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NYT on EA Games
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.
"EA has a formal policy of hiring young, naive people who are willing to work long hours for low pay"
Isn't that how most large companies work?
Let's get a +5 Redundant on this article, stat.
Saying "I'll probably get modded down for this", is a magnet for my -1 mod token. I hate to disappoint.
uh, mcdonalds, walmart, etc
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.
has a formal policy of hiring young, naive people who are willing to work long hours for low pay.
Isn't that good? People often bitch that no one will hire you unless you have some industry experience, and how are you going to get that if no one hires you without it?
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I wonder if EA employees envy the jocks they went to highschool with. It's a strange paradox.
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In a chicken farm, the owner doesn't really care if there's enough head room for the chicken, or whether they have enough exercise or eat healthy food. The owner only wants these chicken to grow fat, fast, so that he can put them out on the market as soon as possible.
What happens when one of the chicken complains about the living condition, maybe by mean of fasting-protest (so that it doesn't grow fat enough in time)? Well, the owner will just find another chicken to replace this naughty one, because there are so many more chicken hatched and ready to grow.
What if this bad chuck told 999 of his mates to do the same? Well, in a farm of 3,000, the owner will simply replace these 1,000 bad apples as long as the rest still grow fast enough, and the 1,000 replacement grow even faster to make up time.
What about the free range chicken? Well, they have found a good owner, who has a consumer market that demands free running healthy lean chicken. With that demand that the owner cannot ignore, he's set to exercise his chicken, offer plenty of land for them to run about and feed them only the approved corns.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
And we the corporations thank you saps for toiling away at free code.
Label it a troll if you like, but I'm just tired of reading the same stuff over and over again here. I think there's been an article every time another publication picks up on this story. Is this necessary? I don't think so.
Saying "I'll probably get modded down for this", is a magnet for my -1 mod token. I hate to disappoint.
Hehe. Keep 'em coming.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
I hope the NYTIMES keeps hounding on these issues. While i'm not a Game programmer I am a consultant and I get shafted left and right with abuses of power like this.
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!
EA strategy seem to be : produce lots of expansion packs / sequels / add-ons that require no or little effort to implement, and throw a bunch of willing-to-work-hard newcomers at it, 'fire' them (if they don't go first) so you don't have to pay them more for experience (etc), and repeat.
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.
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Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
Take with a grain of salt. I say this not becasue I disagree with the accusations but becasue the NYT has a tendency to editoralize or fabricate news.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I can't help but get the impression that the way it got like this, regardless of the companies, is that the managers came from an environment where they had a bunch of extremely enthusiastic coders who really were hyped up on their projects, putting in volunteer extra hours because they liked what they were doing. Then they assumed that that's just how coders are, and that they could come to expect that from them.
Maybe this is just wild speculation. But perhaps managers need to be taught to recognise voluntary additional work as just that, and not to count on it in the future -- especially, not to work it into their business models and work flow charts.
Someone had to do it.
Where are the eggs??? That could solve some very important nutrition problems in the cubicle...
Wait, ew, gross... eating your own eggs??
OK That's great, now I don't think I can eat dinner tonight. BTW, do chickens in cages get to leave to go to the bathroom? Because that would be gross if workers couldn't leave a cubicle to do that. But, the way some cubicles smell, maybe you couldn't tell the difference...
I don't want to directly comment on the EA issue, but why is anyone at all surprised about these kind of accusations?
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?
"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."
is just a constraint on the policy "keep the wage floor low"
promoted by your lamer-in-command "President" George W. Bush
F%ck the f#cking Republicans,
Kilgore Trout
...or many other consulting firms. Hire them fresh out of the frat, work them to death in the crappyest positions and pay them next to nothing. They use the on-the-job training in some enterprise software package and are soon using these positions on their resumes to move on to greener pastures or lucrative independent contracting. I'm sure EA has the same cache' for these gamers who use these slave positions to get better jobs as they move up in the world. If you don't like your job, get another or make your own.
Having gotten through all the rounds of interviews for a game developer position at EA -- I am really glad that in the end it went to a dude with a Ph.D. with more experience than me.
I was interviewed in Toronto for a position at the Vancouver (Burnaby) studio. I am glad I didn't get that job.
The reason why they recruit young grads is because we are naive. I was naive. Afterall, it was my dream job at the time, an illusion now shattered.
These guys are starting at $60,000 a year? I wonder how many of them have degrees. If so, are they really all that "young"? And this new EA complainer is married? He's hardly a "young adult," he's a goddamned man, with a job. And wow, his stock options are only going to be worth $120,000 if he stays for four years? That's rough. He should STFU.
re: long hours. So what? The author of this article obviously doesn't know that there are waiters and painters and salespeople working similar hours and making less than $30K with no benefits whatsoever.
Sounds like a case of hard work with good rewards. Obviously, this is a big problem.
You know EA is just a factory when you play Need for Speed Underground 2. The Cingular "messenger" logo is on your screen all the time, a box pops up to tell you what song is playing and who made it, and there are at least 100 billboards in the world AND racetracks with ads for Autozone, Eclipse, and Cingular. There's no love put into the game, you can tell.
can the gamers come together to influence the EA situation?
Doesn't sound that great to me.
This suggests that it needs to conduct a survey to learn whether a regular routine of 80-hour weeks is popular among the salaried rank and file.
Next, EA will be conducting a survey to determine if employees like to be fed poison, being impaled or imolated...
how long until
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!
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Is there anything about the nature of the work which is unique and worthy of long hours?
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?
This is Slashdot.
