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My [husband] works for Electronic Arts, I'm ... a disgruntled spouse. (2004)

139 points by staunch 16y ago

ryanwaggoner 16y ago
EA's practices described in this article make me angry, but I'm also baffled. Why the hell would you stay in this situation longer than about 48 hours? I can't imagine working for a place that told me it was mandatory that I work 12 hours a day, seven days a week with no extra compensation. Ummm...go fuck yourself? Companies don't own their employees. Especially as a programmer, why would you put up with something so ridiculous? It's not that hard to find work doing development elsewhere.
- wisty 16y ago
  Computer game programming is a glamorous industry, like fashion. If your boss told you to give sexual favors to a client, you'd probably quit, and hopefully press charges; but it's rumored to have happened in the movie / modeling industries (which are also glamorous industries).
  - oldgregg 16y ago
    I worked in the talent booking industry for years and saw people put up with the same endless shit stream because ultimately they are using their jobs to give them self-worth. If you want to maintain your dignity there are always other companies or you can just leave the industry. It's not at all easy to do once you've invested so many years of your life, but the decision is still up to you.
  - kiba 16y ago
    I think it rings true for any industry that is about arts, design, or entertainment.
    - lenni 16y ago
      I do wonder though why these industries have such an attraction on many people. Sure, I'd love to work on a Hollywood movie in a plush office but I love my dignity even more.
      - gaius 16y ago
        Humans are predisposed to seek high social status positions. In our culture, those are people whose name everyone knows, even if they're only "famous for being famous".
- liedra 16y ago
  You'd be surprised what people will put up with due to subtle manipulations of people in charge, peer pressure (of others working similarly, especially if your boss works harder than you do) and the promise of future reward for slog now. It sounds like the working hours started out fine, with the emphasis on it being temporary, and then the realisation started to dawn much later that although they said it was temporary it was anything but. I've been in a similar situation and didn't realise how badly it was destroying me until I was complaining one day to my SO and it suddenly dawned on me that this was not something I could continue doing.
  - wushupork 16y ago
    In the startup world the carrots called stock options. Having been a consultant at a few dotcoms during the boom, I have seen many a developer work themselves to death because "their stock would be worth a lot" someday. Unfortunately that day never came for my colleagues.
    - liedra 16y ago
      Yeah. I was promised days in lieu, but these were conveniently forgotten or "unable to be taken" due to other, new deadlines. I'm actually surprised I got any holidays at all, apart from the fact that HR got involved. My boss certainly wouldn't have let me have holidays, and I was terrified of losing my job at the time so I didn't want to question it.
- thefool 16y ago
  The foot in the door principle. They don't spring the hours on you, they increase them gradually. First its - well 45 hours a week isnt so bad. Then after a few weeks its 55, and eventually, you get to working 85 hour weeks and not really knowing how you got there.
  - megablast 16y ago
    What I have seen in advertising industry, is that people just stay longer. Nothing is ever said, there aren't even any dirty looks if you leave at 5 or 5:30, it is just that you will be first to leave. Then, when someone else does it once, they make an excuse, and you feel like you need to make an excuse. Fine if you are a contractor, that is the way to work at those places.
    - pyre 16y ago
      I've heard that that is the way the Japanese salarymen put in their long hours. A lot of them end up just sticking around at the end of the day doing nothing. They are just waiting for other people and/or 'the boss' to leave so that it looks like they are being very productive.
      - patio11 16y ago
        Let's hypothetically say we have a young turk in a Japanese engineering department, where the unspoken departmental standard is 6 hours of work in a 16 hour day. If he works 10 hours in a 16 hour day, he is going to quickly draw the ire of his older colleagues, because he is making them look bad. The boss will start cracking the whip and get them to meet or exceed his productivity, and then an arms race ensues. If, on the other hand, he works 10 hours in a 10 hour day, he is going to quickly draw the ire of his boss, because he is leaving six hours before everyone else, despite the project being horrifically behind schedule. There is an entire genre of aphorisms to tell our young turk. Let's see: the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. The clever hawk hides his claws. etc, etc. Work diligently, but with sufficient deliberation to achieve the company's exacting quality standards. Document your steps religiously. Hammer out hundreds or thousands of pages of specification documents, since specs always resemble forward progress. Teach your junior employees, who might be ignorant in the way of the world, how things are actually done, and most particularly how they are actually done here. With due deliberation. Now, of course, my company was totally different, because we would never slack off like that. But, you know, I've heard stories of how things are done at places I don't have near-feudal loyalty towards.
- oliveoil 16y ago
  > Especially as a programmer, why would you put up with something so ridiculous? It's not that hard to find work doing development elsewhere. I think this is partly because they feel specialized in what they are doing and their feeling of specialization sort of binds them to the game industry. The other part being the glamour wisty is writing about.
- niktech 16y ago
  I used to work there a few years ago and now I work at a 'big, boring organization', as some might call it. Having interacted with people who've been at EA most / all of their careers, I can enumerate the following reasons why they stick around and put up with crazy overtime: 1. Glamour: being in the credits of a multi-million dollar game that millions of players will play worldwide is pretty cool. 2. Love for gaming: I have not met a single developer there who wasn't a regular gamer. 3. Love for sports: EA is the biggest developer of AAA sports titles out there. If, for example, you love gaming and basketball, can you think of a more enjoyable way to earn a living than being one of the developers on a AAA basketball title like NBA Live? 4. Guilt: This might come as a surprise to some but when you actually enjoy what you do so much and when 'reproing a bug' to you means playing through five minutes of the game with the debugger attached to your Xbox, you kind-of start feeling like you're cheating the organization for money. As a result, you start overcompensating by staying later and doing more work even when overtime is not mandated.
  - alttab 16y ago
    1. Glamour: "I want to be recognized" 2. Love for gaming: "I love gaming, why would I leave?" 3. Love for sports: "I love sports, I enjoy it." 4. Guilt: "I feel like I'm cheating the company" What a great list of selfish bull-crap. The woman in the article ended with how much it effects not just the person - but your family and the people who care about you. Sure, you have a handful of reasons to stay, but what about your kids who have grown up for the last 4 years without you? What about your wife that hasn't had a romantic, stressless dinner and a night out in 5 months? What about your parents, who never get to even talk to you on the phone anymore? Staying for any other reason in an environment like that, whatever your interests are, is piggish, self-centered, and short sighted. What makes you think your family would stick around for that? They don't get the glamor, they probably don't love gaming as much, sports is a hit or miss, and you'd have another thing coming if you really believed the "guilt" option.
