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Geek Culture / EA Spouse

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Ian T
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 02:18
Very interesting article from the wife/husband of someone employed at Electronic Arts here. Tip of the hat to RPGDot for linking to it. I've heard similar stories from people who have known people who have worked there-- but it seems like it keeps getting worse!

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David T
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 02:21
12 hours seven days a week. Isn't that against some law?

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bitJericho
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 02:28 Edited at: 13th Nov 2004 02:38
not if you do it willingly, and you get paid overtime

edit* wow.. i *thought* there were laws against that...

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Oraculaca
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 02:28
Quote: " 12 hours seven days a week. Isn't that against some law?"


someone needs to tell my boss then.
David T
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 02:29
Quote: "not if you do it willingly, and you get paid overtime"


I don't think they get paid overtime.

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OSX Using Happy Dude
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 02:40
And the writer does like the word 'crunch'... Probably reminds them of food.

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Mentor
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 03:10
Quote: "12 hours seven days a week. Isn't that against some law?"


it`s against the laws of common sense, if the people where not so dumb as to fall for this moronic corporate slavedriving and just said s**f u and went home, what could EA do?, find another bunch of asses to take up exactly where they left off?, several of the houses in the industry work like this, and it`s just plain DUMB, all you get is burnt out code junkies who can`t string together a coherent thought, never mind a coherent game, no wonder the modern games are so poor.

if they had half the wits they think they have then they would work 10 hours a day max 5 day weeks, no exceptions, take time off to recharge and step back for a little while, and return to the fray refreshed, I spend ages on the PC by my own admission, but not more than 12 hours weekends and 5 a day during the week, any more and I would need a a mains adaptor to function , pushing people like that is ok until someone decides to treat em like humans and offer decent conditions and wages, then EA get blown out and sit around crying and wondering what drove them to having to stop the expense account lunches they used to enjoy off the backs of their slaves efforts.

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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 03:22
Actually it's against legal laws.
Maxiumum amount of hours you are legally allowed to work is 60hrs per week in Europe and United States.

You may work upto 72hrs within a week, IF you are doing it as a single week overtime. You may not work more than TWO weeks consecutively at that amount of hours.

It's in the Human Labour Laws; I'm sure Philip probably knows more legally in this dept. However after the companies i've worked for, it was a granted interest to know what they could legally push me into working. It is surprising how many people don't actually negotiate thier contracts properly with companies prior to working there.

Before you enter a new company, the working conditions and pay contract is THE most important meeting you will have.


Toby Quan
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 03:33
I found this article to be very interesting indeed! I sure hope that this may do something to change the way EA does their business!

This is what happens when we chase after money.
bitJericho
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 03:37
who knows if it's even true though..

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Ian T
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 03:41
Quote: "it`s against the laws of common sense, if the people where not so dumb as to fall for this moronic corporate slavedriving and just said s**f u and went home, what could EA do?, find another bunch of asses to take up exactly where they left off?,"


If you read the whole article you'd see that yes, that's exactly what they could do .

Quote: "This is what happens when we chase after money."


No, this is what happens when we leave our morals at the door. I don't see this kind of business practices from Ion Storm, Blizzard, Bioware, Bethesda Softworks, etc etc etc...

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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 06:07
Quote: "I don't see this kind of business practices from Ion Storm, Blizzard, Bioware, Bethesda Softworks, etc etc etc..."


Vivendi Universal tried to do it to Blizzard actually 2years ago when they bought out Sierra. Half the staff of Blizzard in Irvine, and San Fransico California walked out and started thier own company.

That company has since gone on to create the amazing Guild Wars.
Another little known fact is that VU is owned by Valve Corporation, but VU owns Valve Software. Makes you wonder what all the currently legal hoohar between them is really about.

Eidos Interactive also tried to do this to Core Design; at which point after 2months of it, the top 5 talent at the company quit. After Eidos forced Co-Owner Jeremy Smith to step down from the company, he got his brother to also quit to start another company and they took 70 (2/3rd) of Core Design.

While big companies can do this, with talented developers moving on to new things fact remains that smaller companies and new guys just can't afford to do this. It isn't a case of selling out to the Publisher, it's more of a case of, they don't want to starve or be homeless.

