NYT on EA Games 651
The New York Times has a story investigating the EA Games accusations that we reported on before. They use the phrase "toiling like galley slaves" to describe EA's programmers, and note that EA has a formal policy of hiring young, naive people who are willing to work long hours for low pay.
most companies? (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't that how most large companies work?
how is that different from other companies (Score:2, Insightful)
Surprise Surprise (Score:1, Insightful)
Come on, this is the gaming industry. It's like that EVERYWHERE. The young are easily coerced into working longer than their more mature counterparts would be.
IMO attention needs to be paid to this, but with the government's complete hatred of unions and workers rights, somehow I don't see anybody even telling the corporations off.
Whatever (Score:1, Insightful)
As an IT Guru (Score:5, Insightful)
The *ONLY* thing that keeps me from working even more insane hours is to adjust my billing rate - and that is almost a catch-22 - surely to limit my hours but surely to get me replaced in the long run.
I do Oracle financials, database and applicaiton server stuff. Its not just gamers, but "IT" in and of itself.
Part of my issue is the H1-B workers don't have family here or bust there arses off to get enough money to go back home and retire early, so they don't have many qualms about the workfload.
I don't see it as differences of trying to be a lazy american as much as other corp heads see it, i just see it as i'm busting my arse off to have a family life at home.. you know, pay my bills, buy my family dinner, pay my mortgage and have some cash left over to entertain and put my daughter through college.
So please, NYTIMES, keep it up. Do your investigative research even further. Don't pull a fox/cnn/cbs/nbc news report and have it end at that - show the world what gets taken forgranted and show the world that us supposed "white collars" aren't necessarily all living it up high and dry doing nothing but pointing fingers like many assume.
What really disgusts me is that people get treated like this and there is no "thanks". Work late hours and stay in a hotel? non-expensable, have a cell phone or pager they bother you on? don't try and expense it. Get stuck working remote? good luck expensing it. Just isn't what it used to be in taking pride in your workers..
Good luck EA employees - i'm there fighting for ya and WITH YOU!
Quality (Score:5, Insightful)
The Sims 1 and 2, with their gazillion expansion packs. Simcity 4. Sports games (Football, Hockey, Soccer, Basketball edition 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, oh god I must buy the 2005 edition!) Recently, NFSU2, which is (in my opinion) less polished / fun, even if its a sequel. Easy money. These game sells year after year, you only need to add a little content and a 30$ price tag.
Clever business model I guess.
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
what else is new? (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies have long histories of over using and abusing employees. Its the primary reason unions exist. Would anyone need to collectively bargain if they got good hours, decent and safe working conditions?
Sounds like Arthur Anderson... (Score:2, Insightful)
Need for Speed Underground 2 (Score:3, Insightful)
sweatshops (Score:3, Insightful)
can the gamers come together to influence the EA situation?
Re:Good (Score:1, Insightful)
When will people learn that the globally competitive environment isn't going to provide them the cushy existence for little work that their grandparents got. Get over it. Learn to compete and quit whining.
And this surprises us because... (Score:5, Insightful)
With the -rare- exception, companies will squeeze their employees for the most they will give for the least pay they will take. We wonder why unions are still necessary? Because companies don't look out for employees' interests, they look out for their own.
If a single employee demands better working hours or more pay, he or she is replaceable. If five hundred of them do so, the employer will take notice. If five thousand do, the employer is facing a crisis, especially if these employees raise a large, public, well-founded stink. If you are being mistreated by an employer (tech or otherwise), chances are you aren't the only one. (If you are, perhaps re-examine your definition of "mistreated?") If this is common practice for the employer, your co-workers are probably just as pissed off, and sitting around waiting around for someone to tell them what to do about it.
Maybe you should consider telling them!
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
If I was entering the industry today and had a crack at EA, I'd be first in line to take on those crazy hours for 'low pay'.
Take a close look at what that 'low pay' is. It ain't so low.
Devil's Advocate (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm not trying to troll or disparage the efforts of their staff. But even as just a luser, I know there are times when I am trying to do something out of the ordinary on my Linux boxen (like compiling some new software or something, and then running into library issues or whatever which need to be tracked down and figured out) where the hours pass by incredibly quickly.
My perception is that in IT, the hours fly by. That may cause disgruntlement when you leave for the day and you realize it's ten o'clock at night and you missed the sunset, but weren't all of those hours you put in necessary for you to get your project from point A to point B?
Publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
EA is also the only company that literally FILLS it's games with billboards and advertisements.
EA now is becoming notorious with mistreating it's employees.
The problem is that this is a successful business model, and the only way to break it is to stop buying their games.
Re:No room to complain (Score:5, Insightful)
So what we're really talking about here is about $70K/year in a high-cost-of-living environment for 80 hour weeks in a highly skilled environment. You're right, things could be a lot worse, but they could also be a lot better. My salary's around that, and I only work 40 hours a week.
Whose fault (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Whatever (Score:5, Insightful)
Since these are being posted, I have a feeling others feel the same way. These discussions most likely get a lot of hits.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:2, Insightful)
Why's that then, are they short on cash?
When will people learn that the globally competitive environment isn't going to provide them the cushy existence for little work that their grandparents got. Get over it. Learn to compete and quit whining.
Yes but there's a difference between perhaps asking an hour or two here and there, and, if the stories are to be believed, asking for 80+ hour weeks for several weeks on end with no overtime pay.
Re:Good (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:As an IT Guru (Score:2, Insightful)
What? You say that some sorry ass Indian is coming here and taking your job? How dare he try to leave a dirt poor country with living conditions that you couldn't even begin to imagine and try to provide a better price/performance solution for potential employers that you were doing your best to gouge. The gall of some Indian guy taking a pay check that he's most likely sending home to relatives who might not even have food. How awful for you and the comfy expectations you had for an easy life with high pay and modest work requirements!