    - robryan 16y ago
      There are many career paths which are pretty bad for family. By that logic something like a job in the defence force or as a sports star or travelling reporter would all end up in the same boat. Their families have every right to decide it's not for them and leave but equally the person being employed has ever right to choose what they want to do, it's their life.
- EliAndrewC 16y ago
  In grad school, a friend told me he wanted to go into videogame programming, so I described this post to him. His response was immediate and unwavering: "I don't care, I want to do game programming so much that I'll do whatever it takes." I suspect that enough people like this graduate every year that EA can maintain their high employee turnover indefinitely.
  - Tamerlin 16y ago
    Sadly, you're probably correct. The games industry might be a bit on the extreme side of this, but I don't think it's limited to game programmers.
- jcromartie 16y ago
  Sometimes you just keep going on doing something that makes you unhappy because it actually seems safer than trying to change it. You have a paycheck, you have something dependable, you have something to talk about...
liedra 16y ago
I want to know what happened! Did they stay? Has EA's approach changed? I'm hoping no, and yes, in that order. Anyone have any more recent experience in EA's "sweatshops"?
- matthew-wegner 16y ago
  There was a settlement: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9051 http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9051
  - liedra 16y ago
    Ahh, thanks! That's good to hear. I hope it changed a few things there!
- ComputerGuru 16y ago
  Here's the update: http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/1479.html http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/1479.html
  - liedra 16y ago
    Ah okay, I saw that but in my half-asleep state only concentrated on the link to the watchdog site which now seems to be just a forum to talk about game companies. I've now read the FAQ and all of that too! Cheers.
visava 16y ago
Even in 2004 why work $40/hr if you are a good programmer. If you like game programming make one for yourself while relaxing in a boring Big Corporation.
- liedra 16y ago
  A lot of good programmers are not good graphics designers or good artists or marketers but want to get into the games industry because they like the idea of working on games. There are (in Australia at least) even entire bachelors degree streams on game programming (for more complicated games that require lots of people), so it would probably seem natural to those graduates to seek employment there too, since they really have specialised in game programming. Like someone mentioned above, it's a glamour job, kinda like working in the film industry. You'd be surprised what people will do to "get in".
  - _delirium 16y ago
    Yeah, I've talked to people in the game industry about where they see their careers going, and the idea of leaving it entirely to go work at some "normal" software job is almost horrifying to many: give up their dream of making games, and settle for being in the credits to like, Microsoft Office 2013, or working on a search engine at Google or something? The "plan B" seems almost invariably to be to accumulate enough money/connections to start an indie-game studio, at least a ramen-profitable one--- much more often than a plan-B of working a "normal" programming job, anyway. Partly this might be because many of the game programmers really want to be game designers, and hope to work their way up to that. From that perspective, moving from game programming to "normal" programming is sort of a step in the wrong direction, since it's even further from game design than game programming is.
    - m0tive 16y ago
      I have to agree, that's the way I see it. I'm just finishing a computer animation / games programming degree and I'm about to start looking for work. The only other thing I'd add, from my point of view, is my games (and graphics) programming skills and training have always seemed completely separate to traditional software development. For instance, there is a computer software course at my university but it's in a different department (in engineering, mine is in 'media'). I think, at least from the point of view of a graduate, traditional and games programming seem like two different industries...
huhtenberg 16y ago
Just this weekend I had a dinner with a friend of mine who works for (a Canadian office of) EA. I mentioned this exact blogpost and he said he read it. And then he added that nothing had changed. Overtime is factored into the development plan from the very beginning, and the overtime period typically starts 6 months before the project deadline. They will compensate with an occasional day off and the work schedule will be lax after the release, but people are really squeezed out before that.
- _delirium 16y ago
  I guess it must be working for them business-wise, but it's had a pretty negative effect on retaining even top talent, who also feel burned out by the constant crunch times / ridiculous overtime / etc. I mean Will Wright can probably do whatever he wants, but basically anyone who isn't him seems to feel harried. I've talked to designers at conferences who got dragged back from the middle of a conference where they were actually presenting because of some "emergency" or "crunch". I mean sure, sometimes there are emergencies and crunches, but EA seems to use them constantly as a normal development process (if your company's having 20 emergencies a year, either it's crashing and burning, or you misdefined "emergency"). Most people don't like to burn bridges and go public with why they left, but if you look at top designers, programmers, etc. at EA over the past 10 years, a large number have left, and often without even having new jobs lined up--- basically went indie or went to start consulting firms rather than continue under those working conditions.
- seekely 16y ago
  Keep in mind your friend is at one studio of many under the EA umbrella. Just like the entire game industry, some studios are a mess. Unfortunately (and probably unfairly) EA takes the brunt of the bad PR. However, EA and most other studios industry wide have taken great strides to improve the treatment of employees since the EA Spouse ordeal. There will probably forever remain bad/overworked studios, but I see plenty of those outside of the game industry as well in environments even less enjoyable/creative/fun.
  - _delirium 16y ago
oliveoil 16y ago
there's something seriously fucked up with the game industry. A uni friend with a reasonably good theoretical CS degree tried to get a junior gameplay programming job last year and was told/signalled his knowledge and experience is not game-specific enough. So what I suspect is that the people who manage to get in have spent some sweet time getting there (perhaps even on specialized uni courses) and keep telling themselves this is what they really wanted (wasn't it just yesterday here on HN someone posted the wiki article about cognitive dissonance?). And it's the same across large portion of game companies at least, most notably those crunching out MMO games (there's a great blog about that that I can't find right now).
- robryan 16y ago
  There is also a bit of a problem the other way to, I know people who would be much happier doing games development subjects at uni but are reluctant because future employers may not give them non games dev jobs. I'd say a lot of people working in the industry are quiet specialised or at least they appear that way to employers, plus there love of games development is used against them.