On the plus side, this does mean alot of larger companies are now up for grabs for new teams of budding developers to work under a household name, where before they wouldn't have been even given a second glance.


the_winch
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 06:51
Quote: "Another little known fact is that VU is owned by Valve Corporation"


Funny valve corporation are absent from this list.
http://www.vivendiuniversal.com/vu/en/group/structure.cfm?idr=6&idsr=14&f=false

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Ilya
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 06:55
Quote: "12 hours seven days a week."

That's 24, 48, 96, 120, 144, 168, 182, 194 hours a week, which is 12 hours more than the ammount of hours in a week.

Anyway, everyone in EA Games should quit and encourage everyone else to not apply for a job there. EA will soon go out of buisnes(and hopefully bankrupt).

Quote: "I've seen the word programming and I'm not sure what it means. Anybody please explain?"


Quote: "We shouldn't sacrifice the truth to preserve "balance"."
empty
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 07:02
Quote: "Funny valve corporation are absent from this list."

...and that Valve and VU still fight a legal battle over things Sierra did years ago.



As for the EA spouse story, that's really tough and quite stupid management wise (unless their future plans have a shelf-life of 14 days)

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Jeku
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 07:47
Quote: " who knows if it's even true though.."


It is.

But when you get hired, you agree (like the article states) to work more than 80 hours a week in crunch time. I don't feel bad for these guys, though. A co-employee of mine got an entire two months off after every project he worked on. That's like 6 more weeks than 99% of the rest of us.

Truth is, if they don't want to work for the largest video game company, they don't HAVE to. They can just as easily get another job programming boring accounting software at a 9-5 job.

Also, what the article doesn't state are all the amazing BENEFITS you get when you work for EA. Their amazing stock plan, their free beer and cake (and beer and pizza) Fridays (every Friday!!), their incredibly generous relaxed break schedules (meaning there are no breaks scheduled--- take breaks whenever you need), fully catered meals, 100% paid for lunches and dinners, free movie passes to huge events (i.e. Harry Potter, LOTR, Matrix, etc., where EA basically rents out 10-plex movie theatres just for the employees), cheap games (any EA game for $20), etc. etc. Now tell me what other company takes such good care of their staff


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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 08:05
Quote: "Funny valve corporation are absent from this list.
http://www.vivendiuniversal.com/vu/en/group/structure.cfm?idr=6&idsr=14&f=false"


lol, did you even read that page. 87% of Share Holders unaccounted for; If there was a majority hold in there, they would own the company.
You only need 50.1% to be majority holder, owning a given company.

Quote: "...and that Valve and VU still fight a legal battle over things Sierra did years ago."


No, the current fight is not about who owns the rights to Half-Life Franchise. While that is still in court, everything about that appears to be back benched. Although the theory is being thrown around this is the reason that HL2 was delayed, there is no proof of this given thier current court case is about Valve not meeting deadlines. So Valve is counter-sueing saying that Vivendi deliberately held back the release of Counter-Strike.

It is weird how some pathetic fight is what is the forground runner and wasting the courts time rather than the one which is worth more that is sitting in a negotiation stand-off.

.Jeku, do you ever remember any real hard work? i mean i remember some very very long days, but none which i'd call hard. don't ever remember getting stressed much.


the_winch
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 09:38 Edited at: 13th Nov 2004 09:39
Quote: "lol, did you even read that page. 87% of Share Holders unaccounted for; If there was a majority hold in there, they would own the company.
You only need 50.1% to be majority holder, owning a given company."


There are 1,071,508,510 shares currently worth ~€20. Where did Valve get the money to buy 50%? To surgest Valve owns such a massive company is insane.

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Ian T
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 09:50
It seems incredibly unlikely to me. Not only that, but once again Raven is the only one to support the theory and has no proof whatsoever. Wait, is this deja vu I'm feeling

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BearCDPOLD
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 09:55
It's nice to have share benefits, but what else is there? What about insurance? Health?

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Ian T
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 10:27
Your health insures your benefits-- there ya go

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empty
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 20:21
Quote: "lol, did you even read that page. 87% of Share Holders unaccounted for; If there was a majority hold in there, they would own the company."

Did you read the headline of that page? Or the maybe the company history?


Quote: "No, the current fight is not about who owns the rights to Half-Life Franchise. While that is still in court, everything about that appears to be back benched. Although the theory is being thrown around this is the reason that HL2 was delayed, there is no proof of this given thier current court case is about Valve not meeting deadlines. So Valve is counter-sueing saying that Vivendi deliberately held back the release of Counter-Strike."