He graduated RIT with a 4.0 in CS and EA offered him 50k a year with a 7k bonus. They helped him move to Florida (hes from NY) and put him to work doing the layout for Madden 2k4. He hates it since the games are essentially assembly line made. He does very little coding since EA has their cross platform tools and spent most of his time aligning menu items. Last I heard he wanted out. I remember how excited he was to get a "game development" job and was crushed to find out how that means tweaking stupid crap. Now he wants completely out of the game industry.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
While the situation with these programmers is obviously pretty bad, why is everyone so appalled at the concept of putting in long hours at the end of a project? The so called "crunch time" has been around forever. When we were in college, how often were we given a paper to write with a deadline in two weeks, but we procrastinated for 12 days and then spend the last two days burried in the library cursing the professor for giving us this craptastic assignment? How would this be any different? I have a feeling that at the beginning of a 2 year project for a game, the first year is spent with with all the abstract concept designing and tooling around with a game engine, and taking it easy and not "really" getting stuff done. Then with a year to go, and management clammoring to make sure you get the game out before christmas, and everyone suddenly has to work a lot harder, everyone's like "WTF?". So it's the difference between if they had been giving 100% all the time, rather than starting with 50% and then having to end with 150%.
EA has earned a name of being that Company who pumps out the same sports title ever year, with updated rosters, milking the cow for everything its worth.
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.
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I realize that potentially unfair labor practices take presidence here, but people are quick to forget some of the great game/developer houses diminished & crushed by publishers like EA.
I grew up on Origin & Westwood games so I'll use them as an example.
Wing Commander
Ultima
Crusader
Dune
Command And Conquer
EA chased out two creative minds like Chris Robert and Richard Garriot. Origin and Westwood have now gone the way of the dinosaurs.
Hey but now we have the all the Sims games/expansions we can fit down our throats. Theres no Samurais and ninjas in UO (wtf?), and there a new/redundant sports titled every year. Nothing really creative, but plenty more of the same.
Not to worry, if theres any money to be made from someone not in EA, EA/Vivendi will assimilate them and be sure to repeat the process.
I really hope somebody puts the screws to these publisher's for their behavior. Even if the development and enforcement of a Programmer's Union could lead to increase costs placed on the consumer end.
Somebody has to win one for Colonel Blair and the Avatar.
... does anyone know if EA are hiring?
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
You mean I can get paid for doing this stuff?
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
EA should be praised for offering jobs to people without much industry experience. The skills they learn will stay with them for life and the experience gained will lead to more job opportunities and better pay in the future.
Who is at fault here, the company for paying low wages or the people for accepting them?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
This policy is a GOOD thing. If you're looking to start out in an industry, you should expect to work long hours for little pay when you first start. If you don't like that, you can always look for work elsewhere... but guess what, everyone WANTS to work for EA Games. People know what they're getting into, I don't think there's any trickery involved.
People, if you don't like your working conditions, especially people as highly skilled as computer programers, you should find yourself a new job. Or find an avenue for promotion at your current job that you would leave you with less lengthly responsibilities.
--
RumorsDaily
I for one welcome our new long hour programming low pay overlords!
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So what if their conditions aren't perfect, they chose to work for EA. I am afraid that if you want to work for one of the most popular games companies in the world, thems the breaks!
Somebody has to win one for Colonel Blair
n00b. Back in my day, we had to crank our Rapiers and Claymores with a winch. When it got stuck in the snow, we had to get out and push it all the way to Kilrah and back, uphill both ways! We also didn't have any namby-pamby Mark Hamill playing our lead. No, sir!
Man, Origin really did "not suck" before EA bought them. Ultima 9 sealed it for me: EA sucks. It's in the game.
Does all this bad press predict an employee revolt at EA? After all, the people who are considering employment at EA is the very same demographic as those reading this very forum so it's not like they'd be uninformed before entering employment. This could effectively lower the rate of new hires. So then retention would become a spotlight issue with EA and an employee revolt would then be very well timed so that people could get their employment contracts renegotiated to include specific work hours and specific days off guaranteed.
There's no denying the capitalistic desire to get more for less. Every Walmart shopper knows this desire. Should we even go so far as to say there's nothing wrong with it? Maybe. But we are talking about PEOPLE, not products... employees, not slaves... and we are talking about some pretty abusive and inhumane tactics that clearly involve intentional deception on the part of the employer.
In short, we clearly observe a situation where a company's management is willfully acting in an immoral way and I don't see where it matters one bit that it's a natural desire or that other people are also doing similar things. Wrong is still wrong no matter how frequently it occurs.
But the thing here is now there is an opportunity for the employees to make a change. If a large enough number of people formed a strike, there's no way they could retrain replacements fast enough. It would be huge bad P.R., a relatively newsworthy event and a wake-up call to any new hopefuls.
It's too early to predict an uprising, but I see great potential.
Westwood, Bullfrog, Maxis, Origin on and on...
Now they're trying to absorb DICE, creators of Battlefield 1942
...always complaining when something gets tough - BOO HOO!
Back in my day, we worked hard 24/7 to feed our families, starting with getting coals out of the cellar to start the fire every morning before we even had a chance to wash our faces.
BOO HOO! Go and sweat a bit and learn some respect for your corporate overlords.
OK, so I'm feeding the trolls:
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.
I was unaware that stories had investigative ability. I want to see a story running around investigating things. That'd be some story!
I have an ex wife and boat payments. Now get cracking you code crunching monkeys or I'll find some Cambodians who will.
Heads down, write code, shut the fuck up. This is your last warning.
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.
And especially young people who don't have a clue, have no idea that if it wasn't for labor unions, things like 80 hour work weeks and no weekends would be common throughout most industries.
Obviously unions aren't perfect, and like any powerful entity, there are abuses and corruption, but the fact is that for the most part the game industry is not organized and as a result the workers are treated unfairly.
I am a left leaning, liberal dude. I support workers rights. Having said that, I might consider working for EA.
Consider the following:
Yes, the Bay Area is expensive....but there are a lot EA employees in the Orlando, FL region as well
You say They start coders out at 60K? You can buy a very, very, nice house in FL for under 120K, and the standard of living is extremely low.