  - oliveoil 16y ago
    Couldnt agree more. >I know people who would be much happier doing games >development subjects at uni but are reluctant because >future employers may not give them non games dev jobs This is a good thing in my opinion, it could help regulate the talent flowing into the industry so the companies wake up and start making better environment for the engineers.
- ido 16y ago
  I never studied anything game-industry specific (I was a math major) & I'm working as a game developer now (albeit in a small company that does casual games, not EA and their ilk) and only worked in 'normal' programming jobs before that (doing mostly semantic-web and "enterprise" stuff). Of the ~20 people working here only one (the youngest and most junior, probably also earns a lot less than most of us) studied in a games-specific program. I think many people here don't have a degree or have one in an unrelated field (I have yet to find a CS-program graduate, the ones I know of mostly studied stuff like physics and math). What you refer to might be AAA specific, or just untrue.
InclinedPlane 16y ago
My own assessment is that the games industry is perhaps as much as several decades behind the software industry in coming to grips with the process and culture changes necessary for sustainable high-quality development efforts. There are a few companies that seem to do it right (Valve, for example), but the vast majority of companies seem to be living by rules determined more by fantasy and speculation than by actual experience. Much of this is due to the relatively young age of modern game-making (the efforts behind making, say, Modern Warfare 2 are utterly dissimilar to the process of making, say, the original Doom). Some of it is exacerbated by the exponential revenue growth of the gaming industry. When you can half-ass your way into making a multi-million dollar return on investment while doing it wrong, it can be challenging to find the motivation to do it right. Hopefully, as the industry matures it'll settle down into more sensible standard processes.
- whatusername 16y ago
  Valve have had a philosophy of not shipping until it is perfect. (see TF2, HL2:EP3, etc). This might be changing (L4D2), but I'm still waiting for HL2:EP3, and games like HL2 had a 6 year development cycle.
  - oasisbob 16y ago
    I may not be informed on Valve's ship-philosophy, but is Valve really the best example of shipping at perfection? Hasn't TF2 experienced well over 100+ updates by this point? If Valve is doing something right, it seems to be incremental improvement -- not vitrification and release of a finalized product.
    - timknauf 16y ago
      Don't be fooled by the high number of updates for TF2 - it was already a quality product upon release. The updates aren't just fixes; many include genuine new features, maps and game modes. I think the idea is to keep community interest high, since the game dies if its fanbase deserts it for pastures new.
    - 16y ago
earl 16y ago
Wow. How on earth do these people not sack up, tell their boss to diaf, and walk out the door? Because honestly, if you allow people to use you like a punk, stop whining when they do. At will employment works both ways. It's not that I never work on weekends, but when I think it's excessive, and particularly when it's not due to my own bugs, I just implement a personal comp time policy. I email my boss and say, "I'm taking a mental health day because I worked too much this weekend." This has only gotten a negative response once and replying, "If this is a problem I'll find another job where it isn't" shit him up. I suggest you all do this. Employment is a two way street, and if you aren't happy in your situation, do something about it.
- chris100 16y ago
  Love it, but it has one problem. Your argument is basically that it's a free market. So, assuming the market is bad and jobs are hard to find, is it then ok to work nights and weekends like the article describes? Or should there be some kind of limit to "slavery"?
  - xenophanes 16y ago
    If it's a free market and "jobs are hard to find", or in other words "the supply of quality employees is lower than the demand" then it's the perfect time to start a business. You can get a good deal hiring good people. You don't even need an awesome business strategy, just make reasonable, productive use of their talents and there's plenty of room for you to come out ahead. To the extent it's hard to do this -- there aren't many talented, underutilized people floating around unable to find work -- that's the extent to which it's not actually hard to find a job.
- jgg 16y ago
  Wow. How on earth do these people not sack up, tell their boss to diaf, and walk out the door? Because honestly, if you allow people to use you like a punk, stop whining when they do. At will employment works both ways. From the article: EA's attitude toward this -- which is actually a part of company policy, it now appears -- has been (in an anonymous quotation that I've heard repeated by multiple managers), "If they don't like it, they can work someplace else." Put up or shut up and leave: this is the core of EA's Human Resources policy. The concept of ethics or compassion or even intelligence with regard to getting the most out of one's workforce never enters the equation: if they don't want to sacrifice their lives and their health and their talent so that a multibillion dollar corporation can continue its Godzilla-stomp through the game industry, they can work someplace else. But can they? The EA Mambo, paired with other giants such as Vivendi, Sony, and Microsoft, is rapidly either crushing or absorbing the vast majority of the business in game development. A few standalone studios that made their fortunes in previous eras -- Blizzard, Bioware, and Id come to mind -- manage to still survive, but 2004 saw the collapse of dozens of small game studios, no longer able to acquire contracts in the face of rapid and massive consolidation of game publishing companies. This is an epidemic hardly unfamiliar to anyone working in the industry. Though, of course, it is always the option of talent to go outside the industry, perhaps venturing into the booming commercial software development arena. (Read my tired attempt at sarcasm.)
caf 16y ago
Sounds like the workers in the game industry need to unionize.
- dododo 16y ago
  or programmers in general. i'm baffled why this hasn't happened yet.
  - enneff 16y ago
    Unions typically protect workers who belong to industries where there are more employees than there is demand. Programming is a highly-skilled profession that is constantly in demand. We don't need protection because companies compete for the good ones, not the reverse.
  - gaius 16y ago
    Because the people most in demand in the industry are the ones who have the most to lose in collective wage bargaining.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    Unions by design are democratic institutions, and thus protect the average worker. Good programmers will be hurt by a union more than they will be helped, so the union shops will be stuck with lousy programmers and lose in the market.
- dagw 16y ago
  In many countries outside of the US they are. However that hasn't done much to significantly change the working conditions. As long as it remains a 'glamorous' industry that kids aspire to work in, then they know they'll never have trouble hiring new workers. The other aspect is that EA, the mother company, doesn't actually program games. They own IP and publish games. The games are written by various studios with various ties and connections to EA. This means that if a studio gets too troublesome, it is quite easy for EA to cut all dealings with that studio and simply shift its IP from that studio to another studio.
motters 16y ago