I've been to India and I've seen the dirt and filth a lot of these guys have clawed their way out of to get educated and get to the US. It makes me ill that small-minded whiners take such pains to keep them down so they don't have to work as hard.
The good news is that they might as well be whining about a hurricane headed their way because this global competition thing has just really begun. It's going to change the world like the Industrial Revolution did, and no amount of hand wringing is going to stop it.
You might as well save your breath and spend your time figuring out how you're going to compete in this new global environment. I know I have.
Re:Oh. My. God. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm supposed to believe that "just go home are a reasonable hour" never occurred to them?
When you get a little older, young grasshopper, you will learn that sometimes you are expected to stay late and just get the job done. If your company expects this to happen every day - it's a crappy company. But unless the entire staff can be persuaded by a colleague to leave at a reasonable hour, any one person is going to see this as a career limiting manouver.
I'm supposed to believe that "it's Friday night, see you on Monday" never occurred to them?
See previous comment.
I'm supposed to believe that "go work somewhere else" never occurred to them?
Grasshopper, you assume that alternative jobs are just waiting to be plucked from the trees. Many aren't long out of college. Without experience, finding a job is considerably harder. Finding the time to conduct a job hunt isn't easy if you're working 80 hours a week. And resigning is an excellent way to ensure you get no unemployment benefits in many countries.
Re:how is that different from other companies (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm, you work at mcdonalds/walmart while you goto school, you dont make that your career.
The problem is EA is abusing people who already worked their way up. This is a multiBILLION dollar company paying less than other companies in the same market. Its the black sheep of the entertainment employment.
Re:Surprise Surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
I hear the a lot but frankly the people I know that worked in unionized places hated the unions. They could not get promoted even if they did a better job because they where there less than other people that did a crappy job. The hatted paying the dues for basically nothing. My only personal experience with unions has been at trade show. Having to some smuck $200 to watch me plug in an extension cord. Lets not forget about the link between organized crime and the unions.
What people do not seem to get is the reason union membership is going down in the US is many workers do not want to be in a union. The UAW has tried to unionize Honda and has failed and has tried to unionize Walmart and failed. If the majority of workers wanted it then it would happen.
For the people that do not know how a "union shop" works if you work there you MUST join the union. You MUST pay the union DUES. You have no choice in the matter.
What really needs to be done is to enforce the labor laws we have. It is not illegal to require people to work more than 40 hours a week. It is illegal to not pay them overtime. Somehow computer programmers got exempted from this rule. I see this as an issue. I would prefer to fix the laws and enforce the ones we have than to force unions on the workers.
Re:Chicken Run (Score:3, Insightful)
Whew!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's my first reaction: I'm a stockholder, you see. Now my second reaction: shit, that's not very nice... It's interesting to see how your priorities shift and you start rationalizing all sorts of evil when you have a financial interest. I mean, a good liberal like me, and I often find myself rooting for the tobacco companies and saying stuff like "well, it's their own damn fault for taking up smoking".
It's interesting though... we human beings seem to be able to have pretty flexible morals when it's in our own best interest to have them. It's weird , interesting and depressing to see how much your own solid convictions will shift when a buck is at stake. So keep up the good work, EA! Aw fuck, I can't tell if I'm being sarcastic or sincere or a bit of each... oh the moral agony of making double-digit returns.
Re:Good (Score:2, Insightful)
young kids don't know what's impossible - true! (Score:5, Insightful)
From first hand experience I would have to definelty agree with this and say that's the entire reason why they end up working long hours.
At my company we began a huge project not too long ago with other remote sites. It was a great project and great work and we were fortunate enough to have expriened higher level workers with families. However another remote site had only young enthusiastic people who were no older than 25 (that includes their leadership)
During the requirments and design phase, higher managment began cramming way too much onto everyone's plates. Fortunately our leadership knew how to scope and scale back. The other team didn't.
During the end of reqs upper management came down on our site and said, "Everyone's giving us 110% and you guys are only giving us 90%! How dare you!" The response to this from our leadership during that telecon was so classic I'll never forget it.
"We give you only 90% because the other 10% is going to be devoted to workers taking sick days, holidays, and when unforseen bugs crop up. If we were to give you 110% then what we would be saying is that not one single worker is going to get sick, not one single worker is going to take a vacation day, that not one single unforseen bug is going to stop us by more than a few minutes, and that we will be working extra hours. That's as likely to happen logically as it is to give 110%."
Well as the project progressed you can guess what happened. We delivered on time and underbudget to boot with what we agreed to. The other remote site with the attitude, 'Nothing's impossible!'? Well, they're working overtime for no extra pay, have tons of bugs, a few of them have quit now, they're over budget, are not going to make their deliveries, they're in some deep hot water, and for me to quote one of them, "I'm in hell!".
You can be the brightest mind comming out of college but unless you respect the wisdom of elders you're going to get screwed.
Re:As an IT Guru (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually that is not true. This a flawed argument companies use, that the employee has all the power, they can leave and go else where.
The truth is, the company must follow working conditions set by law. And the laws are made by the people to stop abusive working conditions.
The major problem, is the young generation of today don't look at the long term problems of the working environment. Companies have to give back to the society they take resources from. We (The people) build schools and infrastructure so companies can flourish, not so companies can pillage. We are trying to better ourselves at home, while competing in the global market. When a company starts abusing the efforts they need to be brought out in public so people can discuss and the solutions be proposed.
I find it funny when people think companies have no responsibility to the community they work in. If they dont want to play by the rules, they dont need to be in business. Some other company will step in and fill its role.
Really the wrong view to the problem, its not the employee that has the problem, its the company. And the company needs to address it.
Re:A friend works there... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So why the US don't follow Canada's steps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple question, simple answer. The reason is that in America we don't pretend that we are actually running the show instead of companies. If we followed your lead and made it harder for large companies to screw over the IT crowd in the U.S.A., then those companies would say "damn, North America now costs us more, lets just move all our operations over to India or China where we can rape their local IT people any way we want."
