Slashdot Mirror
A College Guide to EA
DesiVideoGamer writes "With all the recent news about EA, one of the professors at Carnegie Mellon University is giving a talk about EA after he visited the company for a semester. He also published a white paper about EA and what college grads should know about it. (pdf format) The paper talks a lot about the culture at EA and could indirectly explain the previous stories covered by Slashdot."
EA is there to make money, not take care of people. If they are treating their employees poorly who cares? If the game is good I'll buy it, if it's not I won't.
If the employees are treated poorly they should quit. That's how capitalism works, if all the good employees quit, or start demanding more and more money to make up for the poor working environment then EA will see that it's policies are not best for the bottom line and they will change. But why is everyone else up in arms? Let the employees and their employer deal with it as they should.
Everyone here seems to think every large company except for Google is evil and controlled by the devil and hungry for souls and dollars.
I am a programmer for EA. From what I've seen the managers at EA take overtime very seriously, encouraging people to leave when they (the managers) do, and when there is overtime, the managers are always there with the troops to make them as comfy as possible.
I absolutely love my job at EA. I've worked as a construction worker, tree planter, telemarketer, tech support rep, retail sales rep, and a parking garage attendant; There are a LOT of shittier places to work than EA.
People who don't like their job at EA probably just hate the games industry in general. The problem of overtime isn't a problem with EA specifically, it's a problem with the games industry in general. You think the guys at Id or Valve don't work the insane hours we do at EA? Hell, the probably work longer hours. Painting the picture of EA as a meat grinding faceless corporation is a cliche here on slashdot. Thats what the games industry is. When a marine is shot, you don't hear people blaming the marine corps do you? People get shot in wars! People work long hours in the games industry!
90 hour weeks are insane, and I'm not defending any company that would put that upon their employees and I certainly wouldn't disagree with someones decision to leave a company they were unhappy at, for any reason.
EA is probably one the cushiest places to work in the games industry. I'm sure cushier places exist but they are most certainly not the norm. If anything, EA sheilds you from the games industry. They allow you to work, and have the money to do everything in their power to ensure you're working at your maximum potential.
Peoples experiences may vary, but I think everyone should remember that an individuals experience at a company is defined by the interaction of the individuals around you. My experience at EA has been a dream so far, simply because of the professionalism of my team/management. A lot of people in my studio have come from all over the industry, and say that of all the places they've worked, EA is the most sane. If you want to work in games, EA is your best bet. If someone had a shitty experience at EA, well that's no more likely to have happened than at any other game development house.
As stated earlier, I've worked for much more soul crusing companies. Think a 12 hour day is long? Try a 14 hour day planting trees. No games room, free lunch, and $1200 chair. Think crushing bugs is tedious? Try reading a sales pitch to 800 people telling you to fuck off over the phone. Think the pay sucks? Try working scab labour flagging traffic for 10 hours a day at $12/hour. I've done all of the above, and anything they've thrown at me in the games industry is a walk in the park, and should be for anyone else who can appreciate how lucky they are.
There are a LOT of shittier jobs to be doing, and a LOT of shittier companies to work for. The idea of an entire corporation that agrees and works to march people to madness for money is rediculously biased. Remember that a corporation is a collection of people just like me and you, and your experience is only as good as the people around you. EA hires the best people, which explains my awesome experience so far.
Lets fight the forest fire before we complain about lit matches.
- Mr.Oreo