Conditions like this were enjoyed by 19th century industrial workers - and still go on in some of the poorer countries today. It's the result of unregulated working conditions and inadequate or non-existent labour laws. If the factory owner's only motivation is making money at the fastest possible rate, and there is an abundant supply of workers of a similar standard then labour can essentially be treated as a consumable.
ifesdjeen 16y ago
hm. just red that. let me tell you something. i was working for outsource companies (sorry to admit, but i'm from Ukraine) for more than 5 years. i can tell that the average hourly rate of the programmer here is still around 15USD for an hour. it's an extremely rare occasion when project goes "right". When you work in outsource, you get tight time schedules promised by the people who have no idea about the development process, and teams inevitably kill themselves for the sake of project. it's most of time not any less than 10 hours a day, with often working weekends. if you don't like it - just go ahead and leave. but if you leave, you just find another head of the same beast. afterall, if you switch jobs way too often, they claim that you're not trustworthy. well, i'm sorry about the guys who work for EA. they're brilliant people who got possessed by managers. but there are places, where whole industry is possessed, and owned. most of the time less skilled people are being taken for the job just because they could be easily fired, they won't take the ownership of anything. they'll just do whatever you tell them to do. maybe EA should do the same? :)
- theycallmemorty 16y ago
  > sorry to admit, but i'm from Ukraine Why are you sorry?
  - ifesdjeen 16y ago
    good question... well, probably because of the current status of IT industry here...
niels_olson 16y ago
> ninety hour weeks; in any other industry the company in question would find itself sued out of business Not really. Resident physicians were only very recently restricted to 80-hour work weeks. And even many of the residents bemoan the lost patient-contact time. What's the average start-up work-week?
josefresco 16y ago
After reading this and the comments here I can't help but think of the extreme opposite case of DNF. It's an extreme example but shows the opposite end of the spectrum. At least EA actually ships games (ducks)
thecircusb0y 16y ago
Going to work overtired is the same as going to work drunk -> http://theweek.com/article/index/202658/going-to-work-sleepy-as-bad-as-showing-up-drunk http://theweek.com/article/index/202658/going-to-work-sleepy... EA has grown so large they will "Challenge Everything" in their path that goes against their profit margin. However I find it hard to believe its hard for small studios to have success. If the studio develops a good product and releases it to the masses on the internet or xbox live arcade, or the number of homebrew scenes, you will get attention. You just have to make a good product. IMHO, some of the best games lately are free or not the latest and greatest. Corporate big wigs are pushing mainstream games into a corner and beating them a lead pipe for every bit of control over the flow of money and players. Activision and EA Corporate Big Wigs have fubared Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (tm) and Bad Company 2. Both games will suffer in the long run with lack of an SDK for the modding community. There is also a lack of dedicated server files, which remove the option for hosting your own game servers. The communities have spoken loud, and the developers do here this. Infinity Ward and Dice have already lost employees because they disagree with EA and Activision's control and greed. In the end I am very loyal to the companies which remain respectful to its fans and work with the people, and not for the money. Valve, iD, 3dRealms, are just a number of companies that are more concerned with producing a good game, and sharing the success all around. Love to 3rd party developers with SDK's, love to the players for not charging massive amounts of money for DLC, just good old love for developers. In retrospect, I'm sorry for the abused developers all over. But they have a choice, and they choose to endure that reality. But some will choose to break off and make a startup. Valve was created by 2 former Microsoft employees, and they started small, and look at them now. They have produced games, software, and contributed to the community with massive amounts of information, and content to award the player, and the developers (both in house and 3rd party). Same goes for Epic Megagames, which continue to release Unreal Tournement games, with updated fresh engines. Id Software will continue to produce the next Doom and Quake. (Where it all began.) 3dRealms if I remember correctly has gone under, but I pray to god someone buys the Duke Nukem Forever project and finishes it soon. To quote Steve Ballmer: "Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers" Now I need to get back to my job... as a developer. [I apologize if I was unorganized or off topic]
- 16y ago
ryanricard 16y ago
Couple of "WHYYYY?" comments on here, mostly with good answers, but one more piece that hasn't been mentioned: since the industry is very competitive, having experience on a shipping game is a huge benefit to your resume. I'm sure many of those programmers/artists thought "OK, just make it through this game and then I'll actually have something on my resume." I mean, could you imagine quitting a startup before they shipped a product?
- epochwolf 16y ago
  > I mean, could you imagine quitting a startup before they shipped a product? I did. (Granted, the product changed every month and the website I was working on changed every week.)
mrbgty 16y ago
I've heard before that EA forces employees to work long hours and for low pay but this part got me: "The current mandatory hours are 9am to 10pm -- seven days a week -- with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30pm)" Saturday evening off for good behavior....
whyme 16y ago
I once had someone ask me I was willing to work overtime in an interview. I said "It depends....!". And so it went: dumb-ass company> What do you mean it depends? me> Well, if it's a reasonable amount and I am compensated for it, then I'm game, but otherwise I'm not. dumb-ass company> We don't pay for overtime, it's expected in our industry to put in some overtime. me> That's ok, as long as I can take time in lieu. dumb-ass company> We don't do that either. me> Well my priorities are different than yours. I put my family first and my employment after. So each hour of overtime I would work for you would be an hour stolen from my family. dumb-ass company> When you work overtime you do so because having a job lets you pay for you family. So working overtime and having a job really is putting your family first - right? me> Sometimes, but truthfully if I took this job I would only work only long enough to find a job where I am not required to work uncompensated overtime and the company has a "families first" value system. However, in reality, working for you would probably leave me with little to no time to look for work, so I feel I am better off to pass and invest my time wisely........ -- You folks working at places like EA are caught in that same cycle: the company is working you so hard your not able to effectively look for work. I recommend two options: 1. Stop working overtime. Show up for regular work hours and let them get mad at you. Let them threaten you. Let them fire you, but until they fire you spend your time looking for a better job. or: 2. Quit. And understand your sacrifice is an investment. Have confidence in yourself to succeed. Empower yourself to better both yours' and/or your family's lives. If your going to spend the rest of you life being manipulated your life is going to suck. Have or Have not! Live or Live not! It's up to you! Not your company.

