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EA Spouse Outed

Posted by Zonk on Thu Apr 27, 2006 08:35 AM
from the hope-someone-still-has-their-job dept.
Entertainment Games
patio11 writes "EA Spouse, who sparked a revolution (or, at least, a wave of lawsuits and promises for improvement) in the game development industry with a blog post decrying labor practices at Electronics Arts, was outed as Erin Hoffman in a Mercury News article. She and then-fiance, now-husband Leander Hasty were plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits against EA and continue to develop games and be activists for better working conditions for game developers." From the article: "More than a year later, game developers have won settlements in three class-action lawsuits alleging EA created exhausting work schedules without paying overtime and successfully pressed employers to ease unrelenting workloads. And EA Spouse, whose true identity has been cloaked until now, is becoming a voice against America's culture of overwork."
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Related Stories

[+] EA Games: The Human Story 1143 comments
An anonymous reader writes "An Electronic Arts employee spouse speaks out against company crunch time practices. From the post: "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?"
[+] EA_Spouse Forum Becoming Thriving Community 65 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Kotaku has a story about the EA_Spouse Live Journal, which has become its own community of sorts, fostering endless rumors and gossip about EA culture. The site has more than 3,500 replies to the original diatribe post and grows daily. The latest finds include a link to an NPR story on the whole EA fiasco (the NPR reporter trolled the board for interviews) and copies of the contracts for Senior Vice President of Human Resources Rusty Rueff and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial & Administration Officer Warren Jenson. When is a T-shirt coming out?"
[+] Developers: EA Spouse Posts Plans for Watchdog Organ 87 comments
Jaero writes "The Spouse has a followup post to her "EA: The Human Story" from over a month ago. Not only was it nominated for a Best Software Essay of 2004, but she has revealed plans to start an independent industry watchdog organization called GameWatch.org, meant to monitor the quality of life in the game development world. Anyone will be able to post their story, as well as design the logo (a contest which lasts until January 15th)."
[+] Your Rights Online: EA Settles Overtime Lawsuit 54 comments
Heffenfeffer writes "Gamasutra reports that Electronic Arts is settling their class action suit with their programmers to the tune of $14.9 million. It also turns out that one of the named plaintiffs of said lawsuit was the spouse of the formerly anonymous blogger "ea_spouse" who wrote a scathing commentary on EA over a year ago which may have formed the basis of this suit."
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  • Company details are very interesting (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cliffski (65094) on Thursday April 27 2006, @08:42AM (#15211612) Homepage
    Whats interesting here is the guy used to work at taldren, who as I recall made Starfleet Command, and then went to work on Battle For Middle earth for EA.
    SFC was seriously good, and BFME sucked big ones. So it seems clear even if it was not already obvious that working people to death WILL result in substandard dross games, even if they obviously have the talent.
    Sadly BFME probably made mroe money, so the suits at EA who probably dont even like games dont give a damn.
    Thank god I left that stupid industry to work as an indie.

    • Re:Company details are very interesting (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mwvdlee (775178) on Thursday April 27 2006, @08:48AM (#15211662) Homepage
      Well duh; if you're already working 7x13, would you still care about working the extra time to make it anything better than the worst quality you can get away with without getting fired?
    • You might even question if EA cares about making anything other than 'dross' games. People seem happy to continually buy their products, regardless of the quality. If they don't have a compelling financial reason to change their ways, then they won't. You can't really count on consumers to make a difference because enough of them probably don't care or even notice the difference.

  • Is this the root of EA's problems? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GundamFan (848341) on Thursday April 27 2006, @08:52AM (#15211692)
    Sleep deprived cranky game developers can't possibly be very creative, can they?

    Also unrealistic deadlines have a negitave effect on creativity.
    EA is a victim of it's size... they have a huge pressure to be sucessfull so huge in fact that they lose sight of what really makes games (and all art) great.

    Great inventive games do not always sell a lot of copies and that is the real crime here... EA wouldn't make crap if people didn't buy crap and then complain about it (but not return it because the big chains have made quality of product not a reason for a refund... but that is a diffrent rant.)