You might say "well if our laws haven't driven the companies away, why would the U.S.'s?" Again a simple answer: there is not enough money lost by the Canadian IT regulations to make up for how much it would cost for North American companies to move overseas. (much smaller labor market than the U.S.'s) Now if you locked up the largest labor market in North America with the same regulation, suddenly it WILL be cheaper for them to pick up shop and leave. Some are already doing it just because of the few labor laws we do have (compared to nearly none in India)
The same thing happens in the drug industry. You know why you Canadians are allowed to control the price of drugs? Its because the companies make enough profit in America to make up for the fact that they make much less profit in Canada. I promise that if the U.S. drug market did not fill their coffers as they please, they would tell Canada "You know what, we don't want to give you the drugs so cheaply. Either pay up or we'll bail." Thats why they used their bought and paid for presidential administration to fix the loophole of U.S. people buying Canadian drugs. Its a lot better PR to just keep us Americans away from your cheap drug prices than tell your country "Well, we are going to stop selling drugs over here because the imports to America is killing our gravy train over there."
We get screwed for you. If we don't get screwed, these companies will just go to a continent where the screwing can be much more intense.
Re:how is that different from other companies (Score:5, Insightful)
In programming, and IT in general, you need some form of experience before you even go in. Chances are, you've already paid a buttload for training, too. College, certs, something.
That and, as mentioned, because IT work is being considered "white collar" these days, those extra hours you put in mean jack when it comes to your paycheck. I've seen companies bend over backwards to arrange "blue collar" workers' schedules such that they will *not* have to pay overtime.
Re:No room to complain (Score:2, Insightful)
That's what you have to do if you're starting out in the record industry (working at a major recording studio).
That's roughly $12,000 a year. $70,000 sounds like a dream. So as far as "$70K/year in a high-cost-of-living environment for 80 hour weeks in a highly skilled environment.", I kinda wish I had stayed in software.
Not really. (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider a cabinet company who hires young and naive workers. Even if they're putting in lots of hours, the errors they make eat up the lumber which means lower profits for when the product finally does get out the door.
With software, as long as it meets basic functionality and ships on time, it doesn't matter how many unpaid overtime hours or how many electrons were used.
Re:Oh. My. God. (Score:1, Insightful)
Where I live, 40k goes as far as 60k would in the places where most game companies are located. 60k usually isn't as much as people think it is.
I'm supposed to believe that "just go home are a reasonable hour" never occurred to them?
They'd get fired if it did.
I'm supposed to believe that "it's Friday night, see you on Monday" never occurred to them?
See you on Monday to clean out your desk and get the pink slip, you mean.
I'm supposed to believe that "go work somewhere else" never occurred to them?
That's a better point, but it is an employer's job market, and changing jobs won't help if every company implements the same abusive practices.
The lack of imagination that the NYT is attributing to these E.A. employees is impressive.
The employees aren't unimaginative, they're just very afraid of being unemployed and broke.
There really are good times we live in, if this is what we're being outraged about. $60K/annum at 80 hours per week is still *way* over the minimum wage - how about some outrage on behalf of those poor defenseless minimum wage suckers, who generally *don't* have the option to just go somewhere where they'll be treated better.
Agreed. We won't solve any of the real problems in the world until everyone, everywhere can live comfortably, with the resources for food, shelter, safety, education, family, culture, freedom, etc. The EA employees who lack only a couple of those simply have the ability to raise a stink.
The NYT really should be ashamed of themselves.
Since this is slashdot, I must inform you that in SOVIET RUSSIA, YOU should be ashamed of yourself! And the New York Times is ashamed, in Japan! Insensitive clods are ashamed, in Japan!
Everyone, take note... (Score:4, Insightful)
Eventually, the coders will together and realize that without them, senior management is fucked. And I don't want to hear any shit about exporting the jobs to India or where-ever. The studios making these games can't do it because the quailty would be worse, they'd lose control, etc. etc.
Unfortunately, they are probably already working on a "pre-emptive" outsourcing, so coders better wise-up and organize before it's too late...
Re:Whew!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Just sounds like you have poor morals.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Somehow I cannot sympathize too much. If the author actually understood what sweatshop conditions are like, or how galley slaves actually lived, I might sympathize.
One day these guys will win a big "victory" from EA that gives them overtime pay, benefits, etc. That's the day that they get outsourced to India. Then they'll be bitching about how evil the corps are when it's really they themselves who made it advantageous for the corp to do so.
Re:As an IT Guru (Score:4, Insightful)
I've worked with Indian contractors. (Score:5, Insightful)
They work hard to get here and then they work hard here and bank their paychecks.
They do this for 5 - 10 years because they know they'll go home after that and RETIRE and live the good life at home.
They'll have about the same standard of living there that I have here, but their's will cost a LOT less.You don't understand what the Industrial Revolution was about, then. Look up some info about the begining of the Unions. If you think those conditions were "good" then you have a very warped sense of "good".
Re:As an IT Guru (Score:4, Insightful)
What a COLLOSSAL pile of bullshit -- the people coming here as H1Bs, or working in outsourcing in India, are almost always from the upper caste. These people grew up with the silver spoon with servants and large homes and more luxuries than most North Americans (perhaps not via imports like electronics, but local luxuries). Even now in India these people are seeing their wages balloon, yet the poor in India are still getting jack shit.
Keep your your benevolent myth though you fucktwit.
Re:how is that different from other companies (Score:3, Insightful)
In 2003 Lawrence Probst, the CEO of EA Games pulled down a salary just shy of $697,000 and got a $1.1 million bonus. Source: Mark Logic.
Mr. Probst has been in upper management at EA since at least 1987. Other members of senior management make equally exhorbitant salaries.