Unless your a married person with a family, it seems like a pretty good opportunity.
"young kids don't know what's impossible."
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.
... is that EA will outsource jobs overseas. It may initially pretend to "fix" the problem and offer "solutions," but in five years there won't be any US programming jobs left.
No one bitches about working on Saturdays in the third world.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
If you raised wages, EA would have to use less programmers to get a given job done, produce inferior work or have to charge higher prices
Bullshit on a stick, newbie. EA had an operating profit of over $500M USD last year, and spent several hundred million dollars on marketing alone. You want to argue that globalization should fuck workers here? I think it should make life better for workers everywhere.
EA's financial status as of last year.
Sales $2.82 bil
Profits $.50 bil
Assets $3.34 bil
Market Value $13.28 bil
Employees 4,000
CEO Probst's compensation package
$1.45M in cash this year, $145M in stock options granted over his career. Stock options may look free, but they damn well aren't-- the difference comes out of the company's profits same as any other compensation.
So, EA games has 3,300 programmers. Hire another 1,650 at $60,000 a pop, and the wages cost you $100M a year. Adjust to ~$150M a year for benefits, and you're still taking up less than one third of EA's operating profits from last year.
Productivity goes up, and it costs you less than the money spent compensating the CEO in the last 10 years.
We can also compare it to EA Games' marketing budget, estimated at >$100M in the last quarter. Cut your marketing budget by 30%, and you can hire enough programmers for them to have normal lives and increase production.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Most companies are looking for people with experience in their field. It's only in certain fields where fixing errors doesn't mean lost materials that young and naive and working 80+ hours a week is prefered.
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.
We're supposed to be outraged about people voluntarily overworking themselves for $60 grand a year these days?
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!
hmm, lets see. Cook at 250 degrees for 3 hours. Well, damn, if I set it to 500 degrees it should be done in 90 minutes!
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Take note: this is how labor unions got their start "back in the day."
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...
"They use the phrase 'toiling like galley slaves' to describe EA's programmers." "EA has a formal policy of hiring young, naive people who are willing to work long hours for low pay" slaves??? Am I the only one that understand the meaning of the word "willing"? - Rhetorical question, the answer is...drum roll...Yes, I'm the only one. If you're willing to work for any or no wages, you're not a slave. new york times ain't nuthin' but a bunch of carpetbaggers; don't worry... my two cents are free!
This isn't a company struggling to make payroll.
This is a company pulling in millions of dollars and paying their executives a LOT more than the coders.
This is all about where EA wants to spend the money, not about whether EA has enough money to pay their bills.
This type of hyperbole is inappropriate, potentially offensive, and merely portrays programmers as whiny brats.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
They make a minimum of $60K a year _out of school_ and _choose_ to work there. Oh the humanity of it all! These poor "slaves" are making far more than the national medium right of school.
Here's a novel notion: if you don't like it, quit and find another job. If 60K is so pathetically low they should have no trouble finding other work at higher rates, yes?
Rather than strike or unionize, why they dont't they find a job that fits them? Whatever happend to choice and personal responsibility? These aren't coal miners caught in a company town.
This is the same as HP and their engineers. They definitly prefer to hire college graduates and then work them (at well below the industry average saleries) till they burn out and then lay them off then hire some more. They keep a few around to train the new folks, but if you look at the average years of service, it's 5 years for most divisions. Now that a large portion of their designs are being outsourced, they won't be replacing those they who burn out.
Wow, the article says they hire 1000 programmers a year. I guess if you want to be a game programmer, now's the time to apply!
You'll never have another day off ever again, of course. But then I guess it just depends on how bad you want it.
Me, I'll pass.
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".
A while back there was an article here on slashdot asking what we would think of developers inserting advertising into games, and the general consensus seemed to be that it would be fine so long as it fit the mold of the game.
What's wrong with getting a message on my cingular phone while driving past an autozone billboard on my way to an autozone store to buy some toyo brand tires for my new mustang? What modern stereo doesn't display track information? I think the ads in nfsu2 are well done, they don't annoy me any more (or less) than the signs I see on my way to work in the mornings.
I've just finished an internship (hourly, not salary) working for a small game company. I left so I could finish college in a somewhat reasonable time frame. I never worked over 40 hours a week, rarely more than 25 during the school year, and only once over the weekend on a special request. Granted, many of my co-workers were consistently working quite long hours. I had been asked to work longer, and there was playful co-worker pressure, but I knew that I would burn out if I did (and end up getting LESS done), and they seemed to respect that, and have indicated that I am welcome back when my schedule eases up. Whether or not this is a rarity, I can't be sure. Personally, I'd gladly take a low-hours job, even at a lower salary. I was in it for the experience, not the money, which also seemed to help the dialogue.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
I don't necessarily agree with the way EA handles its employees but mandating EA's policies is not the way to handle this issue. Granted, if you are an EA employee, you might think so.
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.
Sunny
Be my Friend
And what does the consumer end up getting? A cardboard box with some paper and plastic disks. Same as the music industry.
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
Little work???
Your grandparents had it a hell of a lot harder than your lazy ass!
Kids today, sheesh....
Would you please reconcile "young, naive" with "already worked their way up"? I don't think a bachelors degree or picking the right company (i.e. multibillion dollar) entitle one to a lifetime on easy street.
EA is just following the latest trendy development methodology called Extreme Overtime.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Wasn't the problem with EA the fact that they were actually breaking CA laws when they weren't paying their employees overtime?
Because as long as they are not breaking any laws, it is still perfectly within the limits of a capitalistic society, you know? Do you think that if the employees could get a better deal somewhere else, they would hesitate for more than a second?
After which IT wages will rise to their normal level within 15 minutes.
Seriously, how do you do it? I've heard the rah-rah HR pep speeches about everyone pitching in '110%' and all that, but when it comes down to it, there are only so many hours in a day, and usually a finite number of people to execute the work. You can't budget 30 days of work into 27, no matter how hard you try. OK - perhaps you can. But you'll never *get* 30 days of work out of 27.
creation science book
Ummm, who do you think runs the United States?