    Demand quality and don't settle for buggy incomplete games and this "problem" of overworked developers might just solve itself... or at least save gameing from a slow painfull death.
    • More likely it is stupid management, who at the same time don't treat their employees well, and make stupid decisions about what to design and spend time on.
        • EA is not the same company it was when it started. EA got big back when it had different management and it was treating it's programmers like rockstars. I can tell you who Dan Bunten and Paul Reiche III are. Heck, their pictures were on the box covers. I can't tell you who the current anonymous drones grimly pushing out mostly mediocre titles on their permanent deathmarches are.

          After it got big, it stayed big for a while, and then at some point things changed. That would be in the 90's when Madden st

    • Sleep deprived cranky game developers can't possibly be very creative, can they?

      Nah, artists always work best when they're coddled, fat, and happy. Oh, wait ...

      Just kidding, although I do think that sometimes a deadline is the kick in the pants that's sometimes needed for people to produce their best work, there's no excuse to just abuse your people continually. You can only maintain that kind of increased tempo for a certain amount of time, before it just becomes fatiguing and output quality is going to dr
      • re: "big push" with fondness, yeah, me too... but not during my time at EA.

        there, the "big push" started 6 months ahead of projected ship date.

        if you figure on 6 months of "big push" as part of the scheduling, you're either incompetent or corrupt. or both.
      • I thought about that while I was typing my message here is what I think... I think there are two types of creativity here the ability to do great things with small resources, or the ablity to freely create. When being icreative in the first way I think most people think "how can I accomplish my goals with what I have" and "what goals can I change to meet my situation". With more free creativity you end up with less compromising over goals but also less progress over time. What really is needed is a good b

  • Right on! (Score:5, Funny)

    by MyLongNickName (822545) on Thursday April 27 2006, @09:01AM (#15211765) Journal
    ...has been cloaked until now, is becoming a voice against America's culture of overwork....

    I, for one, am tired of this culture of overwork in America. Occassionally I have to close my browser and answer a phone call. This is intruding into my social life entirely too much.
  • It shouldnt be a surprise that if you want people to work longer than a 40-hour week but you don't pay them for overtime, that you will get an inferior result. What exactly is the employee's motivation other than termination? That's like a prison mentality, 'either break these rocks or we beat the crap out of you. Once you're done breaking the rocks, we'll beat the crap out of you.' Not much to look forward to except a delay of additional punishment in terms of more longer hours in the future.

    Eventually people will favor creativity, and people like me will 'herd the cats' and make some sweet games. Until then, have fun with John Madden 20XX!

  • entitlement (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JavaLord (680960) on Thursday April 27 2006, @09:19AM (#15211917) Journal
    is becoming a voice against America's culture of overwork."

    As opposed to the culture of entitlement in most european countries?
      • The only thing anyone is entitled to in this world is an ass-kicking from Ricky Kang. Everything else is a privilege.

        -Eric

      • Explain why you are "entitled" to reasonable work hours? You aren't even "entitled" to a job. There is nothing, at least in the U.S. Constitution, that says you are entitled to a job. A job is a contract. You are free to negotiate the terms of that contract. You are also free to find another job if you no longer like the terms of that contract. Furthermore, define reasonable. Is it reasonable to work a 14 hour day because a server has crashed and must be up again by tomorrow or the company loses millions? T

        • You aren't even "entitled" to a job. There is nothing, at least in the U.S. Constitution, that says you are entitled to a job.

          I didn't say you were entitled to a job. I said that being employed by a company doesn't give them the right to exploit you, one form of which could be making you work unreasonable hours.

          A job is a contract. You are free to negotiate the terms of that contract.

          There are certain rights you can't sign away.

          Furthermore, define reasonable.

          I don't have to. It's a represe

          • I'm all for getting rid of minimum wage. You still didn't address my original points. Who says you're supposed to work non-stop until you die? You aren't being FORCED to do it. You have freedom and choice (for now anyway).

          • Ah - it's the old Laissez faire...

            I make no pretenses about my politics =)

            I honestly believe that the federal government should stick to its constitutionally defined role. The problem is, and I'll be the first to admit this, everyone has a different interpretation of what is defined as "the common good".