As a member of upper management, you do not, generally, perform any of the duties that actual make the company run on a day to day basis. Senior management positions can often be vacated for weeks or even months at a time without having any significant effect on the company. So, explain to me, if you will, how a developer making less than $16 per hour - less than some manual labor pays, significantly less than most manual labor pays with the overtime factored in - is unjustified in feeling as though he or she is being exploited, but it's okay for Mr. Probst, who does not actually do anything that keeps the company running each day, to exploit them?
Never mind. You're an idiot, that's all. My bad. You might also be a member of management, in which case you have a lock on not lifting a finger and being a spoiled brat, so I suppose you're fully qualified to speak on those issues if that's true.
Re:I would consider it... (Score:2, Insightful)
So yes, you get a little bit more money than you would from, say, McDonalds. I still say it's not worth your health (if you snap, you might be sick for many years). No amount of money is; I find the salary irrelevant in this respect.
And another thing, many people seem to think that EA is recruiting new (to the industry) folk. Because the industry is in the state that it is, there are many qualified people on the market; some will end up at EA (no need to hire rookies if you get the real deal). Also EAs recent strategy seems to be that EA buys any competition and merges the companies. Think about it. Maxis, Westwood, Criterion, DICE and so on. Those people will then be moved on to EA projects and be forced to EA habits. There goes the neighbourhood
Re:Bullshit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Better yet! Cut marketing by 30% and assume that sales will stay at the same level so they can do more hiring. You should write a book!
Finally, that operating profit will have to be used to continue to grow the business, to war chest against future sales shortfalls, or possibly given to investors as dividends (like Microsoft has been doing). It's not just "free money" that can be used for righting whatever social injustice you think is being done.
These are complicated dynamic systems where you can't just start yanking numbers around as you please. Every dollar you take from one part of the business affects another part of the business, and the NUMEROUS game development companies that went out of business over the last few years is testament to the fact that EA knows how to do something right.
Re:Whose fault (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean...
Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?
How Free Markets Work (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not trying to be patronizing if you understand what I'm going to explain but it is clear that many don't.
1. The *price* of a going employee at EA is a function of the supply of employees and the demand EA has for these employees. With such a high supply of willing programmers who want to break into the games industry, EA can pretty much dictate the price of the employee. Please note that I *'ed price because price does not necessarily mean just a wage. In this case, it also includes working hours and work environment.
2. Many slashdot readers are complaining that you cannot get a fair wage in the games industry despite working so hard, having to know so much, and basically not making what you are owed.
3. Now the point is this: Your skills, your hard work and your knowledge are NOT what constitutes your value. Often they are related but not always. This is not what makes free markets work. The fact is, to make a better wage, get into an industry where the supply for workers is lower than the demand. You can probably find some great paying work doing business sytems. I'm only being slightly cheeky here.
4. Which brings us full circle. A lot of programmers don't WANT to be in anything other than the games industry. This is why there is such an oversupply of talented game programmers compared to other technical talents. How sexy is programming a database after all? The point is, the cost of BEING a games programmer is higher due to supply/demand. If no-one wanted to be in the games industry, you can bet EA would be doing a lot more to attract game programmers with reasonable hours, better pay, better work environment, etc. Mandating that the government (or anyone else) get involved simply tries to cover up the underlying supply/demand issues.
So, the solution to YOU getting paid better, is get out of this industry. They don't NEED another game programmer and every new one reduces the average compensation to each employee. Not only that, it ironically raises the value of employees in every other sector. So if you love game programming, be prepared to bite the bullet: lots of other people love it too.
Mandating that EA treats employees better will have marginally better treatment (though in the long run, manipulating free economics almost always backfires), people will see that you can get into games programming (which they already love) AND be treated well, the supply will go up again, demand is (relatively) stable, and there will just be a bunch of unemployed games programmers.
You see, when we complain about EA, people get scared of going into the industry, free economics works(!) Already a lot of people who may have considered going into this industry might have second thoughts.
The mistake is to think that you should get what you deserve: you don't. You get what you are worth.
I seem to agree... (Score:3, Insightful)
But if we are willing to pay outrageous prices for the games, then most of the problem is with us right? A few years back I was paying around $30 USD for games. Now I'm paying $50? Someone please tell me how games became $50 dollars?
This story ends up being the old standard. They can charge you what they want because you are willing to pay it. Companies have no desire to price their products realistically. And whatever became of the "volume" argument? Pricing lower because of volume? There are now more people on the planet that there ever have been in the history of mankind. Where is the volume pricing?
I just don't understand business.
+1
Re:Poor kids (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole idea of business regulation is to block off this sort of thing so that the need to compete with others who are doing it, doesn't force firms to start.
Re:As an IT Guru (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bullshit. (Score:3, Insightful)
There isn't any market mechanism for reducing the pay of bad CEOs. There usually isn't even any mechanism for firing them. Why? Because they're not in it for the long-term good of the company, they're in it for the short-term profit forecasts. That's a good way to put all of the employees out of work, all right.
EA knows how to do something right.
Yeah. EA knows how to buy licenses at cut-rate prices, strip-mine them to create cookie-cutter games, and market the hell out of them so an ill-informed consumer culture will eat them up.
I'd have to say that your strategy makes excellent sense from a long-term perspective, depending on waves of incoming employees with no idea what's going on, and as long as consumers will buy incrementally-roster-changed cookie-cutter sports games.
So, about until another company makes better games, puts them out, and kills EA. Take a look at the history of the gaming industry, and you'll see that this business model tends to last about five years before collapsing. I'd say EA is about at the top of its arc... and it's going to pull an Atari pretty damn soon.
Re:So, based on the previous discussions... (Score:2, Insightful)
I hope new hires will be aware not to accept verbal agreements, if they can do so without being dropped from the roster. A class action lawsuit should be able to fix this, and if the employees start getting compensated for their crunch times, EA will realize that it'll be cheaper to get more people and ease the individual schedules. I know it sounds wrong to make a place better because it's cheaper that way, but the nature of this industry has made it possible for EA to get away with thinking this way. Hope things get better soon for all the folks working 80 hour weeks there...