It may sound like a joke at first, but it is true. We are a capitalist and consumeristic society. We enable it every day. We (not me) voted in as President one of the most corporate-friendly presidents that I can remember. Quite honestly, the tech industry is just a tiny blip that is barely on this country's radar. People would rather vote for a candidate based on what he thinks about gay marriage. Nobody here gives a shit about the hi-tech industry.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
In my second job, I cheerfully slept under my desk once, and worked really long hours all the time. I remember bragging that I had our IT manager beat wednesday night - she'd worked 42 hours since Monday. I was young, and in my time off I just programmed hobby projects anyhow. The company was on track to IPO, I had shares, and I was collecting big raises frequently.
Anyhow, I don't regret that at all. Now that I'm older, have a daughter and different priorities, I hate that young people are still willing to do that, because it makes me look like a less desirable employee.
The problem with EA, however, is not the way they work their employees with long hours, but the way they deceive people to get them and keep them before turnover finally claims them. If EA said: we're going to pay you $25k/yr base, but work you 100 hours a week, so you'll make $85k with overtime, then there would be no problem. (And, quite possibly, no people accepting jobs there)
It wasn't a troll.
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.
Well,
they have found a good owner, That gives the chicken enough range to sort of stand on tiptoe and streach out it's wings. And not much more, sort of like a cube only 34 inches high, but with a lot of other chickens.
Now,
if you add organic or certified organic or natural your normal chickens get more freedom, but the free range you describe was like that at my grandmas farm in Chesnee, South Carolina back in the 50's and 60's.
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
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)
Millions of lawyers, doctors, Ibankers, consultants, et al. have been doing 70 hour work weeks for decades.
At least you effeminate, teary-eyed bastards, get the benefit of having 1 hour of work equal 1 hour of work. I can only imagine the tears of if you bitches had to work under the auspices of the "billable hour."
Galley slaves can't quit. EA employees can. Either EA's job and compensation is the best they can find (otherwise they'd leave), or they can find nothing else at all.
In both cases, the employee gets to make the choice, as they should.
Converting everyone to 40 hours per week would also migrate half of the jobs to less expensive, non-US locations.
It's not for me to decide whether long hours is better or worse than 50% layoffs; each EA employee needs to do that. When enough people choose the latter, the problem will go away.
Specifically:
In order to make all those huge profits EA is exploiting their employees and breaking the law. It just does not get any clearer than this.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
How do you get into the building every day? I'd figure your head wouldn't fit through the door.
"Irregardless" is not a word. Affixing the "ir-" prefix to "regardless" is entirely redundant.
EA has a formal policy of hiring young, naive people who are willing to work long hours for low pay.
I'm delivering sandwiches for 5.15 an hour. Long hours and low pay... in a technology field?
Where do I sign?
Oh, right. I'm the bad guy. My eagerness to have a job that doesn't totally suck is what drives down wages. I guess I'm supposed to keep delivering people's sandwiches so that some programmers can have Ferarri's.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
And that abuse is exactly why we shouldn't rush into "globalization".
Where you are wrong is that with the Industrial Revolution, there wasn't anything stopping the people who had been farm workers from becoming factory workers.
Now, the jobs are going overseas. It's a lot harder to hitchhike to India from Montana than it was to hitchhike from Montana to New York.
And the people in New York still spoke the same language you did. So living day-to-day wasn't a problem.And the difference between that and a factory 100 years ago is
There is a LOT more to the discussion than whether we can abuse 3rd world workers. To start with, the question of "Should we abuse 3rd world workers" comes to mind. But I've already gone over that.
(wild chicken) says, "Owner? What the fuck is this "owner" you're talking about? Be free my chicken cousins.
Be free, free! Come sleep in a tree.
There's tasty grubs for you and me
All over the ground to be had for free
For the chicken not afraid to be free.
"Free range," you say? Your "owner" is "nice"?
Nice to end in a pot in a trice
Screw the owner! Screw the farm!
Come my chickens and sound the alarm.
No more fowl slaves we'll be
or die to make a fricassee
Out of the cubicle farms we'll flee
The chickens, the chickens who dare to be FREE!
Oh. Ummmmmmm. Sorry. It's been a long day, and that post just set me off. It won't happen again until next time. I promise.
KFG
$60,000 a year by 52 weeks...
by 100 hours [includes 20 hours for overtime?]...
=$11.53
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
I can't believe people on *Slashdot* are surprised that a large software company is abusing their employees. How many of us (who are programmers) have *not* lived through this very reality (and fuck it -- I *never* got a laundery service despite my 90-100 hour weeks).
Now, I'll be the first person to say that unpaid overtime is unethical and illegal. I will also be the first to say it's unproductive. Hmm... Now that I'm thinking about it -- I'm not the first; not by a large margin. I believe a little book called "Peopleware" beat me out by a couple of decades.
However, this is the norm. 65 hour weeks? And they call that abusive? I almost laughed out loud. My first employer made me work in a septic tank and I had to walk 40 miles uphill (in both directions) to work, cleaning the road with my tongue. (apologies to Monty Python for butchering that).
But seriously, back in the day I wouldn't have even called 65 hours a week "crunching". I remember working 90 hour weeks *during my vacation*. That was crunching. Anybody remember Jamie Zawinski's rant about the telephone survey on work hours that had a maximum of 99 hours per week? Of course he had an apartment painted entirely black and hung manequin parts from the ceiling...
Now, after burning out a couple of times, I am older and wiser. I've got a job where my boss kicks me out at 5:00 every evening. Not only that but I never have to do status reports because he reads my code to see where I am.
My point is, why crucify one company? 99% of those so-called places of employment are the same. If you are so enraged, either vote with your feet or *do something about your present employer*.