139 points by staunch 16y ago

EA's practices described in this article make me angry, but I'm also baffled. Why the hell would you stay in this situation longer than about 48 hours? I can't imagine working for a place that told me it was mandatory that I work 12 hours a day, seven days a week with no extra compensation. Ummm...go fuck yourself? Companies don't own their employees. Especially as a programmer, why would you put up with something so ridiculous? It's not that hard to find work doing development elsewhere.

wisty 16y ago
Computer game programming is a glamorous industry, like fashion. If your boss told you to give sexual favors to a client, you'd probably quit, and hopefully press charges; but it's rumored to have happened in the movie / modeling industries (which are also glamorous industries).
- oldgregg 16y ago
  I worked in the talent booking industry for years and saw people put up with the same endless shit stream because ultimately they are using their jobs to give them self-worth. If you want to maintain your dignity there are always other companies or you can just leave the industry. It's not at all easy to do once you've invested so many years of your life, but the decision is still up to you.
- kiba 16y ago
  I think it rings true for any industry that is about arts, design, or entertainment.
  - lenni 16y ago
    I do wonder though why these industries have such an attraction on many people. Sure, I'd love to work on a Hollywood movie in a plush office but I love my dignity even more.
    - gaius 16y ago
      Humans are predisposed to seek high social status positions. In our culture, those are people whose name everyone knows, even if they're only "famous for being famous".
liedra 16y ago
You'd be surprised what people will put up with due to subtle manipulations of people in charge, peer pressure (of others working similarly, especially if your boss works harder than you do) and the promise of future reward for slog now. It sounds like the working hours started out fine, with the emphasis on it being temporary, and then the realisation started to dawn much later that although they said it was temporary it was anything but. I've been in a similar situation and didn't realise how badly it was destroying me until I was complaining one day to my SO and it suddenly dawned on me that this was not something I could continue doing.
- wushupork 16y ago
  In the startup world the carrots called stock options. Having been a consultant at a few dotcoms during the boom, I have seen many a developer work themselves to death because "their stock would be worth a lot" someday. Unfortunately that day never came for my colleagues.
  - liedra 16y ago
    Yeah. I was promised days in lieu, but these were conveniently forgotten or "unable to be taken" due to other, new deadlines. I'm actually surprised I got any holidays at all, apart from the fact that HR got involved. My boss certainly wouldn't have let me have holidays, and I was terrified of losing my job at the time so I didn't want to question it.
thefool 16y ago
The foot in the door principle. They don't spring the hours on you, they increase them gradually. First its - well 45 hours a week isnt so bad. Then after a few weeks its 55, and eventually, you get to working 85 hour weeks and not really knowing how you got there.
- megablast 16y ago
  What I have seen in advertising industry, is that people just stay longer. Nothing is ever said, there aren't even any dirty looks if you leave at 5 or 5:30, it is just that you will be first to leave. Then, when someone else does it once, they make an excuse, and you feel like you need to make an excuse. Fine if you are a contractor, that is the way to work at those places.
  - pyre 16y ago
    I've heard that that is the way the Japanese salarymen put in their long hours. A lot of them end up just sticking around at the end of the day doing nothing. They are just waiting for other people and/or 'the boss' to leave so that it looks like they are being very productive.
    - patio11 16y ago
      Let's hypothetically say we have a young turk in a Japanese engineering department, where the unspoken departmental standard is 6 hours of work in a 16 hour day. If he works 10 hours in a 16 hour day, he is going to quickly draw the ire of his older colleagues, because he is making them look bad. The boss will start cracking the whip and get them to meet or exceed his productivity, and then an arms race ensues. If, on the other hand, he works 10 hours in a 10 hour day, he is going to quickly draw the ire of his boss, because he is leaving six hours before everyone else, despite the project being horrifically behind schedule. There is an entire genre of aphorisms to tell our young turk. Let's see: the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. The clever hawk hides his claws. etc, etc. Work diligently, but with sufficient deliberation to achieve the company's exacting quality standards. Document your steps religiously. Hammer out hundreds or thousands of pages of specification documents, since specs always resemble forward progress. Teach your junior employees, who might be ignorant in the way of the world, how things are actually done, and most particularly how they are actually done here. With due deliberation. Now, of course, my company was totally different, because we would never slack off like that. But, you know, I've heard stories of how things are done at places I don't have near-feudal loyalty towards.
oliveoil 16y ago
> Especially as a programmer, why would you put up with something so ridiculous? It's not that hard to find work doing development elsewhere. I think this is partly because they feel specialized in what they are doing and their feeling of specialization sort of binds them to the game industry. The other part being the glamour wisty is writing about.
niktech 16y ago
I used to work there a few years ago and now I work at a 'big, boring organization', as some might call it. Having interacted with people who've been at EA most / all of their careers, I can enumerate the following reasons why they stick around and put up with crazy overtime: 1. Glamour: being in the credits of a multi-million dollar game that millions of players will play worldwide is pretty cool. 2. Love for gaming: I have not met a single developer there who wasn't a regular gamer. 3. Love for sports: EA is the biggest developer of AAA sports titles out there. If, for example, you love gaming and basketball, can you think of a more enjoyable way to earn a living than being one of the developers on a AAA basketball title like NBA Live? 4. Guilt: This might come as a surprise to some but when you actually enjoy what you do so much and when 'reproing a bug' to you means playing through five minutes of the game with the debugger attached to your Xbox, you kind-of start feeling like you're cheating the organization for money. As a result, you start overcompensating by staying later and doing more work even when overtime is not mandated.
- alttab 16y ago
  1. Glamour: "I want to be recognized" 2. Love for gaming: "I love gaming, why would I leave?" 3. Love for sports: "I love sports, I enjoy it." 4. Guilt: "I feel like I'm cheating the company" What a great list of selfish bull-crap. The woman in the article ended with how much it effects not just the person - but your family and the people who care about you. Sure, you have a handful of reasons to stay, but what about your kids who have grown up for the last 4 years without you? What about your wife that hasn't had a romantic, stressless dinner and a night out in 5 months? What about your parents, who never get to even talk to you on the phone anymore? Staying for any other reason in an environment like that, whatever your interests are, is piggish, self-centered, and short sighted. What makes you think your family would stick around for that? They don't get the glamor, they probably don't love gaming as much, sports is a hit or miss, and you'd have another thing coming if you really believed the "guilt" option.
  - robryan 16y ago
    There are many career paths which are pretty bad for family. By that logic something like a job in the defence force or as a sports star or travelling reporter would all end up in the same boat. Their families have every right to decide it's not for them and leave but equally the person being employed has ever right to choose what they want to do, it's their life.
EliAndrewC 16y ago
In grad school, a friend told me he wanted to go into videogame programming, so I described this post to him. His response was immediate and unwavering: "I don't care, I want to do game programming so much that I'll do whatever it takes." I suspect that enough people like this graduate every year that EA can maintain their high employee turnover indefinitely.
- Tamerlin 16y ago
  Sadly, you're probably correct. The games industry might be a bit on the extreme side of this, but I don't think it's limited to game programmers.
jcromartie 16y ago
Sometimes you just keep going on doing something that makes you unhappy because it actually seems safer than trying to change it. You have a paycheck, you have something dependable, you have something to talk about...