Erm... read this: http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/09/20/news_6107712.html

Would a company sue a company they own? No.
Would company A allow company B to sue them if company A owns company B? No.

Quote: "Jeku, do you ever remember any real hard work? i mean i remember some very very long days, but none which i'd call hard. don't ever remember getting stressed much."

Oh, please...

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Oraculaca
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Posted: 13th Nov 2004 22:03
Quote: "Jeku, do you ever remember any real hard work? i mean i remember some very very long days, but none which i'd call hard. don't ever remember getting stressed much."


Making the coffee and sweeping the floor isnt exactly stressfull though.
Jeku
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Posted: 14th Nov 2004 04:35 Edited at: 14th Nov 2004 04:37
Quote: "It's nice to have share benefits, but what else is there? What about insurance? Health?"


Of course insurance, medical, dental, and the whole 9 yards are included

Quote: "Jeku, do you ever remember any real hard work? i mean i remember some very very long days, but none which i'd call hard. don't ever remember getting stressed much."


That was the good thing about being a contract 'additional programmer'... the fault of a late/bad game never rests on your shoulders. I can't deny that the business is stressful. I mean, it only takes one visit to the developer section of a game company in crunch time to feel the stressful energy..


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Rob K
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Posted: 14th Nov 2004 04:48
I find that if I spend more than four or five hours working on something continuously I start to make very silly mistakes. If employees are forced to work 80+ hours per week for more than a few months, won't that degrade the quality of work to a point where the extra hours are not achieving anything?

The real issue that the EA spouse implied was that the staff were *not* being paid overtime, now that I would consider unfair.


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Ian T
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Posted: 14th Nov 2004 04:52
That is indeed the big deal, (s)he says rather explicity they're being illegaly overworked without overtime or compensation. That's scummy.

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Rob K
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Posted: 14th Nov 2004 04:56
In which case any benefits EA might provide are easily covered by the time that their employees work without payment.


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Jeku
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Posted: 14th Nov 2004 05:01
I find it hard to believe that they aren't paid overtime. I mean, if it's ILLEGAL, which it is, all it takes is a few of EA's thousands of employees to complain to the labour board.


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Ilya
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Posted: 14th Nov 2004 05:23
They don't want to because they'll get fired and fear that they won't find another job.

Would I get anywhere if I had an indy game-dev buissness(and I was good at making games)?

Quote: "I've seen the word programming and I'm not sure what it means. Anybody please explain?"


Quote: "We shouldn't sacrifice the truth to preserve "balance"."
Peter H
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Posted: 14th Nov 2004 05:52
Quote: "Quote: "12 hours seven days a week."
That's 24, 48, 96, 120, 144, 168, 182, 194 hours a week, which is 12 hours more than the ammount of hours in a week.
"

did anybody else find this amusing???

there are 168 hours in a week...not 182..(which is 12 less then 194...like he said)

also 12 hours a day seven days a week does not add up to 194..it adds up to 84 (12,24,36,48,60,72,84)

i have no idea where you pulled out those numbers

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Ian T
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Posted: 14th Nov 2004 06:22
I know, he skipped 36 along with that error...

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Andy Igoe
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Posted: 14th Nov 2004 08:04
Quote: "(any EA game for $20)"

You have to pay for your own firms games? Holy cow. Isn't that like saying... we'll pay you to make this for us, then sell it back to you for a profit.

Mind you EA are not the only ones, i've not many friends in the business but the few guys I know work a lot longer than 12 hours a day - especially before the xmas deadlines.

A LOT longer than 12 hours...


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Ilya
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Posted: 14th Nov 2004 08:10 Edited at: 14th Nov 2004 08:11
Quote: "did anybody else find this amusing???

there are 168 hours in a week...not 182..(which is 12 less then 194...like he said)

also 12 hours a day seven days a week does not add up to 194..it adds up to 84 (12,24,36,48,60,72,84)

i have no idea where you pulled out those numbers "



Quote: "12 hours seven days a week."

24x7=168(I counted in my head last time)
168+12=180
180<168(hours in a week)

Quote: "12 hours a day seven days a week."

It said
Quote: "12 hours seven days a week."


Quote: "I've seen the word programming and I'm not sure what it means. Anybody please explain?"