I don't mean suing. I mean showing them that people are *more* productive with 40 hour work weeks. Hell, in my last job, I worked for 5 years at one of the most notorious abusers in all of software and worked only about 10 weekends the entire time. I got glowing reviews and convinced an entire department of 40 people to try 40 hour weeks. I collected a shit-load of stats and showed upper management that less was more.
It is possible. But instead of bitching about it, you have to dig out your oft-neglected people skills and *persuade* others to look at the problem from a different perspective. Offer to run a pilot project. Develop solid productivity measurements and show how productivity *increases* when you aren't trying to figure out if it's Wednesday or Thursday, whether that caffeine induced halluncination of Natalie Portman is real or not, and how the hell you got so much lint in your belly button.
Maybe someone can comment on something that's been bugging me for quite some time.
As we move forward, we find ourselves in a position where we can automate a lot of the work that *needs* to get done. This isn't new; it's been happening since the Industrial Revolution in one degree or another.
It's pretty much obvious that a lot of people (in *any* large group) just aren't that well-suited for work requiring intelligence. It's been the case in the past that that these people could find tasks that need accomplishing and get paid to do them, even if they didn't get paid a whole lot.
I think we can safely say that, barring any major cataclysms, it won't be too long before the various mechanisms are in place to put together robots that can handle most all menials tasks (i.e. image processing systems being capable of recognizing distinct objects, robotic limbs capable of manipulating free-form objects in an intelligent way), from manufacturing to agriculture.
So what exactly is going to happen with the part of the population that isn't all that well-suited to thinking through things that computers aren't? Can we even come up with enough non-menial tasks to keep the people who *can* do them busy? Since the *last* thing anyone seems to want to do is reduce the average number of hours anyone works, and since in at least in the United States we don't really feel that people deserve to have food on the table unless they're doing *something* for a set number of hours per week, how are we going to account for the growing number of people that aren't really needed for anything? Some enormous service economy? Office Space-style meaningless busywork?
Rememeber, we suffer for your gain.
oh Please, only on Slashdot would this kind of rah-rah All-American bullshit get modded insightful.
Americans are NOT suffering so that Canadians (or anyone else for that matter) can live a life of plenty, living off the hard work of freedom loving libertarians who pay their way with an honest buck. Drug companies may be powerful, but they can be and are regulated or ignored by governments. Witness Brazil allowing generics to be created, against the will of said Multi-National drug companies. They also can't afford to just leave markets as some kind of retaliatory gesture.
Prices and working conditions are controlled all over the world, including in America. Fully free markets are not pretty (see Somalia right now), and your caricature of 'market forces at work' has very little to do with reality in any case.
The logical (and absurd) endpoint of your argument that 'regulation encourages outsourcing' is to do away with all regulation, unions and workers rights and live with the consequences, allowing the world to descend into a hell where money is the only measure of value. We'd end up choosing the lowest common denominator of conditions/rights/wages because that's where the jobs will 'flow' to. Is that really what you're suggesting?
The sensible alternative is to impose some restrictions and tarrifs on companies who use child labour or otherwise exploit their workforce (wherever that may be if they sell to western markets they can be controlled), and gradually try to adjust their behaviour so that they improve working conditions for their workers. Conditions are improving in India (for example) partly because of pressure from elsewhere, and partly because the country is maturing. The growth of outsourcing there has everything to do with a burgeoning IT industry centered on Bangalore, with workers who are relatively (for the country) well paid, and nothing to do with sweatshops.
The drug companies R&D is paid for by the government. They make a great profit in Canada as it stands, there is no need for them to assrape us, they only assrape the US because they can. The only drugs made by independantly funded research is shit like viagra, because there's more money there.
If you forced the drug companies to be reasonable, they would just make a reasonable profit, instead of the insane profits they pull in now. And if any drug companies did decide they wanted to sell drugs somewhere else, a new company would come up in its place, because there would still be the demand for drugs.
uh huh. no old folks there
if you screw up the basic software architecture of a product you will be paying for a long time
I'm one of the biggest video games fan ever, you can't imagine the amount of time I spent on each generation of consoles.
I graduated in computer sciences And yet, when it was time to choose a job, I looked at the video game companies, did some interviews and realized 'the bosses' were just in for the money. So I simply gave up. It's not that I had not the skills but you can't perform well in an interview when you realize the interviewer is some kind of jerk who is only in for the buisness.
I ended up choosing a job as programmer for the government and don't regret it. Sure the salary is lower, it's not as fun but at least, it's humanly better and the work hours are corrects.
I can't imagine how someone who work 80 hours and don't have a wife/houseband yet could find one.
People who tell you how great they are, are never close to as good as they say. Not that I think you are lying, just that I think you don't know what good is, and consider yourself good out of ignorance. All the best people at everything are always modest people who don't make efforts to constantly try to be in the spotlight.
Is that what we call 'Extreme programming' ?
I read the new story at 22 posts, did this bit of research, made a post about free range chicken, $11.53 an hour, browsed a most of these posts which seem to be mostly rehash of arguements/comments from earlier this week and now find this post may be number 308. But this post is mouthful.
AFL-CIO
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
Developers aren't, unless they are dumb about it, shackeled to a publisher. They publisher owns the rights to a specific title, but they can switch publishers with new titles. Bioware did just that. They used to be with Interplay, who then tried to screw them since they were going under. Bioware jumped ship and went with Atari then.
In the case of Origin, it was very largely their own fault. Ultima, their big product, peaked at 6. The subsequent ones just got worse and worse, largely on the programming front, but also gameplay.
Ultima 7 was an amesome game, but was poorly coded. It had the most bizarre set of memory requirements and was a real pill to get to run. It also suffered from crashing. Ultima 8 had a horrible interface, was even buggier, and the gameplay certianly left something to be desired. It just didn't feel like Ultima.