liedra 16y ago

I want to know what happened! Did they stay? Has EA's approach changed? I'm hoping no, and yes, in that order. Anyone have any more recent experience in EA's "sweatshops"?

matthew-wegner 16y ago
There was a settlement: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9051 http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9051
- liedra 16y ago
  Ahh, thanks! That's good to hear. I hope it changed a few things there!
ComputerGuru 16y ago
Here's the update: http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/1479.html http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/1479.html
- liedra 16y ago
  Ah okay, I saw that but in my half-asleep state only concentrated on the link to the watchdog site which now seems to be just a forum to talk about game companies. I've now read the FAQ and all of that too! Cheers.

visava 16y ago

Even in 2004 why work $40/hr if you are a good programmer. If you like game programming make one for yourself while relaxing in a boring Big Corporation.

liedra 16y ago
A lot of good programmers are not good graphics designers or good artists or marketers but want to get into the games industry because they like the idea of working on games. There are (in Australia at least) even entire bachelors degree streams on game programming (for more complicated games that require lots of people), so it would probably seem natural to those graduates to seek employment there too, since they really have specialised in game programming. Like someone mentioned above, it's a glamour job, kinda like working in the film industry. You'd be surprised what people will do to "get in".
- _delirium 16y ago
  Yeah, I've talked to people in the game industry about where they see their careers going, and the idea of leaving it entirely to go work at some "normal" software job is almost horrifying to many: give up their dream of making games, and settle for being in the credits to like, Microsoft Office 2013, or working on a search engine at Google or something? The "plan B" seems almost invariably to be to accumulate enough money/connections to start an indie-game studio, at least a ramen-profitable one--- much more often than a plan-B of working a "normal" programming job, anyway. Partly this might be because many of the game programmers really want to be game designers, and hope to work their way up to that. From that perspective, moving from game programming to "normal" programming is sort of a step in the wrong direction, since it's even further from game design than game programming is.
  - m0tive 16y ago
    I have to agree, that's the way I see it. I'm just finishing a computer animation / games programming degree and I'm about to start looking for work. The only other thing I'd add, from my point of view, is my games (and graphics) programming skills and training have always seemed completely separate to traditional software development. For instance, there is a computer software course at my university but it's in a different department (in engineering, mine is in 'media'). I think, at least from the point of view of a graduate, traditional and games programming seem like two different industries...

huhtenberg 16y ago

Just this weekend I had a dinner with a friend of mine who works for (a Canadian office of) EA. I mentioned this exact blogpost and he said he read it. And then he added that nothing had changed. Overtime is factored into the development plan from the very beginning, and the overtime period typically starts 6 months before the project deadline. They will compensate with an occasional day off and the work schedule will be lax after the release, but people are really squeezed out before that.

_delirium 16y ago
I guess it must be working for them business-wise, but it's had a pretty negative effect on retaining even top talent, who also feel burned out by the constant crunch times / ridiculous overtime / etc. I mean Will Wright can probably do whatever he wants, but basically anyone who isn't him seems to feel harried. I've talked to designers at conferences who got dragged back from the middle of a conference where they were actually presenting because of some "emergency" or "crunch". I mean sure, sometimes there are emergencies and crunches, but EA seems to use them constantly as a normal development process (if your company's having 20 emergencies a year, either it's crashing and burning, or you misdefined "emergency"). Most people don't like to burn bridges and go public with why they left, but if you look at top designers, programmers, etc. at EA over the past 10 years, a large number have left, and often without even having new jobs lined up--- basically went indie or went to start consulting firms rather than continue under those working conditions.
seekely 16y ago
Keep in mind your friend is at one studio of many under the EA umbrella. Just like the entire game industry, some studios are a mess. Unfortunately (and probably unfairly) EA takes the brunt of the bad PR. However, EA and most other studios industry wide have taken great strides to improve the treatment of employees since the EA Spouse ordeal. There will probably forever remain bad/overworked studios, but I see plenty of those outside of the game industry as well in environments even less enjoyable/creative/fun.
- _delirium 16y ago

oliveoil 16y ago

there's something seriously fucked up with the game industry. A uni friend with a reasonably good theoretical CS degree tried to get a junior gameplay programming job last year and was told/signalled his knowledge and experience is not game-specific enough. So what I suspect is that the people who manage to get in have spent some sweet time getting there (perhaps even on specialized uni courses) and keep telling themselves this is what they really wanted (wasn't it just yesterday here on HN someone posted the wiki article about cognitive dissonance?). And it's the same across large portion of game companies at least, most notably those crunching out MMO games (there's a great blog about that that I can't find right now).

