More on EA Labor Complaints (November 24, 2004)

[ChrisReid]

We reported a few weeks ago that a number of Electronic Arts employees were seeking some sort of suit against the company for extensive overtime and rough working conditions. The New York Times has weighed in on the story.

Still, the company is a generous warden: free laundry service, free meals, free ice cream and snacks. The first month, the E.A. employee recalled, he and his colleagues were delighted by the amenities. But he said they soon came to feel that seeing the sun occasionally would have had more of a tonic effect.

This employee, who has not had a single day off in two months, is experienced in the game software business. But he said he had never before had to endure a death-march pace that begins many months before the beta testing phase that precedes the release of a project.

The article also notes that this isn't limited to Electronic Arts or the software industry. EA, as the biggest game publisher, is the most noticeable, but other software companies have similar practices. The relatively high wages compared to non tech jobs are probably most appealing, and others seem to genuinely care about the games they are developing. This will probably be a developing story as the software industry continues to mature. You can find the complete article here.

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Original update published on November 24, 2004

 

[Worf]

Actually, it's really only limited to game companies. A lot of software companies don't make their developers under such time pressures, but they're almost always outside the game industry - either application development, or bespoke (custom) software development. While there may be crunch periods, they tend to be easily seen and accounted for ahead of time. And usually, if run right, a relative rarity. Plus management knows that pushing people to do excessive OT results in more problems (health, bugs, etc), so they'd rather not do it.

The reason EA and other companies get away with it is because at one time or another, we all wanted a job that involved games, either because we like to play games, or just want to one-up our parents by making a living doing something with games. So, demand of people willing to work in the games industry is huge, compared to supply of gaming jobs. Heck, a job where one sits in front of a computer, or a TV playing games (games yet to be released, at that!) all day sounds ideal as a summer job to a high school student. (QA jobs aren't so glamourous - they're really much more boring, where you "play" by running into walls all day. All this for pay that's a couple of dollars more than minimum wage, 60 hours required workweeks, and bug quotas.) Developers are equally under such pressures - and a number of things in games is highly similar to previous projects (i.e., rapidly boring coding). EA offers such benefits as laundry and pool tables, etc. as perks to attract new developers. They end up not costing the company any money compared to all the unpaid overtime. (And yes, it is unpaid. There may be laws against it, but EA has done enough legal maneuvering such that the developers are exempt.)

As for high wages - well, true. I can't compete with an EA person making $60k a year, but if they're pulling 60-80 hour workweeks, I'd take my current pay with my 40 hour workweek. And when calculated, that high salary over 80 hours isn't that remarkable - there are often other software jobs, or even technical jobs that pay more.

And for those that care for the games, they do exist, I admit. Too bad there aren't enough of them, honestly enough. And even the most passionate have their limits (i.e., "easily exploited").

Though, I don't get what's the big surprise about all this - it wasn't exactly a secret of the working conditions of EA or other game companies. Or the fact that people usually turn over quite rapidly. Maybe it shatters some idealistic view, but it wasn't exactly a well-kept secret. (OTOH, maybe I was just informed - I had a meeting with some friends, one of whom worked at EA, and they all acted as if he had a dream job. Of course, it was co-op, so maybe they treat interns right to hook others upon graduation?)

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I don't know about this. On one hand, I feel bad for people with families who suffer through this kind of work.

On the other hand, I know plenty of people who work for EA specifically *because* they love this culture... I'm certainly part of that tiny demographic who grew up thinking the little developer anectdotes in the Armada Playtesters Guide were incredibly exciting.

It's also true that EA is a 'right of passage' rather than a career in the gaming industry. You sign on with EA (remember all the talk of 'Origin University'?) because they're willing to try and train untested developers who can use those skills and that credential somewhere less stable.

Even further, gaming as an industry is a tiny, tiny portion of software development... people fight to get into this particular part of the industry because it's so romantic, not because it's well paid or stable. It's being Indiana Jones when everybody else is a regular archaeologist putting together databases and server side whatevers.

 

[criticalmass]

We--ell, I must be doing something wrong, although I'm only working in the well-structured and highly stable waters of the industrial software development area...

Somehow, the Y2k "problem" snuck up; then the Euro, then the market deterioration and consolidation fury (ever merged general ledgers of 3 international companies? Boring, but boring), now everybody hat to replace hardware & software leases (because everybody got the shiny new stuff for y2k), and just now we're going back from globalization to regionalization - and everything always needs to be done before the financial year closure.

It seems that it's globally the same for IT companies - they suck up talent, dangle the carrot of training, freebies and stuff, and use resources until they're dry. This story wouldn't even have made the press, because everyone knows how this is in the big three-letter corporations out there. It's just this discrepancy that makes the story newsworthy: "Ooooh, look, those guys want to make money too, so the thing about ice cream and badminton courts is just facade!"

Sorry for the rant, but it should be somewhat clear that if you work as a coder, QA tester or consultant you're in for tight timelines, long hours and not seeing the sun for a prolonged stretch of time.

....actually, that's just the thing that drew me to the WC games: The fate of its characters is just so similar to real life

[edit: dark mood tends to spawn typos. Surgeon General's Warning.]

 

[Quarto]

Yep, I tend to agree with LOAF on this one - these things are not always what they seem.

I'd certainly love to work for EA for a while, even under these conditions. When you're trying to first break into the industry (which is the stage I'm at), you're caught in the same kind of catch-22 paradox that all these high-tech jobs have in common - everybody wants you to have experience, and you can't have experience because nobody wants to hire you without experience. EA, who hires so many fresh people every year, offers a way out of that dilemma. If I had a job offer from EA at this point, having read this article, would I turn it down? Hell no.



By the way, here's something to think about for anyone that, after reading this article, might be tempted to suggest that work hours and wages should be regulated within the games industry - if you had the choice of a well-paid job, and a badly-paid job, which would you choose? No question about it. So if somebody chooses a badly-paid job, why do you think they do it? Answer - because they haven't been offered a well-paid job, and a badly-paid job is better than no job at all. Ergo, there is no such thing as an unfair or exploitative job - people choose their jobs of their own free will. What happens when you start regulating jobs? You raise employment costs (because, amazingly enough, it costs more to pay someone $10 per hour than it does to pay him $5 per hour), thus forcing employers to fire people (who, even if they hated their jobs, were working of their own free will). So, who are you really helping?