Ultima 9 was the ultimate disaster. When it was released, it wouldn't even run on 60% of the systems out there. Even on those it did run on, the performance blew, it was almost unplayably slow on the recommended hardware. You couldn't beat the game anyhow because of bugs.
The lead programmer blamed the graphics card companies, Microsoft, the players, and just about everyone else for the problems. Two patches later the game was playable on most systems, though still had some show stopper bugs if you weren't careful, and was still quite slow. The programmer then declared it done and completely fixed and stopped working on it.
All this is in additon to the fact that none of the promised interactivity or character depth was present. If there was ever a game taht didn't feel Ultima, this was it. Shitty game, shitty programming, no wonder it failed.
Developers need to be held to task as well as publishers. There are plenty of cases of developers utterly failing to deliver on their games and you can't blame anyone but them.
You talk a lot, but your words have little meaning. A nice 7 paragraph rant about how much better you are than everyone else. What bearing this has on EA and its mistreatment of its employees this little rant has however I do not know. Perhaps you are meaning to imply that EA is doing the things it is because clearly none of its employees could match your amazing skill. Do you mean to say that if these employees could attain your level of excellence then EA would not do the things it does? Well, I have bad news for you. Employers like EA will abuse their employees no matter how good they are. Yes if you worked at EA they wouldn't say "well you're so productive we don't care if you only work 40 hours." They would be pulling the same shit with you, despite your amazing self proclaimed coding abilities.
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!
First: only the companies whose business models depend on "screwing over the IT crowd", would find it profitable to move production overseas as a result of stricter regulation. In all honesty; good riddance!
This could potentially free up labor and other resources for companies whose businessmodels do not depend on "screwing the IT crowd"
Secondly: the number of competent people available from overseas to fill up these positions is probably vastly exaggerated, remember that it is in the interests of employers to exaggerate this threat. The long term effect would most likely be limited to a reconfiguration of the domestic power relationship between workers and employers, probably manifested by a larger share of EA's profits allocated to employes (in the form of: more pay, shorter hours, or better benifits).
I wondering how this lawsuite will effect EA employees outside of the states. I have a feeling it won't change anything for them. They'll still work the 80 hour weeks while there freinds south of the border get compensated. Infact, I can see many EA titles move to the great white north once practices change in the states. Lets just hope some one takes similar action in Canada and hope EA won't start outsourcing to India.
I have a friend who I need to show all this EA shit to because he's one of those who is oging to be a source of the problem.
Right now, he has a good job doing database programming. It's something he's good at and knows how to do, no additonal training needed on his part. It's a good work environment, due to security concerns (they work with credit card data) they don't want employees leaving, so they feed them, quite well, on site. It's an 8-5 job with very little overtime since there really aren't crunches. It's one of those things where stuff must work right, and it doesn't matter how long that takes to make happen. They get benefist, vacation, and so on. The pay isn't stellar, but it's a plenty good wage for the city he lives in, enough to easily have a house, car, and money to put away for retirement.
However, currently he is just saving up money so he can go to a game programming university (called Guild Hall, never heard of the place). He wants to get trained in game development, and go in to that. It's not because he needs a job or anything, he's got a great one, just because he sees game programming as the cool thing and what he wants to do. We've all told him he should stay where he's at, but he's undeterred.
Well, that's what allows companies to pull shit like this. These people that want to do game development, and will make stupid choices in their quest to get there.
Flaw in your math there is that EA doesn't give overtime.
"If Common Sense was so common, it wouldn't be such a valued trait."
OK. So EA is bottom of the barrel, mass produced, "fast food" of the game world. No experienced chef would work for McDonalds as no experienced programmer will work for EA. They still serve some sort of purpose as entry-level training, right?
just like people are starting to purchase fair trade coffee and sweatshop free clothing, how about gamers start buying games from companies who treat their employees well.
As an I.T. professional,
My team was called on to work till the wee hours of the morning for several weeks moving a whole corporation's I.T. infastructure from one building to another newer building.
It was fun in a way, working till 6AM when office workers started returning. We had a 'we can do anything' attitude.
What was our pay for 100 hours of work?
Pizza.
Go into a small room and ask a group of truck drivers to each give you an extra 100 or 200 hours of work for some pizza as a condition of their employment.
If you manage to walk out of the room on two good legs, you know they have a good sense of humor.
...and note that EA has a formal policy of hiring young, naive people who are willing to work long hours for low pay...
I've worked at companies like this in the past, though none that ever insisted I routinely work 80 hour weeks. Some managers feel that it's better to hire young programmers exclusively because "they're cheaper" and because "we can train them our way."
The thing is, younger programmers generally aren't cheaper, and the training never happens. Experienced programmers may draw larger salaries, but they're usually more productive because they solve problems quicker, make fewer mistakes, and don't rush into implementation before they've got a handle on requirements and design. Proper training is an expensive proposition, and in my experience the kinds of companies that try to save money by hiring less experience staff are not the kinds of companies that would ever consider spending that kind of money on training their staff.
EA and companies like them would be well advised to spend some time and money improving their development process. Companies that do software development well do not work in a constant crunch mode.
I hear the a lot but frankly the people I know that worked in unionized places hated the unions.
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.
That'd be his point.
When they started EA, they had some of the best :^)
and most famous game programmers in the world.
I remember the artsy ads featuring Bill Budge and
others who were well known at the time and the
whole concept of programming as an art. I wonder
what happened...
1.) When the front cover athlete for EA sports game always end up in career-threatening injuries. It's like god's way of disapproving EA's practice.
2.) The classic Electronic Arts as we know it has been gone for a long long time. EA is just a rich marketing force slaving over all the little companies.
3.) EA has a very microsoft-ish marketing tactics. EA has tried hard many times to lock in sports association licenses so that non-EA sports games can't use authentic players. Luckily they failed.