robryan 16y ago
There is also a bit of a problem the other way to, I know people who would be much happier doing games development subjects at uni but are reluctant because future employers may not give them non games dev jobs. I'd say a lot of people working in the industry are quiet specialised or at least they appear that way to employers, plus there love of games development is used against them.
- oliveoil 16y ago
  Couldnt agree more. >I know people who would be much happier doing games >development subjects at uni but are reluctant because >future employers may not give them non games dev jobs This is a good thing in my opinion, it could help regulate the talent flowing into the industry so the companies wake up and start making better environment for the engineers.
ido 16y ago
I never studied anything game-industry specific (I was a math major) & I'm working as a game developer now (albeit in a small company that does casual games, not EA and their ilk) and only worked in 'normal' programming jobs before that (doing mostly semantic-web and "enterprise" stuff). Of the ~20 people working here only one (the youngest and most junior, probably also earns a lot less than most of us) studied in a games-specific program. I think many people here don't have a degree or have one in an unrelated field (I have yet to find a CS-program graduate, the ones I know of mostly studied stuff like physics and math). What you refer to might be AAA specific, or just untrue.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

My own assessment is that the games industry is perhaps as much as several decades behind the software industry in coming to grips with the process and culture changes necessary for sustainable high-quality development efforts. There are a few companies that seem to do it right (Valve, for example), but the vast majority of companies seem to be living by rules determined more by fantasy and speculation than by actual experience. Much of this is due to the relatively young age of modern game-making (the efforts behind making, say, Modern Warfare 2 are utterly dissimilar to the process of making, say, the original Doom). Some of it is exacerbated by the exponential revenue growth of the gaming industry. When you can half-ass your way into making a multi-million dollar return on investment while doing it wrong, it can be challenging to find the motivation to do it right. Hopefully, as the industry matures it'll settle down into more sensible standard processes.

whatusername 16y ago
Valve have had a philosophy of not shipping until it is perfect. (see TF2, HL2:EP3, etc). This might be changing (L4D2), but I'm still waiting for HL2:EP3, and games like HL2 had a 6 year development cycle.
- oasisbob 16y ago
  I may not be informed on Valve's ship-philosophy, but is Valve really the best example of shipping at perfection? Hasn't TF2 experienced well over 100+ updates by this point? If Valve is doing something right, it seems to be incremental improvement -- not vitrification and release of a finalized product.
  - timknauf 16y ago
    Don't be fooled by the high number of updates for TF2 - it was already a quality product upon release. The updates aren't just fixes; many include genuine new features, maps and game modes. I think the idea is to keep community interest high, since the game dies if its fanbase deserts it for pastures new.
  - 16y ago

earl 16y ago

Wow. How on earth do these people not sack up, tell their boss to diaf, and walk out the door? Because honestly, if you allow people to use you like a punk, stop whining when they do. At will employment works both ways. It's not that I never work on weekends, but when I think it's excessive, and particularly when it's not due to my own bugs, I just implement a personal comp time policy. I email my boss and say, "I'm taking a mental health day because I worked too much this weekend." This has only gotten a negative response once and replying, "If this is a problem I'll find another job where it isn't" shit him up. I suggest you all do this. Employment is a two way street, and if you aren't happy in your situation, do something about it.

chris100 16y ago
Love it, but it has one problem. Your argument is basically that it's a free market. So, assuming the market is bad and jobs are hard to find, is it then ok to work nights and weekends like the article describes? Or should there be some kind of limit to "slavery"?
- xenophanes 16y ago
  If it's a free market and "jobs are hard to find", or in other words "the supply of quality employees is lower than the demand" then it's the perfect time to start a business. You can get a good deal hiring good people. You don't even need an awesome business strategy, just make reasonable, productive use of their talents and there's plenty of room for you to come out ahead. To the extent it's hard to do this -- there aren't many talented, underutilized people floating around unable to find work -- that's the extent to which it's not actually hard to find a job.
jgg 16y ago
Wow. How on earth do these people not sack up, tell their boss to diaf, and walk out the door? Because honestly, if you allow people to use you like a punk, stop whining when they do. At will employment works both ways. From the article: EA's attitude toward this -- which is actually a part of company policy, it now appears -- has been (in an anonymous quotation that I've heard repeated by multiple managers), "If they don't like it, they can work someplace else." Put up or shut up and leave: this is the core of EA's Human Resources policy. The concept of ethics or compassion or even intelligence with regard to getting the most out of one's workforce never enters the equation: if they don't want to sacrifice their lives and their health and their talent so that a multibillion dollar corporation can continue its Godzilla-stomp through the game industry, they can work someplace else. But can they? The EA Mambo, paired with other giants such as Vivendi, Sony, and Microsoft, is rapidly either crushing or absorbing the vast majority of the business in game development. A few standalone studios that made their fortunes in previous eras -- Blizzard, Bioware, and Id come to mind -- manage to still survive, but 2004 saw the collapse of dozens of small game studios, no longer able to acquire contracts in the face of rapid and massive consolidation of game publishing companies. This is an epidemic hardly unfamiliar to anyone working in the industry. Though, of course, it is always the option of talent to go outside the industry, perhaps venturing into the booming commercial software development arena. (Read my tired attempt at sarcasm.)

caf 16y ago

Sounds like the workers in the game industry need to unionize.

dododo 16y ago
or programmers in general. i'm baffled why this hasn't happened yet.
- enneff 16y ago
  Unions typically protect workers who belong to industries where there are more employees than there is demand. Programming is a highly-skilled profession that is constantly in demand. We don't need protection because companies compete for the good ones, not the reverse.
- gaius 16y ago
  Because the people most in demand in the industry are the ones who have the most to lose in collective wage bargaining.
- philwelch 16y ago
  Unions by design are democratic institutions, and thus protect the average worker. Good programmers will be hurt by a union more than they will be helped, so the union shops will be stuck with lousy programmers and lose in the market.
dagw 16y ago
In many countries outside of the US they are. However that hasn't done much to significantly change the working conditions. As long as it remains a 'glamorous' industry that kids aspire to work in, then they know they'll never have trouble hiring new workers. The other aspect is that EA, the mother company, doesn't actually program games. They own IP and publish games. The games are written by various studios with various ties and connections to EA. This means that if a studio gets too troublesome, it is quite easy for EA to cut all dealings with that studio and simply shift its IP from that studio to another studio.