Re:Oh. My. God. (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right - sometimes you are expected to stay late and get the job done. And, if you like your job, and you employer is good to you, you are probably willing to sometimes stay late and get the job done.
Of course, you ultimately have the final decision. The big bad company didn't take your car keys away. The worst thing that they can do is fire you.
Anybody who is any good at what they do in the silicon valley could find job that pays $60K without much trouble in the valley.
Anybody who isn't good, well how much sympathy am I supposed to have for a guy who isn't any good, and makes $60 grand a year?
Look I'm not some naive newbie - I've been a well paid software developer in the valley for more than 10 year.
My sincere advice to everybody who feels that they're being overworked is this:
First: stop spending all of your money. Put a little bit away. You'll find that it's a lot easier to stand up for yourself if you aren't worried about where next months rent payment is coming from.
Second: Stop working so damn much. Work 55 hours instead of 60, and see if anyone notices. In all likelyhood, nobody will. If someone does, though, don't make excuses. If they call you out, tell them that you worked nine hours today (or however many you worked), and give them a "what kind of bozo questions somebody for only working 9 hours" look. Do that a couple of times, and they'll leave you alone.
The worst thing that could happen is that you get fired, and if you're complaining about how awful your boss is for making you work so much, maybe, just maybe, having your boss tell you that you aren't allowed to come to work anymore isn't the worst thing than can happen. There's other work out there. Better work. Maybe getting fired would be the kick in the ass that you need to go find it.
P.S.
Rent Office Space again - it isn't as far off as you think.
Re:How Free Markets Work (Score:5, Insightful)
The mistake is to believe that above sentance is a true and worthwhile premise. Truly free markets result in sweatshops (minimizing costs), and monopolies (minimizing competition), to maximize profits.
Truly free markets do not take into account damage to environment, people, societies and economies. Some government is necessary to counter act the societal ill that is caused by "free markets".
The supply of people that are willing to be abused to provide for themselves and family is reasonably large. The fallacy is that it is "ok" to be abused by your employer. And it is also a fallacy to believe that the only one who should be able to keep the employer from abusing the employee is the employee, and that the only way to keep from being abused is by quitting.
No, just as with many things, there are some things that are wrong, even if there is a pool of people willing to do it. And the way to make it better for them, and for everyone else, and to raise the whole moral value of the pool is with moderate government intervention (like minimum wage, and overtime laws).
If too much government intervention then there is a downturn in the economy, too little government intervention, there is also a downturn in the economy, and tremendous societal costs. The rub is finding the balance.
Re:Whose fault (Score:5, Insightful)
It is easy to say that people should not accept a job, or that they can quit. However, if they have a family to support, or have a medical condition and need the money or insurance coverage, not having a job for a few weeks while they find a new one might not be an option.
Re:most companies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Some CEOs are more than worth the money. Apple was headed into the dirt until Jobs returned to fix things. He saved the jobs of thousands of people and provided products that have given millions more happiness or at least some semblance of satisfaction.
A CEO is the general of his organization. At a large company, his decisions can have billion dollar consequences and directly affect the livelihood tens of thousands of employees. At that scale, $10million to ensure that it will happen is a small price to pay.
What about the ones who run their companies into the ground?
They should be fired. Company boards that make those decisions deserve to lose their companies.
Or the ones who screw the shareholders?
If they did so breaking the law, they should get jail time.
Or the ones who like to dump toxic waste in vacant lots in the night?
That's illegal, so they should pay fines and go to jail. Why keep constructing these veritable straw men?
Boo F*cking Hoo. Get out of my industry. (Score:1, Insightful)
Without false modesty, I am an excellent programmer. In The Mythical Man Month, Brooks claimed that the productivity difference between a good programmer and a bad one can be 10:1. I am that 10. Don't take my word for it, ask my boss who gave me a 10% raise a couple of months ago, and has promised me (yeah, not worth the paper it's written on, I know) another 10% in six months. Every programmer I've ever worked with has agreed that I'm competent and skilled.
I can count on one hand the number of weeks I've worked more that 40 hours. One was because we were implementing a large enterprise-class system at a customer factory, and we all were putting in 15-hour days to get it working. That week is the only unpaid overtime I've ever worked. I once had a job where working 45-50 hours a week was standard, but I never worked more than 40. At my annual review, the boss said, "I wouldn't mind seeing you work more hours, but you're productive enough that it's no big deal." The other overtimes I've worked were at jobs where I was paid hourly, and thus got time-and-a-half. My only complaint about those is that I haven't had more of them.
My job has always been to put out high-quality code, and I've always delivered. My projects are always on time, have clean code, and have well-documented build procedures. I don't screw around with making my code compact, and rarely optimize for speed -- my goals are ease of writing, ease of debugging, and ease of understanding. Because of that, I can dust off code that I wrote years ago and quickly find and fix bugs in it.
Unfortunately, programming as an industry attracts lots of people who barely know what they're doing. They've learned to fake it and to stumble through it enough that they can put out unstable, bug-ridden projects that vaguely correspond to the initial spec. For example, the project that I'm working on now had a nasty bug buried in it when I first took over. The guy before me had been tracking it for three weeks. He'd worked with others, and had written up lots of pretty documents explaining what he'd done to try to find it. He was convinced it was in one of our partners' projects. I sat down on my first day there, started looking at this new, unfamiliar project, and found it within an hour.
That guy corrupted my project so badly that it took me six months just to clean it up -- things like code downloaded from the Internet, the copyright removed, and his name put in its place. This was in a commercial product that literally ships millions of copies every year, and it could have left the company open to a *huge* liability. Once I had the project cleaned up, it was smaller, built faster, and was much more stable.
People like this guy are what makes Software Engineering a joke among real engineers. He flew by the seat of his pants constantly, never *understanding* what he was doing. Had he not been an hourly employee like me, I am sure that he would have been working lots of extra hours, trying to make his productivity look a little better. After all, if I'm ten times the programmer you are, you can change that ratio to 5:1 by simply working 80 hours per week.