            Interestingly enough, I would think many "slashdotters" would agree with the whole idea. I mean we bitch and moan when someone lumps all gamers together or all linux people together or all people together.

            B

      • Re:entitlement (Score:4, Interesting)

        by corbettw (214229) <corbettw@@@yahoo...com> on Thursday April 27 2006, @11:38AM (#15213327) Homepage Journal
        Yeah, except that Europeans tend to be more productive per hour than Americans.

        Really? According to the CIA World Fact Book, the US has a GDP of $12,410,000,000,000, compared to Europe's $12,180,000,000,000 (all figures in US dollars). Contrast that with Europe's population of 456,953,258 against the US's 298,444,215. That gives the us a per capital product of $41,582.31 against Europe's $26,654.81. So far it looks like the US is more productive.

        Let's look closer. The European Union has a labor force of 218,500,000, compared to the US's 149,300,000. Leaving out the unemployment rates for each group (9.4% vs. 5.1%), we're left with 197,961,000 workers in Europe compared to 141,685,700 in the US. We'll leave that for a moment.

        According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workweek [wikipedia.org], which sites a spreadsheet from OECD, workers in the US work an average of 1777 hours per year. Taking the average of the EU member states (the spreadsheet only lists individual countries), we get 1576.33 hours per year.

        So, the US has a total of 251,775,488,900 work-hours per year, giving an average of $49.29 gross product per work hour. Europe has 312,051,863,130 work-hours per year, giving an average of $39.03 per work hour.

        I'm sorry, who's more productive did you say?

        • "Euroland's underlying economic performance is better than many commentators portray. Over the past decade, GDP per head has risen virtually at the same rate in euroland as the United States; euroland productivity growth (output per hour) and the rise in the employment rates were slightly faster than in the United States; and to maintain the same growth in GDP per head, U.S. workers have had to work much longer hours than their euroland counterparts." -- Kevin Daly, Goldman Sachs, January 2004

          • Unfortunately, I don't have the time to look into the growth rates of the respective countries. But with the US having a 26% lead on productivity, it'll be some time before Europe is able to compete in any meaningful way. I'd also be interested in how many new businesses (net) each locale creates each year. My gut says the US creates more, but I have no idea how many more.

            • The Conference Board, a respected US business pressure group, estimated this downward adjustment shaves 1.5% off the consumer price index every year and therefore reduces its inflation rate by that amount. But the inflation rate is deducted from the nominal gross domestic product numbers to give the real increase in GDP. If the inflation rate is understated by 1.5% compared with how other countries measure the same data, it follows that America's growth rate is claimed to be 1.5% higher than it is in re

        • I've heard other (European? Japanese?) workers are more productive per hour then America's so often that it's sort of become an ingrained assumption for me. However, I find your numbers persuasive. I think the difference is that your numbers are for the whole economy and specific studies are done in, say, the auto industry or something.

          If both you and the studies I've heard are correct, it would seem Americans choose to work in more productive fields, on average.

          I'm not an economist - but the people I've
  • She and then-fiance, now-husband

    So doesn't that mean that, at the time, EA Spouse was in fact not a spouse?

  • And EA Spouse, whose true identity has been cloaked until now, is becoming a voice against America's culture of overwork." Does America really have a culture of overwork, compared to other countries? Sure, we may work harder then Brazil or France or something, but India, China, Japan, Korea, alot of places like that are kicking our ass because we tend towards laziness.
    • ...India, China, Japan, Korea, alot of places like that are kicking our ass because we tend towards laziness.

      I don't believe Japan has kicked our ass (in the automotive and electronics industries) due to our laziness. They kick our ass because they embrace and extend...they didn't invent the automobile, but they sure as heck figured out how to make a higher quality, more reliable version for about the same price or only slightly more than the USian model.

      China isn't kicking our ass because we're lazy.

  • ...a voice against America's culture of overwork.

    In other words, a voice working hard to make sure we're as much like Europe--with half the productivity and none of the job growth of the U.S.A.

    You don't wanna work lots of hours, then go get a job where you don't have to work lots of hours.

