EA Games: The Human Story

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?"

sleep?

[unbiasedbystander]

What is SLEEP? Is that a new programming language? Does anybody have a link where I could look up some SLEEP resources, so I can get ahead of the game?

EA's response to this story...

[DragonPup]

...would probably be something like this [despair.com]

good lord

[Sophrosyne]

yet another reason not to get married.

Can't stand the heat?

[RasendeRutje]

What's that saying?
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Maybe Mr. Moan should seek a job a MSFT. Where deadlines and quality seems non-existent?

Re:WHAAAAAA!

[richy freeway]

It's a copy of the article numbnuts.

Play games at hom

[pranay]

I know atleast one profession now, where people don't go home and play video games to relax. It must feel like they were putting overtime :O

Re:Two solutions

[cbiffle]

...fail to see how these working conditions are at all opressive.

Libertarian, huh?

Re:Illegal

[shawn(at)fsu]

I can't say I've heard of that before. This guy is apparently salary the salary was right, I'm a developer who's salary and it's never been a question of do you want to work extra to meet this deadline, it's a matter of you will work as long as it takes. Which in all honesty is fine with me, I don't think you can stumble in to the development business with out knowing your going to be working insane hours more often than not. I knew this back in high school. If I wanted a normal 9 to 5 paid hourly job I would defiantly looked some where else. Notice the dev isn't writting the article, the spouce is.

Then again the Dev could be having an affair and just lying about working late...

Re:Game industry

[Dark-Arbiter]

Care to guess at the ratio actors get paid for their time vs programmers? Ha!

Re:Play games at hom

[PhreakMac]

You know whats really bad?

I have been working 70 - 80+ hours a week (178 hrs in 13 days last time I counted ) playing video games ( Game tester at Activision ) and I still go home and play GTA!

Re:I value time with my family way too much...

[Meostro]

Advice: save save save your pennies. There is no value that you can put on a year's salary in the bank (aka a Fuck You fund.)

I can put a value on "a year's salary in the bank"... it's called a year's salary.

Re:Game industry

[0123456]

"I don't hear actors complaining very often about their long hours."

It's hard to complain when you're getting paid $20 million for six weeks work with all the free beer, coke and hookers you can handle...

Re:WHAAAAAA!

[telstar]

"You did exactly what I would do, if I hated my job... you quit."

• What country do you live in? Here we SUE!

Let me get this straight....

[ZoneGray]

Let me see if I understand this right. This anonymous woman is complaining that her husband is "working late at the office" too much?

I mean, just becasue she believes him doesn't mean we have to.

Re:This is why there are unions.

[k4_pacific]

I knew a programmer who did data mining. He died from pneumohexidecimosis, commonly known as bitlung.

Re:80 hours?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude - hate to spoil it here for you people. But some people (such as myself) work well more than 100 hours a week, sometimes 36 hours at a stretch straigh, with no break, and people's lives in our hands. And I make about 39 grand a year before taxes.

I realize that your pizza-delivery job might seem to be a life-or-death struggle, but it really isn't. Take some time off.

Re:Mod Parent Up!

[RealErmine]

A German shepherd could figure out what's happening to this organization.

Is the German shepherd available?

-EA Management

Re:Why Can They Do This???

[chrish]

"You're not a team player, I'm writing you up."

Or, if your contract says you can be fired at any time, "You're not a team player, you're fired."

Or, "Um, yeah... I'm going to need you to go right ahead and move your desk down to Storage Room B..."

Re:WHAAAAAA!

[rossjp]

I have an interview with EA next Thursday. I can't wait to see the look in their eyes when I pull this one out on them. You want to work 12 hours a day for 7 days a week, get paid a minimal salary, and then be "turned-over" after 2 years...I'll point them to your alias.

Re:All for a freaking GAME???

[Star Stealing Girl]

c) serves no real purpose other than consumers' temporary entertainment

Actually the purpose it serves to make money for EA. A consumer's temporary entertainment seems to be a by-product lately...

I've been very unfulfilled by my jobs in the IT industry and I'm getting out to pursue a career in medicine.

Re:As a former EA coder, let me say....

[LightningBolt!]

One of the funniest emails I have ever received was when I worked at EA Redwood Shores. Someone in HR or something would (annoyingly) send out an email every Friday to everyone @ EARS with the subject line "Weekend Weather", containing a local weather report for the weekend, presumably so people could plan their camping trips, etc. One day, someone replied (to all)...

Subject: "Re: Weekend Weather"

What's a weekend?