Quote: "We shouldn't sacrifice the truth to preserve "balance"."
Jeku
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Posted: 14th Nov 2004 09:55
Quote: "we'll pay you to make this for us, then sell it back to you for a profit."


The profit there is next to nothing. Publishers pay approximately $8-10 per game to the console company, and they have to pay for licensing, media, production, etc.

But if we work on a game, we get that game for free. It's not like they'll charge us for a game that we worked on


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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 14th Nov 2004 11:15
Microsoft's employee schemes are better... just a pitty the Medical isn't. I mean, like the employee shop; you can get alot of things for postage.
Like Windows XP Professional, set me back $10 (£6.20); Also get free access to Beta materials; which is sweet.

I still don't ever really recall being stressed at EA. Even on the weeks i'd fly between LA and LV trying to sort out pipeline problems, which is never a happy task. Was never really felt like i was being pressured or pushed to work at a quicker pace.
So like I'd come home and just drop, but not come home in a pissy mood or anything.

But then again, maybe it was because the Studio i was working for.


Jeku
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Posted: 14th Nov 2004 17:44
Raven - Cool, you worked at EA too? Which games?


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Van B
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Posted: 15th Nov 2004 20:19
I think the hours put a lot of people off persuing a career in the industry, I mean I'd love to work as a level designer/scripter or something for Rockstar North, which is not beyond the realm of possibility, but there's no way I'm commuting to Edinburgh everyday for an hour on top of 12 hour days. I like my job just now, 8 til 4:30 every day, I work the occasional weekend when I fancy a bit of extra cash. It's not that I don't have a lot of late projects, it's just that I'm the only coder, and if they can't be patient then they better get some practice at being annoyed . It's all a matter of leverage.

I would'nt like to work for a company that did'nt value it's employees, it seems your just a disposable commodity in the games industry - gimme mind numbing databases anyday!.


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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 16th Nov 2004 00:40
My best friend works for Ensemble Studios (Age of Empires games) which is owned by Microsoft. He has also worked at a couple of lesser known places in the game industry. They often work crazy hours, like the ones mentioned above. They do not get paid overtime. It isn't illegal. It is a salary position, not an hourly one.
I've been to his office. Trust me, they have their perks. The employees are well taken care of. As mentioned earlier, if a person dosn't like the hours, then go find another job. Someone else will gladly take their place.

Raven,
While Microsoft employees do receive HUGE discounts on the software, it is still more than just the shipping. I buy all of my Microsoft stuff through my friend. Normally, it works out to be about 10% of the shelf price.

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Posted: 16th Nov 2004 01:57
Quote: "I find it hard to believe that they aren't paid overtime. I mean, if it's ILLEGAL, which it is, all it takes is a few of EA's thousands of employees to complain to the labour board."


It's not illegal when you sign contracts to agree to it. It's also not indicative of EA as a whole company, but rather of that one (albeit very large) office. There are EA offices all over the world.

And to be honest - sod the perks, if you cannot get home at a reasonable hour to be with your wife/family it's not worth all the beer/pizza/movie tickets in the world. That is why EA have such a monstrous turn-over rate of employees.

It is common practise throughout the industry, I've friends who work for games companies all over the world and not one of them couldn't sympathise with the crunch periods described - not to the same extent, but not too far off either.

Read some of the 1500 or so comments on the entry, especially those from other EA (and ex-EA staff) and you'll see it's far from out of the ordinary. If you can't handle it, then leave - that is the typical response.

One day there will be a programmers union, then publishers like this will be SOOL.

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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 16th Nov 2004 02:30
Quote: "One day there will be a programmers union, then publishers like this will be SOOL."


Actually, it won't be too long before you have to move to India (and get paid crap) to find a programming job. I doubt we'll ever see any kind of union. If so, that is even more reason for companies to outsource.

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Posted: 16th Nov 2004 02:51 Edited at: 16th Nov 2004 02:53
Two of my friends worked on the engine for the Gothci series. They were allowed to do a lot of work at home since they lived over 200 miles away. For certain periods of time and close to release the release date the company paid a cheap apartment on site. They didn't like the city too much (Essen, Germany) so I don't think they had problems with overtimes as they had nothing better to do there anyway . They weren't employed by the company, though. They exclusively licensed the engine to them.


Quote: " Raven - Cool, you worked at EA too? Which games?"

Nope, he didn't.

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