is enough of a reason to know there's a problem. Anyone with half a brain can see that it's a dumb idea to go against a growing tide...especially if your own dumb ass stands to profit from any reforms or pay increases.

As for these people with no life saying others are off base for complaining, all I can say is wait five years until you have eye or throat cancer from the longterm of working under these conditions and then let me hear your opinions on the subject. If you say you'd be doing that anyways at home, then you're a self-destructive idiot and there's no hope for you until you get a clue. But don't expect those of us who love life to suffer because you're loving your misery! There's a perspective maturity gives a person that you just cannot have when you are young and clueless if you don't have some RESPECT for those around you.

You can't buy cool-- it's something that comes from life experience-- not from gaming and grovelling. Learn to respect your elders, pull up your damned pants and get the hell out of the way. Those of us who give a damn about the future are going to make things right.

Working 12 hours days 7 days a week with no end in sight... If that's not a sweat shop, I'd like to know what you consider one to be? The difference in a third-world country is the opportunity for change may not exist. In the US the opportunity for change is there... It may create undesriables (relocation, lose of luxury, etc...).

At some point you have to ask yourself, what you're working for? On a 12/7 schedule you're working just to get up and to do more work. At best you're working to support dependants, but you're still a slave to your job no less.

soudns like time fora work slow down. nothing formal or organized(dirty word). just: gee, I am so tired how did that mistake happen. your body may need to be there that many hours, but you don't have to give them your all. slaves have done this for eons.

This happens naturally simply through fatigue, actually... whether the workers intend it or not. However, they don't intend it, in the cases I've observed at least... because if they slow down, it only prolongs the project, which is not good for anyone. I also think that this kind of passive resistance in the end will only increase the employer's abuses; in a backhanded way it is sort of showing them what the results of slavedriving are, but you're then relying on employer perception to change courses, which is unlikely when they're already enmired in the project.