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Page 59 of 87
From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-21 06:17 am (UTC)

note to all who are EA-bashing

please remember that this is not isolated to EA and perhaps a more widely spread 'gaming industry' bashing would be more helpful/accurate/appropriate.
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[User Picture]From: stardreamink
2004-11-24 11:14 pm (UTC)

Re: note to all who are EA-bashing

Okay, so who else should we cut the evil underbelly of? Which other evil gaming industry company should we bash first?

Atari? Activision? Infogrames? Vivendi?

Oh, can we also bash game company executives who got their jobs because they were executives at cellphone companies also owned by the big company that bought out the little game studio? Larry Probst and the EA upper management are not the only unqualified idiots ruining game companies and games for the past 6 years.

I'll go first I guess.

"Damn you EA for tricking Lord British and ruining Origin and using their employees up before firing them all, you jer--- oh wait, that one's still EA. My bad."

"Damn all the big non-game industry megacorporations that have been buying up game companies, and then sending their unqualified fatcats in to tell people how to make games. Damn you all, you're a soil on the industry we all love, and are ruining the lives of the game developers we gamers admire so much, just to sell us crappier games that are pushed out the door unfinished and poorly planned, just to make assholes on the stock exchange richer."

"Damn you, ye pricks, for buying Interplay, firing its founder and all the guys who knew how to make great games, replacing them with jackasses from other companies that had never even played games before, cancelling all the good games, closing all the studios and turfing the developers out into the streets, and running one of the pioneering companies of the industry into the ground."

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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-21 09:21 am (UTC)


This situation is disgraceful and shouldn't be allowed in the so called civilised world.
I worked between 50 and 60 hours on night shifts for around 5 months, out of necessity after a marriage breakdown left me with debts. (that 'ex' accused me of being 'lazy' when working a 7 day 50+ hours week on two jobs) This took its toll on me,physically mentally and emotionally ..so I can well imagine what it must be like when you are under the sort of pressure that EA puts you under.
Anyone who abuses their employees in this manner has to have something wrong with their mental facilities or needs a good swift kick somewhere
where it hurts, in their greedy backsides.
Good luck in your fight...!

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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-21 12:06 pm (UTC)

Very similar to my own experience

This story echoes my own experience within the newspaper publishing industry, describing the same sort of nonsense I went through during the last three years I was there.

After working as much as 96 hours per week on a regular basis during our corporate-wide email replacement project between 2000 and 2002, I was told to keep up the long hours and no level of appreciation was expressed by management for my efforts. Nor was I given the new title or large jump in pay I had been lead to believe would be mine at the successful conclusion of the project. Within the same week, I was diagnosed with stress induced ulcers in my esophagus.

Perhaps you begin to see why I eventually quit and why the tech industry is quickly becoming youth-centric and out-sourced.
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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-21 12:47 pm (UTC)
How about you just don't work there?

EA does not have to take rubbish about long working hours. If they're too extreme for you, don't work there. If everyone did so, they would be forced to cut back on their hours. But no, people like you complain but remain sucking on the corporate teat.

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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-21 05:57 pm (UTC)
You're the prat, you moron. READ THE ARTICLE. They are leaving.
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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-21 01:00 pm (UTC)


I cannot believe that this kind of abuse is going on ( and apparently being allowed to continue by seemingly intelligent people) anywhere in the U.S. today....Seems like there are problems on both sides here with the major problem initiating with management practices.
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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-21 01:18 pm (UTC)

What can we do to change this?

Firstly having worked in several companies (including the big one) I acknowledge that this isn't a problem limited just to EA. However they do represent a majority of the industry and to a large extent if they can be forced to change their ways, everyone else might just sit up and take notice.

As far as overtime in general goes I see it as falling into two categories:

The first one is when Programmers and Artists, through personal pride in their games (or in some cases obsessive perfectionism), opt to occasionally invest a bit of extra time to make them even better. This kind of overtime is not particularly harmful as it is purely optional, self-initiated, and the project doesn't rely on it to get completed.

The other category - which applies in most cases to EA and which is the source of the problem in the industry - is when the staff are systematically pestered and bullied into working extended hours just to get a product to a merely shippable state and get it out of the door on time, so as not to get the project managers in serious trouble for missing the release date.