(private message)DJBSPM(/private message)
Re:Whose fault (Score:4, Insightful)
Sad really.
Re:Whose fault (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How Free Markets Work (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the interesting fact: The United States (along with the rest of the world) doesn't operate on a free market. We tend pretty strongly towards capitalism, but not totally. Just like we tend pretty strongly towards democracy, but not totally. The framers of the Constitution established a system of majority rule with minority rights, since they knew that free-thinking people can't always be trusted to make humane decisions. In a pretty analagous way, the United States government has intervened throughout the years to amend egregious human rights deficiencies (coal miners, Industrial Revolution factory workers, etc.).
This is really a fundamental prerequisite of social systems. A society that doesn't protect its members from extremes is hardly a society at all. It's an element of the social contract that defines the benefit for individuals of working within the society.
The burden of competition should be (and easily can be, as it is in most other professional fields) on the talent of the employees, not on how brutally they'll willing to sacrifice their mental health. It's not a step I would recommend, but hypothetically, if the government were to mandate tomorrow that all employees in this industry aren't allowed to work more than 40 hours a week, then EA would probably stay in business. They'd have to make their organization operate more intelligently, by doing things like retaining experienced workers rather than burning everyone out before they have said experience. The game industry, probably even more so than the rest of the programming industry, responds well to intelligent workers.
Your last statement is a little bit fallacious on a few levels. Firstly, as I hope I've indicated, you only get what you're worth within the confines of social edicts. Secondly, EA is not necessarily paying employees what they're worth or what they deserve. From what I've read, they're taking an approach of paying employees less than they're worth and making a concerted effort to make their employees think that they deserve even less than what they're getting. Economics doesn't justify this kind of psychological abuse.
Re:Bullshit. (Score:1, Insightful)
that an employee costs twice their salary.
2. It's a free market economy, so you can't complain about
executive compensation unless it is out of whack wiith the
compensation for similar executives.
3. According to the fincial status you linked to, the company
only has 2.488 Billion in Cash. This is only 100 Million more
then their anual operating budget. I deally a company should
have enough cash on hand to run for 18 months, EA is short of
that.
4. In our real world, a company has to grow in order to
maintain it's stock price. A company that fails to maintain
it's stock price will be purchased and destroyed. So you
can't really take away anything EA needs to grow.
5. People own EA stock. As inflation happens that stock becomes
worht less unless it increases in value. For a stock to increase in
value it often has to see it's rate of growth grow. So you can't
really hold trhat against them.
In an ideal world points 2-5 would not be true, and your
argument that EA has the means to reform would be true.
Unfortunately we do not live in an ideal world. The sooner you
and everyone realize that the bettter off we will be. A lot of
people waste a lot of time campaigning for reforms that make
sense in an ideal world, but don't in the real world. Imagine if
all that wasted effort wasn't wasted.
Re:Good (Score:2, Insightful)
Great world we live in, slaves to the oldies. Just tell em, "youve got your retirement and 3 houses, use em, Im not paying for your cushy lifestyle while we slave away in such a way that you didnt."
Re:most companies? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I'm young and willing to work long hours for low pay. Hire me EA. I'd gladly take a pay cut to make games instead of cheesy Java/SQL database apps. Say what you will about EA's hirings, getting into the video game industry and having EA on your resume is well worth the low pay for a little while.
Re:Boo F*cking Hoo. Get out of my industry. (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose I could be wrong about your intent. You did ask them to get out of YOUR industry. I don't think you said that because you think YOUR industry is overcrowded. It seemed like frustration that everybody else isn't as good as you. Maybe you know every single employee at EA and have come to the conclusion that you are better (although I assume you come to that same conclusion with everyone you meet).
Maybe I am looking at it in the wrong way tho. Perhaps this is a rant based on pent up rage. Perhaps you have spent so long being better than everybody else that you are starting to get angry that nobody can keep up! Maybe this has been building for so long that some random story about mistreated EA employees was all it took to set you off. If so, then that would mean your rant actually has nothing to do with EA. Must be horrible being better than everyone else.
Whatever relation your rant has with EA and its mistreated employees, if any, I just have one thing to say to you.
GET OVER THE EGO TRIP!
Re:And this surprises us because... (Score:5, Insightful)
My own take, when I was a manager at a large company you've heard of, was that I wanted people to work smart rather than merely working hard. Granted, there are rare times when it's necessary to put in more time (late nights, weekends, off hours) to complete a key short-term deliverable, but people working long hours constantly isn't a sign of good management, but rather poor management. Employees who get tired will start making mistakes, and that's expensive (remember that the later a bug is found the more expensive -- by a large margin -- it is to fix.
The other key point here is that hiring (including the salaries of the hiring manager, HR, interviewers, and training) is expensive. In my experience, it takes a while in my line of business (system development) for even a very good new hire to really pay their way. It has also been said that the difference in productivity between a top programmer and a marginal programmer is 100 to 1. If you work from those assumptions, the way to extract the maximum useful output is to hire good people, encourage them to work efficiently, and otherwise treat them well.
I like to say that if someone who reported to me accomplished everything they were expected in a high quality manner to in 10 hours a week I'd have no problem with it. My own experience is that some people like to work in quick bursts, some people really do like to put in a lot of hours, and some people simply work steadily. However they prefer to do so is fine by me. I do have a bit of a problem with people who do the same thing over and over again (often spending a lot of time on it) without trying to find a better way of doing it. I like to say that I'm too lazy to do the same thing twice. Computers don't get upset if they're asked to do the same thing over and over again, and I prefer to move on to something new.
Obviously, there are people who don't see it that way. Rest assured, though, there are companies and managers who do take a reasonable approach to this, and that the whole industry isn't a sweatshop.
Re:Bullshit. (Score:3, Insightful)
Because all too many companies are headed by CEOs such as these.