4.) Competitors have to sell at lower cost to keep up with EA's monopoly. Like ESPN NFL costing 1/2 has much as Madden. EA has already created a deadend market where innovation and good product can't beat them alone.
sire half a dozen kids he can't support at the standard of living he wants to. Same goes for dumbass poor Americans too, BTW. I'm sick and fucking tired of watching the world go to hell and seeing large corporations playing the poor off each other when all it takes to stop that is a little fsckin' birth control. If you want to stop being capitalism's fodder you've got to stop making so much of it. Don't bring children into a world you know is hell for your own selfish emotional needs or because you're just dumb.
Instead of competing like idiots while the rich fucks of the world are laughing all the way to the bank, why don't you do something smart for a change and make those bastards compete for you? Oh well, in a few years/decades there'll be a really nasty war again and I guess the survivors will have fun afterwards. Until they're done screwing themselves back to a surplus population again.
Not trolling, I'm just disgusted with the world situation. Two world wars and we didn't learn shit.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
... getting into the video game industry and having EA on your resume is well worth the low pay for a little while.
Tell that to a friend of mine who said the same when he signed up with Corel back in 1998. Their salaries were lower than all other tech companies here in Ottawa, but people recognized the name Corel, so they gladly worked for them. He worked constantly 60-80 hours a week, rarely getting paid for the extra hous. He was laid off in the big turn a couple of years back... now he's in telemarketing.
You'll see the same turn in the video game industry in a couple of years when India and China has picked up on how to make good games. I'd rather hang onto coding those boring Java/SQL database applications than facing that downturn. Game programmers aren't good at coding applications and therefor won't get much of a chance on the few remaining IT jobs here.
EA makes you work for long hours with little pay!
Oh, wait.
Now for a discussion of labor economics:
The common assumption to make is that your MARKET-VALUE (lets get the terms straight shall we?) as a worker is determined by the *percieved* opportunity cost foregone by hiring you.
Remember the percieved part, cause I will get back to it.
Again you are pretty incoherent, but I think you are trying to reach the natural conclusion of your tautology; everything is the way it is because otherwise it would be different, and lets not bother with it because if different was good then it already would be... Right?
When we assume that the employers/employeees have only a limited ability to **percieve** the potential opportunity cost foregone by entering a contract, we can imagine scenarios where they enter contracts where either one or both parties would have been better off without.
If this doesnt ring a bell then I suggest you RTF original A....you know, the part about lying to prospective employees about the job.
and I havent even touched upon the whole issue of agency problems, and the fact that all of these decisions are made by managers...
> 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.
l letin/200 3/oct/page4.html
/ health/m ain329293.shtml
You get screwed because your government isn't willing to do anything to stop these companies who are screwing you. Your getting screwed isn't a subsidy for anyone else like the bile you spew.
Why do drug companies need to advertise their drugs? If the drug really works, it would sell itself. My uncle is a Canadian doctor, and he keeps getting free "gifts" from drug companies - such as free paid vacation for his whole family, free arts (play/opera/musical) tickets, even free ballon ride, and so forth.
Excerpt:
"Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising. Manufacturers of brand prescription drugs continue to spend exorbitant amounts of money on direct-to-consumer advertising, with television ads for prescription drugs as common as automobile and beverage ads. DTC advertising is controversial with many experts concerned that the ads typically offer limited information and may contribute to inappropriate prescribing and increased prescription costs.
For example, the February issue of Consumer Reports warns that drug ads:
1.Commonly minimize drug risks.
2.Exaggerate how well drugs work.
3.Make false claims that one drug is better than another.
4.Suggest unapproved uses for existing drugs, and
5.Promote still-experimental drugs.
Advertising expenditures vs. research and development expenditures. While drug manufacturers emphasize the importance of their research and development of new life-saving drugs, the eleven Fortune 500 drug companies devote an average of approximately three times more on advertising, marketing, and administrative costs than on research and development of drugs."
http://www.indiana.edu/~uhrs/benefits/bu
Need more proof?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/02/13
You get screwed anyway, so isn't it better to make laws for fair employee treatment?
They are filled with Chinese management who treat their employees like surfs. No soup for you, get back to work!
So you like working for free?
I hope EA realizes that most of their games are shitty. I hope this is related to the employees being treated like shit, or they all should be fired. After looking at the Halo2 special dvd, it seems to me that bungie was able to create great work by treating the employees (or they released the dvd with them acting like they were having a good time). Either way EA should take a hint
KARMA POLICE ARREST THIS MAN HE TALKS IN MATHS- radiohead
Hot damn. That's $3.50 more an hour than I make now. Where do I sign up?
Compared to my workplace where 80 hour weeks are universally recognized as signs of laziness.
And to think before the changes we routinely worked 110-120/wk.
"No-one forcing them to work there." misses the point of the obvious non-monetary benefit to the allure of working there.
How true. I get the impression that this is pretty prevalent in IT. All you need is a tight set of spec, and some good senior programmers to run the galley, and 'cool' perks. It is possible to run a sweat shop. There is no cost involved other than your novice employees time. Which they, for some reason, don't seem to realize is being abused. In the mean time the companies are selling products and not paying what they would with more aware employees. Most of the time these novices think it's good bragging rights that they sleep under their desks becaues they seem to equate this to some new 'adventure'. Too much X sports maybe :) Eventually, they mature enough to realize that no matter how plush the carpet is, the reality is very different from the illusion they bought into, hook line and sinker.
Welcome to the new 'factory'. I've heard some people joke about putting together a programmers union. Sometimes I wonder if it won't happen.
Especially when you consider the differences between humans are not that great.
The real name of the game is called "Cover Your Ass". When you're on the brink of collapse and are sitting in the board of a company, have Wall Street and the entire company watching what you do next, and you have the alternative of hiring Joe Blow for $100K a year whom you KNOW will do a better job, vs. hiring Jobs for $10M, whom you imagine will do ok, what do you do??