The thing I find utterly unacceptable is how the project managers at EA are allowed to repeatedly schedule unrealistic workloads, with seemingly no contingency and no real repercussions.
The reason they do this is because they know full well that when it comes to the crunch there is always the safety net of doubling the staff's work hours and audaciously telling them they need to try to work more efficiently.
Doing this does not increase the budget of the project, rather is goes mostly unnoticed outside the studio - and in getting everyone to 'pull together' to hit the street date on time and on budget the managers know they will be rewarded for doing their job well.
So why would they feel the need to change?

If EA knew that they had to pay overtime in full, then they would think twice about using it as a contingency. Right now the project managers have no incentive to become more effective themselves at planning and running their projects as they know for the price of a pizza they can always pass the problem down the line to the development staff when things start to slip.
If however the cost of a project suddenly doubled in overtime payments in the last 3/4/5/6 months of development, then it wouldn't take long for the senior exec. to notice they have a big problem. That would be enough of an incentive for the managers to become more effective at their jobs - with the knowledge that it was their asses and bonuses on the line should the cost of the project suddenly spiral due overtime payments.

I don't necessarily feel that unionization is the best solution, however it is a big problem that seriously needs to be addressed if we are not going to burn ourselves out before hitting 35.

All I believe that it will take is for all EA development staff globally to somehow unanimously and clearly say: 'We are no longer going to work unpaid overtime'. They can't fire everyone can they? After all managers don't make games, the workers do. (And I don't buy the notion that they will just move to outsourcing as a practical option)

So the question is how do they do that? I'm sure 100% of EA staff would be 100% in favor of not -having- to work for free, but individually they have too much to lose in instigating such an action. Does anyone have any ideas about how they can go about approaching this without law suits. It is too big a problem to do nothing about and will only get worse, but it would be good to think we in the industry have the power to change things ourselves.
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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-21 10:57 pm (UTC)

Re: What can we do to change this?

Unionize again EA? I can't agree more. But I don't think this will ever happen.

1) These people who work for Big Brother (EA) have families and use their wages to pay the bills; no matter how unfair it is that they are making $7/hr if you figure in the hours they work. Maybe slightly more $ if you are not a "team player" and go home at the 12th hour.

2) Organizing something that large will most certainly be intercepted and people will be made examples of, to "convince" the remaining emploies what would happen with their positions. EA is a modern day mafia family. We can only hope to catch them in a tax evasion fraud many years from today; but for time their muscles are bigger than our.

3) Big Brother will just get a team of recruiters and visit every university of hungry students and start the whole thing over again. That, with the addition of some extra $money for the top 5% talent to come back to work and they are back in business as usual. Because EA has such a following of gamers the crap that comes out the following year will still sell millions and that gives them 2 years to really get back on top.

4) Big Brother is watching!
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From: bwingb
2004-11-21 03:53 pm (UTC)

You'd better believe...

You'd better believe if everyone stuck together and agreed to walk out there would be big time press coverage. Maybe that's all that's needed to start the ball rolling towards change.

I say you all agree on a date and just do it.
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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-21 11:58 pm (UTC)

Re: You'd better believe...

They would have to wait for next years november 15th crunch.
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[User Picture]From: joggingguy
2004-11-21 04:04 pm (UTC)
I read an article this morning on page D6 of the Sunday Business section of the Houston Chronicle regarding your post and your situation. I had followed your journal posts, so I already knew what it was about. Publicity is a good thing :-)
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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-21 06:18 pm (UTC)

Houston Newspaper

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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-21 10:21 pm (UTC)

New York Times Article

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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-21 10:22 pm (UTC)
no wonder ea makes such bad games
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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-21 11:38 pm (UTC)
Yes, they're so bad that they sell millions upon millions of them and are the clear market leader on most platforms.

You may not like them, but I am sorry to say that you are sorely outnumbered.
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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-21 11:56 pm (UTC)
I heard about this blog entry a bunch of times but never actually read it because I have too many friends that already went through this shit. I luckily never had the misfortune of working for EA (because I always knew people that did).

EA's strategy is to just throw as many bodies as possible at a problem. They don't care about their employees (although I guess everyone at this blog already knows that). I don't think EA can get away with this treatment for ever. They are quickly losing talent and replacing it with junors. At some point they are going to lose their ability to keep up with the competition (they already lost the ability to inovate).