You say they should be fired, they should pay fines they should go to jail. I agree. The problem is that they don't!
Far too many are rewarded based upon what they promise, not what they Deliver.
Re:Whose fault (Score:3, Insightful)
If that's the best they can get then they have no room to complain. It's not like people taking jobs at Home Depot expect any different.
If they CAN get better then take the job and search for a new one while you work at the shitty one.
You gotta do what you gotta do. Complaining about it does nothing.
What makes programing any more special than any other job?
Re:Whose fault (Score:5, Insightful)
Workers of the World Unite (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny, I work a Salary job in the heart of Canada's Auto Production center; Windsor. I work in an iron foundry. We cast blocks and crank shafts. Very serious working conditions, high stress, dangerous, dirty (to the point of damaging your health), loud, stinky - terrible.
The people in our union stick together. They understand the roll their union plays in keeping them employed, safe and properly compensated.
They love the union. They understand and appreciate its roll. They dont 'hate the union'.
What people do not seem to get is the reason union membership is going down in the US is many workers do not want to be in a union
Union membership is decreasing because their is a very sophisticated propaganada war being wadged against the working classes. They are being led to believe that "if they work hard they will get ahead. Your labour value is a determined by the market. If you raise wages, or demand better conditions from your employer, you endanger your employment." All ideas that Unions were created to thwart.
The all work is valueable. Workers need to be reminded that they have power in a Union -- without it, they, their community and their families *will* be robbed by the Railroad Barrons.
The USA is a plutocracy, and saying so gets you branded a Communist... you dont want to be called a Communist do you?
Its time the left begun to communicate the problems America's working class are having to face at the hands of the Capitalist Oligarchy.
Working young programmers to the bone should be made illegal. EA can damn well pay them for the true value of their work. That would be everything that the company produces is borne of their work. They are the company.
Owe nothing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Some of the comments I've seen here, to put it quite bluntly, are disgusting. I have seen it said several times now that companies "owe nothing" to those who work for them.
May I have someone's logic on this? These people are working literally every waking hour, in some cases, so that the CEO of the company can be a millionaire or billionaire. Do you mean to say that that CEO owes nothing more to those people who put him where he is then to flip them the finger, pay them the minimum possible, and take his private jet out to his yacht to reap his rewards? Do the stockholders of the company not owe it to these people to insist that they are compensated fairly for making their stock profitable?
Human beings live in a community, NOT in a vacuum. There are some rules to living in a community. It is not my belief that making one of those rules "Take as much as you can get away with and give back as little as you possibly can" is a guideline for a healthy community of any type, small or large. These workers do owe the company they work for to work hard and well, and they have done so, EA has come out with some excellent games. Now EA has a responsibility to make sure that they pay these people back for their hard work.
The concept that a company owes its employees no more than the smallest paycheck they can give them, coupled with a boot out the door as soon as they aren't useful anymore, is sad, and a serious problem. A company (and a country) owes its workers a living wage, the security that their job will not be outsourced or eliminated unless the company is in dire financial peril, and some personal time to enjoy it. We are not talking about some type of freeloaders here, we are talking about people who went through college, have sought out jobs, and are now being told to devote every waking hour to that job or they will be replaced.
I am not talking about "skilled" or "unskilled" workers, I am talking about those who work for a living, period. They are owed a decent existence. Construction workers and waiters are every bit as necessary as CEO's and accountants. Everyone who goes out every day and works deserves not to be in poverty, yet currently a 40-hour a week job at the minimum wage would place a person well below the poverty level. Something is very, very wrong.
Most of the restrictions of living in a community are moral, rather than legal, obligations. If your friend, who has helped you move five times, asks you for help with the same, he cannot take you to court to force you to help him when he asks. But he shouldn't have to. You are under a moral obligation to help.
I have no problem, however, tightening the legal restrictions and requirements on companies, since it seems evident that many will ignore their moral ones.
Re:Whose fault (Score:3, Insightful)
Sad...or just basic economics? If the job is "cooler" by its very nature it will naturally compete for workers more effectively than a boring job, and be able to attract good workers for lower wages. And it naturally attracts programmers for whom the coolness factor is strongest, because they'll take the largest pay cut just to be a games programmer. That's a pretty basic concept of capitalism. Look at it from the opposite perspective: Let's say you took a job working on a boring accounting program you couldn't have less interest in, but the pay and hours were decent. Would you agree with your overworked, underpaid game programming friend who whines he should have the same salary and benefits you do? How is that fair you have this job that is shitty simply because it's boring, but your friend gets to have all the benefits of an interesting job and also get paid the same as you?
Not that I'm trying to stick up for EA...it sounds like they resort to some traditionally scummy big business tactics, and they're not delivering what they promised (in terms of time off and compensation) to the guy suing them.
Re:As an IT Guru (Score:2, Insightful)
The more attractive the industry (Score:3, Insightful)
Want to work in film? Crap pay.
Want to be an accountant? Not crap pay.
Want to work for a video game company? Crap pay.
Want to work for an insurance company? Not crap pay.
Want to work for MTV? Reeeeally crap pay.
Any questions?
Students: work an internship! (Score:4, Insightful)
With that in mind, let me say that this whole "EA is using young kids" schtick is one of the three major reasons why I think all computer science students should get out and work an internship or two for a company they might be interested in before graduating.
Why am I saying this, and how does it apply to EA? I have no regrets about working there: the people there were by and large excellent and I learned a lot. However, I also saw EXACTLY what was expected of their new engineers, witnessed the turnover and the new college hires wandering around like zombies with keyboard marks on their faces, and returned to school a much wiser person for my experience. I assure you that I now take an entirely different spin on the "do you have any questions for us?" ending to your standard technical interview.
So, in sum: empower your resume, your outlook on what your degree is preparing you for, and yourself by getting some experience before rushing into a job based on its outer sex appeal. Trust me when I say you will be thankful for it.