    Sheesh.

  • Americans work long hours (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature (593017) on Thursday April 27 2006, @05:36PM (#15216588) Journal
    It is their way of life. Are they right? Well it all depends on what you use as measurement and how you measure it.

    Some very silly people use money as a measurement forgetting totally that money does not have the same value. 1 dollar in say New York has a totally different value then 1 dollar in say Greece. Hell everyone knows this is even true in far small areas like say New York vs Hicksville.

    So any comparison between the money produced by either economy is silly. Even more if you realise that even in europe working hour practices are different. The brits for instance lean far more to american working hours.

    So who is right?

    Funny thing but one of those wise lessons from american sitcoms/dramas is that nobody on their death bed ever regretted not having spend more time in the office.

    If you do not live to work then surely the only sensible number of hours to work is the amount you need to be able to afford to live right?

    So how much do you need to live? This can get very funny. It starts simple. Cheap supermarkets are open from 8 to 8 in Holland. (Can't say for the rest of the world so don't attack me for that). There are a few that stay open later but they typically charge more and only carry the brand names (wich are more expensive) and don't have sales. The cheapest places to get food however is the market wich opens officially at 8 but is usually closing as early as 16:00.

    So now you get the following effect. If your unemployed you got the least amount of money BUT have the time to shop at the cheapest place, the market. If you got a 40 hour 8-5 job the market is out so you need to shop at the regular but slightly more expensive supermarket. More money but your also spending more on food. Now if you work longer hours and can't make the regular opening hours you need the special stores at train stations. More money offcourse in salary but your food expenses shoot up. Work even more and you won't even have time to cook and eating in restaurants or takeaway really becomes fucking expensive.

    Kids follow a similar pattern. The more you work, the more you make but also the more you spend on childcare. I had one co-worker who flatly refused to work on a friday (4 day contract) unless the company paid him double since that was his day to take care of the kid and if he worked on friday his entire salery would go to childcare meaning he effectlivly worked for nothing AND missed out on spending time with his child.

    Same with other stuff. You can eat better cheaper and healthier if you can shop for fresh food every day. Don't have the time? Pay more AND pay for a huge fridge and the electricity.

    The above is not just crap made up by some slashdot idiot. The effect that being going from unemployed to employed while leading to an increase in salary actually ends up with the person having less money is a big problem for countries with a decent social security system.

    Some of you may even have experienced the effect of a promotion and payment increase actually ending up with you having less "free" money because all of sudden you need to buy rounds not of beer but whiskey or wear real suits or chip in for golf clubs instead of mousemat birthday gifts.

    Whenever I see someone defend a 80 hour workweek because they are more productive I don't even bother with trying to reason that such a person will be too tired at work to do a decent job. I just wonder how that person finds enough free time to actually have some fun. Congrats that you earn twice as much as me. I will be sure to envy you while I am sitting with my feet up in the sun after a short day at work.

    • Work hard, millions on welfare [progress.org] are depending on you!
      • Hey, not all those millions on welfare even want jobs. Many are deadbeats or drug addicts. Just because the welfare system in this country is a little broken is no reason to take it out on the rest of us who aren't afraid to work for a livin'.
        • That's sort of his back handed point. It's a play on words, the statement is implying that you have to work hard so the government can tax you more and redistribute those taxes to welfare recipients who may well be able bodied but prefer life on the government teat. My favorite version is, "The governement that robs Peter to pay Paul... can always depend on the support of Paul."
          • I know someone on welfare who is brilliant and would love to have a job instead.

            Unfortunately, she is legally unable to look for a job as long as she's on welfare. She can't go off of it to look for a job because some necessary medication she takes is hundreds or thousands of dollars a month, and even if she did get a full-time job that had medical insurance, a lot of places make you wait awhile before you're covered. It's a catch-22.

            I'm sure it's always worth a laugh for some people to take cheap shots at
            • I think most people would rather have a job, humans are wired to appreciate accomplishments and pretty much need to have a useful task (the Nazis did experments in the death camps and within weeks of being given an obviously pointless job all the particpants had killed themsselves). I do tire of the rolling out of the relativly rare heartbreaking stories when by all accounts I've seen the majority are not nearly as provacative (case workers and auditors have a ton of cases that are sad because there is no
    • So it will be awhile before we're like the Europeans.