Anyways, there are companies that are good. Companies like Neversoft never make their employees work weekends. They do crunch of course (I think like 12 max day), but that weekend keeps their employees sane, their projects on schedule (no tony hawk game has ever shipped late), and low turn over. So I say, before signing your life away, do some research, because being "in the industry" is pretty worthless if you kill your self after a year.
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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-22 12:04 am (UTC)

A solution

There's a time honored solution for those who are overworked, and if not underpaid, paid less then is commesurate for the time, energy and sacrifice to their lives and the lives of their loved ones this sort of sweatshop like work entails, not to mention the disproporionate profits their toil brings to their bosses. It's a solution that has virtually disappeared from the American economic scene, along with a living wage, a graduated income tax, a decent pension, and time off for personal existence: it's call a STRIKE! That's right: you remember? Collective bargaining, a picket line, and death to scabs? Think about it, before they send you jobs to India and China.
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From: ex_juan_gan
2004-11-22 12:25 am (UTC)



As a former Soviet citizen and a former trade union organizer (back in the USSR) I have to tell you something.

Don't count on other people taking care of your problems. Either trade union leaders betray you, or you betray them, or both. That's what happens all the time; that's why I left the trade union in the USSR (rather hard thing to do).

Count on yourself. Count your hours. Even being exempt does not mean you have to work 84 hours a day. Learn your rights. And when you leave the company, THEN ask them to pay for all the extra hours. They won't; okay, go you can to the court.

I have a friend who was laid off after long hours on an urgent project - he got a pretty good package after just mentioning extra hours at the management request.
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From: unionjosh
2004-11-23 10:01 pm (UTC)

Re: unions

I'm not sure it is fair to compare unions in the USSR to unions here. Have you ever spoken to a union cg worker? At ILM for example. I am a union organizer for IATSE Local 16 which represents ILM workers. I ask you to contact any of them, ( I won't give you the name of a hand picked person, talk you anyone.) Unions have done a lot in this country to create overtime laws, end child labor, create the weekend (ever heard of one of those?). Now the games industry is totally non-union and it seems to me that they have many of the problems that unions in this country were created to solve. Am I begging the question? If you want to talk about this more I am at unionjosh@local16.org
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Re: unions - (Anonymous) Expand
From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-22 12:37 am (UTC)

EA company meeting and insight

Tiburon had a company meeting which is an annual Thanksgiving lunch-state of the union address. It was shameful how quickly and unprofessionally they dismissed this entire posting and all it's related press. Making jokes about who was "ea-spouse" and how this was not helping us. The suggestion was then for us to not post on here, but go talk to our managers and HR,as apparently they are here to help. So of course, nothing will happen as employees who speak candidly will be fired, and EA is going to brush this under the carpet because everyone is afraid to speak up without a unified front.
They are more worried about filling more open positions and how this is hurting their recruitment efforts. Not a word on us, the current employees who have sacrificed blood, sweat and tears, and all we are doing is training replacements. EA has to change their philosphy and make this a career for it's employees, not just a job. They also need true, trained management at this studio, not former programmers in charge.

Fair pay is also needed. Programmers make the most, but it's very varied, and then artists, followed by us producers and QA who are the bottom scrapers. It's a team, right? Why does management make the $70-120K range and all they do is hire more supplemental managers and go home at 6:00?
Plus shouldn't the pay be based on an EA scale? Living in Florida shouldn't automatically make us earn 35% less, it should be an added bonus and advantage. If my counterpart makes $80K in California, so should I, not half that.

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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-22 03:38 am (UTC)

Re: EA company meeting and insight

dude your probably getting jipped. Do what I did to get a raise... send our your resume and reel to other studios and force EA's hand. Your worth what your worth and EA won't pay you that unless it is forced to.

I went from making 55k to 78k a year just for sending out a few resumes. Oh and don't forget the severance package. 8-12 weeks severance + 1 week for every year you have been there. Severance makes it economically less viable to let you go as opposed to someone else.

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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-22 12:55 am (UTC)

So What-------how bout the Dept of Defense!!!!

Big deal,,, at the shipyard I work at we have been working 300 to 1000 hours for the last 3.5 years.....the f###ing Bushy "WAR ON TERROR", dum dum dah
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From: (Anonymous)
2004-11-22 12:57 am (UTC)

Re: So What-------how bout the Dept of Defense!!!!

That Overtime by the way!!!!
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