Re:Whose fault (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have a family, you're probably not working at EA Games. Why would your significant other put up with your 7 days-a-week work schedule for below average pay and modest benefits? Like the article said, the company preys on the young and naive. The truth is, most of them could get a better paying job in an area with lower cost of living. But they are so enamoured with being a games programmer, they stick it out.
or have a medical condition and need the money or insurance coverage
If you have a medical condition, you probably aren't up for 80 hour work weeks. So you're probably not working at EA games.
I worked as a programmer in the computer games industry for five years - when I was young. It was a lot of fun, but I am glad I eventually grew up and left. It's really weird when you go into a different field and find it is challenging, fun, pays better and requires fewer hours. The adrenaline rush of being able to enjoy my life with someone else far exceeds the adrenaline rush I got when that last CD-ROM got burned and shipped off to duplication.
Re:Good (Score:1, Insightful)
Just like the rest of us.
Re:These young whippersnappers... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it's story largely parallels what seems to happen at EA (though not to the same extent): Optimistic young people come here and eagerly work long hours, then realize they're getting screwed by the system.
Re:Whose fault (Score:3, Insightful)
I beg to differ--there are a number of medical conditions that may require regular and costly upkeep, but don't render the programmer unable to work. Diabetes, for instance, requires regular blood tests and (for Type I diabetics) insulin injections.
game developer experience (Score:2, Insightful)
I would share few thoughts on game development.
Actually management faces several tasks - develop innovative games, availability of specialists to implement high end and low end subtasks ( I mean design of soft and on other side some really hard coding of well known things).
and while 'optimizing' the production way game companies usually come to that - 'older specialists' facing new problems would spend amount of time which is not allowable for the project. As in game development there are actually a LOT of different difficult tasks to resolve. still young guys would always miss the things - but could move forward due to their young power.
Thus to reduce the pressure ( if it is possible) is a way - that there are MORE really good lead developers which plan and resolve tasks ( looking ahead and not gathering all the difficulties) in a way which makes less time to implement. And from what could be seen at EA job site they look for specialists with several years of experience. Do they find such specialists - I do not know ....
so I think the focus of an article is somewhat incorrect. If only there were enough specialists and they could resolve tasks quickly leading others - then there would not be need to overtime. But the game development lacks the necessary amount of specialists thus there is an overtime.
For game companies here in Russia - most successful are those which found a balance between overtime and good leaders which lend working ideas to the projects.
as for age...
just few years ago there were no such a discipline - game development or graphics development.... thus older specialists with required skills are in shortage. Also to move from another field these specialists need somehow self educate or something - there are NO way to get knowledge other than to study - but if there is time and desire for those who already have some working experience which bring money positions etc?
I personally suffered from overtime working as game developer. But still the overtime was a result of short seeing the outcomes. Which was unavoidable. as the steps forward in game development are always steps into unknown. Bright persons are good to resolve the things - but again - there are no much bright guys out here around. If the team has bright - then the pressure on programmers is much less - as things go smoother. Still there are anyway problems which require efforts to resolve.
so my conclusion - the situation is described ( if to extrapolate the facts on game development in whole) correctly. Still if one wants to play games should understand - the way games are developed is naturally grown from the limitations - lack of enough specialists and also that younger people really could resist less to try to fast implement innovative things and most probably it comes that older specialist underestimate the time which younger spend on the task ( I know from my experience :) in a month I developed an animation demo with advanced internals starting from almost no knowledge at hand on human animations - I thought it will take me half an year - still it was finished in a month - so kick was necessary -thought kick was really a pain....) again as in previous example - if I knew the animations well I would know things - still older people do not have knowledge at hand on most of gaming technologies - thus they tend to resist much more than young people.
For myself - to avoid problems in my future career
after I finished one attempt to develop own way to develop games ( using remote approach - guys in russia for company in europe) - I really had a lot of experience what might go wrong ( and byt my will I worked 80 hours a week... as it was my creature ;))
I spend last year gathering ALL gaming tech knowledge ;) so I hope in future I will be resolving tasks fast and people under my lead will suffer less - as they will always know better - where to go.... but I think that t
Re:how is that different from other companies (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you tell which are these right managers? At one time, executives at Enron appeared to be doing very well. (Now try to live on an "Enron retirement.") The (former) CEO [kansascity.com] and CFO from at least one utility company are on trial for securities violations. I suspect that no one can distinguish the good managers from the bad managers. However, they all get very high salaries.
Re:Boo F*cking Hoo. Get out of my industry. (Score:1, Insightful)
In my line of work, not unsimilar to yours, I fire arrogant people like you. Because on a project no one wants to work with you. You may be 10x better and faster but one person alone can't make the ship sail.
Do yourself and those around you a favour. Lose the chip on your shoulder and start teaching people to have your level of skill and commitment. Then maybe I'll stop busting your balls.
Re:most companies? (Score:2, Insightful)
and what do you do when EA is the industry through their voracious consumption of smaller, kinder (perhaps) companies? where you going to go? to the other mega game conglomerate that bought the other small companies that EA didn't want? they'll just have the same practices anyhow, because once conglomerates own most of the industry they can do whatever the fuck they want and it will affect most everyone.
Re:Whose fault (Score:3, Insightful)
If that's the best they can get then they have no room to complain. It's not like people taking jobs at Home Depot expect any different.
Except if Home Depot made me work 80 hours a week unloading trucks I would be entitled to time and a half for my troubles.
What makes programing any more special than any other job?
So your lumping programming in with flipping burgers? That's all well and fine. Last time I checked the chick at Wendy's gets overtime if she works more then 37.5 hours a week. Anyone think that EA is willing to offer it up to their employees anytime soon?
Re:As an IT Guru (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure. Because some people are so poor that they would gladly accept miserable wages, it is obvious that, morally and ethically, everyone has to accept miserable wages.
And it is clear that any dissenter must be classified as a "small-minded whiner".
Thomas-