      We don't want to be like the Europeans. Generally speaking, the US produces far more and creates much more wealth than most European countries. This is not only good for the economy as a whole, but it's also a good way to increase personal income [finfacts.com] and purchasing power. Europe knows this, and thus countries like France [cbsnews.com] are starting to repeal some of their Draconian employee protection laws.

      The problem in the US is that some employers abuse the strong work ethic. They only see graphs that say More Work == More Profit without properly understanding how things like employee exhaustion and low morale impact their bottom line. They also fail to understand that far more work can be produced by improving working conditions and morale rather than demanding slave hours. Unfortunately, many employees are reticent to change jobs during times of economic uncertainty, and they're also cautious about bringing suits against their employer. Thus some (not all) employers get away with it for a time. However, it can't last, and employers end up shooting themselves in the foot long-term.
      • This is not only good for the economy as a whole, but it's also a good way to increase personal income and purchasing power.

        Absolutely - when I was over in the USA the other week, I found my effective personal income and purchasing power was greatly increased by the sorry state of the Dollar compared with the Euro.

        So please, carry on! I have my eye on a rather nice telephoto lens to complement the one I bought last week, and the reduction is price is brilliant! :-)
        • I found my effective personal income and purchasing power was greatly increased by the sorry state of the Dollar compared with the Euro.

          Putting aside the remark about the "sorry state" of the dollar (it's only a 1.2:1 ratio for the Euro, yeash), the lower value of the dollar is intended for exactly what you're using it for: Encouraging US production and foreign purchases. Thus your money is going into US pockets instead of European pockets. Which is good for the US at the moment, and very, very bad for the
      • "We don't want to be like the Europeans"

        Speak for yourself.
      • No, I'd say the problem in the US is that so many people think that "creat[ing] wealth", "increas[ing] personal income and purchasing power", and whatever may be declared "good for the economy as a whole" this week are the keys to happiness or that they are inherently good for some other reason. And I suppose that belief may be justified from a purely materialistic, "whoever dies with the most toys wins", perspective.

        But some of us disagree and would rather have our time than more money. Personally, I've
          • Most Americans don't really believe in capitalism anyway. I'll give you an example. I'm tired of my current job, and I've saved up enough to buy a Lincoln Towncar [lincoln.com]. "Ok," I think, "I'll quit my job, and I'll charge people for rides to various places in my brand new Lincoln Towncar. I'll keep my current beater for personal driving."

            Eeeerk! "I'm sorry, " says average American, "You can't do that. In fact, we've passed laws against it."

            "But why," I ask, "I have a perfect driving record!"

            "Well, " say

      • "We don't want to be like the Europeans. Generally speaking, the US produces far more and creates much more wealth than most European countries."

        Since when was my main goal in life declared to be wealth creation, instead of something a bit more hedonistic and less puritan?

        I mean, if you want no vacation time a year, go ahead. I'd much rather have a couple months of paid vacation to work on my hobbies and ideas. Google seems to understand, with their hobby Friday model.
        • The people who work for the likes of EA don't create wealth. The people who work extremely hard because they want to create wealth. So much wealth, that new businesses pop up every day, giving people jobs they enjoy. And if you invest right, you can find yourself in a situation of managing wealth instead of creating it. i.e. Your wealth can literally maintain your income through its mere existence. This is what most people strive toward. Granted, most don't know how to get there, but a rather large percenta
    • The UK is basically the same. Work at any ad/web/print agency and you're subjected to endless long hours too. That's why I do contract... so I can at least *charge* for the stupid hours :-)
    • Japan, USA, and Canada are notorious for having some of the longest workweeks and shortest vacations in the world. (Coincidentally?) These are also the homes of the most and largest video game studios. Just because one particular industry has its own trends, doesn't mean it's right. Overtime deserves extra pay, and hard work deserves vacation.
    • By many standards, Japan has a very dysfunctional society. It isn't an example to be emulated.

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