motters 16y ago

Conditions like this were enjoyed by 19th century industrial workers - and still go on in some of the poorer countries today. It's the result of unregulated working conditions and inadequate or non-existent labour laws. If the factory owner's only motivation is making money at the fastest possible rate, and there is an abundant supply of workers of a similar standard then labour can essentially be treated as a consumable.

ifesdjeen 16y ago

hm. just red that. let me tell you something. i was working for outsource companies (sorry to admit, but i'm from Ukraine) for more than 5 years. i can tell that the average hourly rate of the programmer here is still around 15USD for an hour. it's an extremely rare occasion when project goes "right". When you work in outsource, you get tight time schedules promised by the people who have no idea about the development process, and teams inevitably kill themselves for the sake of project. it's most of time not any less than 10 hours a day, with often working weekends. if you don't like it - just go ahead and leave. but if you leave, you just find another head of the same beast. afterall, if you switch jobs way too often, they claim that you're not trustworthy. well, i'm sorry about the guys who work for EA. they're brilliant people who got possessed by managers. but there are places, where whole industry is possessed, and owned. most of the time less skilled people are being taken for the job just because they could be easily fired, they won't take the ownership of anything. they'll just do whatever you tell them to do. maybe EA should do the same? :)

theycallmemorty 16y ago
> sorry to admit, but i'm from Ukraine Why are you sorry?
- ifesdjeen 16y ago
  good question... well, probably because of the current status of IT industry here...

niels_olson 16y ago

> ninety hour weeks; in any other industry the company in question would find itself sued out of business Not really. Resident physicians were only very recently restricted to 80-hour work weeks. And even many of the residents bemoan the lost patient-contact time. What's the average start-up work-week?

josefresco 16y ago

After reading this and the comments here I can't help but think of the extreme opposite case of DNF. It's an extreme example but shows the opposite end of the spectrum. At least EA actually ships games (ducks)

thecircusb0y 16y ago

Going to work overtired is the same as going to work drunk -> http://theweek.com/article/index/202658/going-to-work-sleepy-as-bad-as-showing-up-drunk http://theweek.com/article/index/202658/going-to-work-sleepy... EA has grown so large they will "Challenge Everything" in their path that goes against their profit margin. However I find it hard to believe its hard for small studios to have success. If the studio develops a good product and releases it to the masses on the internet or xbox live arcade, or the number of homebrew scenes, you will get attention. You just have to make a good product. IMHO, some of the best games lately are free or not the latest and greatest. Corporate big wigs are pushing mainstream games into a corner and beating them a lead pipe for every bit of control over the flow of money and players. Activision and EA Corporate Big Wigs have fubared Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (tm) and Bad Company 2. Both games will suffer in the long run with lack of an SDK for the modding community. There is also a lack of dedicated server files, which remove the option for hosting your own game servers. The communities have spoken loud, and the developers do here this. Infinity Ward and Dice have already lost employees because they disagree with EA and Activision's control and greed. In the end I am very loyal to the companies which remain respectful to its fans and work with the people, and not for the money. Valve, iD, 3dRealms, are just a number of companies that are more concerned with producing a good game, and sharing the success all around. Love to 3rd party developers with SDK's, love to the players for not charging massive amounts of money for DLC, just good old love for developers. In retrospect, I'm sorry for the abused developers all over. But they have a choice, and they choose to endure that reality. But some will choose to break off and make a startup. Valve was created by 2 former Microsoft employees, and they started small, and look at them now. They have produced games, software, and contributed to the community with massive amounts of information, and content to award the player, and the developers (both in house and 3rd party). Same goes for Epic Megagames, which continue to release Unreal Tournement games, with updated fresh engines. Id Software will continue to produce the next Doom and Quake. (Where it all began.) 3dRealms if I remember correctly has gone under, but I pray to god someone buys the Duke Nukem Forever project and finishes it soon. To quote Steve Ballmer: "Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers" Now I need to get back to my job... as a developer. [I apologize if I was unorganized or off topic]

16y ago

ryanricard 16y ago

Couple of "WHYYYY?" comments on here, mostly with good answers, but one more piece that hasn't been mentioned: since the industry is very competitive, having experience on a shipping game is a huge benefit to your resume. I'm sure many of those programmers/artists thought "OK, just make it through this game and then I'll actually have something on my resume." I mean, could you imagine quitting a startup before they shipped a product?

epochwolf 16y ago
> I mean, could you imagine quitting a startup before they shipped a product? I did. (Granted, the product changed every month and the website I was working on changed every week.)

mrbgty 16y ago

I've heard before that EA forces employees to work long hours and for low pay but this part got me: "The current mandatory hours are 9am to 10pm -- seven days a week -- with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30pm)" Saturday evening off for good behavior....

whyme 16y ago

I once had someone ask me I was willing to work overtime in an interview. I said "It depends....!". And so it went: dumb-ass company> What do you mean it depends? me> Well, if it's a reasonable amount and I am compensated for it, then I'm game, but otherwise I'm not. dumb-ass company> We don't pay for overtime, it's expected in our industry to put in some overtime. me> That's ok, as long as I can take time in lieu. dumb-ass company> We don't do that either. me> Well my priorities are different than yours. I put my family first and my employment after. So each hour of overtime I would work for you would be an hour stolen from my family. dumb-ass company> When you work overtime you do so because having a job lets you pay for you family. So working overtime and having a job really is putting your family first - right? me> Sometimes, but truthfully if I took this job I would only work only long enough to find a job where I am not required to work uncompensated overtime and the company has a "families first" value system. However, in reality, working for you would probably leave me with little to no time to look for work, so I feel I am better off to pass and invest my time wisely........ -- You folks working at places like EA are caught in that same cycle: the company is working you so hard your not able to effectively look for work. I recommend two options: 1. Stop working overtime. Show up for regular work hours and let them get mad at you. Let them threaten you. Let them fire you, but until they fire you spend your time looking for a better job. or: 2. Quit. And understand your sacrifice is an investment. Have confidence in yourself to succeed. Empower yourself to better both yours' and/or your family's lives. If your going to spend the rest of you life being manipulated your life is going to suck. Have or Have not! Live or Live not! It's up to you! Not your company.