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EA Games: The Human Story
An anonymous reader writes "An Electronic Arts employee spouse speaks out against company crunch time practices. From the post: "EA's bright and shiny new corporate trademark is "Challenge Everything." Where this applies is not exactly clear. Churning out one licensed football game after another doesn't sound like challenging much of anything to me; it sounds like a money farm. To any EA executive that happens to read this, I have a good challenge for you: how about safe and sane labor practices for the people on whose backs you walk for your millions?"
This story is truly no different than most things I've witnessed in the game/software industry. Deadlines must be adhered to at any cost. The company will not hire additional workers, so they run their developers and testers ragged, especially toward the end of a project.
This is nothing new, as I'm sure many people here will attest to.
It's great that someone's able to speak out about it... but it won't change anything.
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I once had a job that actually didn't pay me (or any of the other employees) for 3 months. The company still owes me 1 1/2 months worth of wages. I'm speaking from experience.
The day I quit was the day I reclaimed my dignity.
The Philosophy of Liberty | lewrockwell.com
Yes, this was my experience also but I'm not sure this isn't true everywhere in corporate America. It's a symptom of the hierarchical economic dictatorships we call corporations.
Quite a few posters have been commenting that these labour practices violate US laws. Most of EA's workforce is in Canada (in fact, I'm just across the street from their head office right now), so they're likely here in Vancouver. I have friends who have worked there, and I can vouch for the authenticity of this story.
How it is legal to do this, I have absolutely no idea. Even in a non-litigious society like Canada, it seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.