Simple: Cover your ass. If you hire Jobs and he does ok, he gets the laurels and nothing comes of it. If he runs the company to the ground, he gets tarnished and *you did all you could* - you went out and got THE BEST. If you hire Joe Blow, and he does fine, he gets the laurels all the same. However, if you hired Joe Blow and he runs the company to the ground, guess who's going to take the fall? YOU ARE!
-Andres.
The more attractive the industry, the crappier the pay. Is this news to anyone?
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?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I checked their jobs page and the minimum is 6 years experience with large scale C++ projects. I didn't realize there was a huge pool of 21 year olds with 6+ years of large scale C++ experience that they can dip into.
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.
- - - - - - - -
Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
"Whenever you graduate from college and try to find a job, just try calling up a typical Fortune 500 company and saying "I may have no experience but... I'm young and naive!" and see how far that gets you."
Rolls Royce is hiring interns. No that isn't "waiting till graduation", but it does show that you shouldn't be waiting that long either.
Brooks comment can more than likely be applied to any industry. But that is irrelevant. I think there is a lot of reasons why productivity is the way it is. Good for you that you've found something that your good at. The other 90% of us are wondering what went wrong. Would you care to write the software for the big microwave all of you 10%'s are going to use to get rid of the rest of us? The people at EA are just that, people. They shouldn't be treated that way even if they are just the useless 90%
This is going to be sooo offtopic, but I need to advise this guy. Listen kid, Some advice, take it if you want it. You may be smart, there's nothing bad if you believe you are the best, it doesn't hurt anybody, really. What you are is naive. You aren't THAT smart if you work for a company. If someone pays you X for a job, whatever X is, it means he can get X+B for your work. That means that B is something you worked for, but you are not payed for. B goes for the company. So, OWN a company, don't work for one. btw I'm not talking about stock options, I'm talking about shares. Stock options are valid meanwhile you work for the company. Shares not. Learn some investing. If all your income comes from the time you "sell" to the company you work for you you will be screwed by the time you are 40.
"The popular stereotype is that lawyers, MBAs, etc., rather than "regular" workers (e.g. coders, testers), generally form the majority of upper management."
Were they always Lawyers? Were they always MBA's? Are coders always going to be coders? Are testers always going to be testers? They're called "stereotypes" for a reason.
Is this only for the US, or do they mistreat their Canadian workers as well? I saw a link earlier about Canadian IT worker regulations...
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
"I guess it is your opion of 15 bucks an hour worth it considering your only free time involves sleeping."
Try being poor. I've NEVER made $15/hr in all my career. I've NEVER had any of the perks EA gave. I either have to work long hours at jobs that don't pay that much above minimumn wage. Or I have to work two jobs so I can afford to even keep the roof over my head and the utilities going. And maybe I'll have enough for food, decent food. Both mean that sleep IS the only free time I have. Study? Not enough time.
Hell yes I would take that job if that's the only thing keeping me off the streets. Hell yes, if that allows me to have health care, and maybe start the dream of having a home and a family.
No one in their right mind wants to be poor for the rest of their lives, but courtesy of all the fucking up going on. There sure is going to be a lot more of people like me.
"Maybe, just maybe, they get what they ask for."
I guess this is what you all mean when you say "do it for the love" instead of the money.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walm art/
I've posted the above before [Watch out for the space slashdot inserts]
I recommend reading the entire section, but I especially recommend the "interviews" section.
I think you'll find that there's more to the "outsourcing" than people first think.
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
This whole thing is ALL off topic but if we pretend it is true, it does show what the problem with the industry is.
The problem is that managers cannot really appreciate the skill of programming. They treat coders as machines. Thus, people in EB believe that working someone 100 hours a week would benefit them because they will get 100 hours's worth of work from some guy that they are paying a flat salary to. I mean if you payed a flat price for a machine wouldnt you want it working for as long as possible?
They never thing that a guy that has not had sleep for two days is much more likely to introduce some vicious bug that will take another 100 man hours to fix.
I got a much better idea. Why don't you go into industry and find out? That way you don't have to worry about any "untrustworthy" sources like Slashdot or ACs. I'm not here to be your brain.*
*Delivered in the same tone you used with me.
As a young, fresh out of college graduate, I had the same experience. My best friend and I started an entirely onsite hardware/software "outsourced" IT department service for small businesses. I would regularly work 16 hours a day 7 days a week with no problem, and really enjoyed it for quite a while. The odd thing was that I didn't quit because of the hours, but because of the stress of being a small business owner. We were absolutely raking in the cash, but dealing with everyday, managerial type issues drove me bonkers.
As such, I now work 30-40 hours a week, with great pay, and freakin INCREDIBLE benefits. Right now, I'm in crunch mode, with two major projects I'm shouldering mostly on my own due in 5 days, so I'm working about 60-70 hours for the next couple of weeks.
Keep in mind, I have 4 kids, the oldest being 8, and a sick wife (I myself have cancer). But because the company is SO fucking fantastic, I have no problem working extra hours to get the job done.
When I was diagnosed with cancer, I received $5000+ from other employees and partners of the company, with no request on my part, they just started sending gifts and checks to me, out of the goodness of their hearts. That's the kind of place I work, so I really don't understand why ANYONE in their right mind would work for a company like EA.
OH well, a fool's born every minute.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d Capitalization really works: i helped my uncle jack off a horse
Right. Gamers. The people we all know communicate so clearly and co-operate so well.
lol im l33t joo suxorz fo 111
Yep, that's them.
In fairness, far from all gamers are like that. The agressively stupid ones just seem to be everpresent, and make it hard for others to be heard (or go about their business quietly if they prefer).
Take the game Battlefield Vietnam for example. Yeah, it's an EA game. It could be an excellent game - varied, lots of opportunity for tactical operations, teamwork, things like airlifting vehicles and troops, etc. What do you see? two 16-people groups of individuals flailing randomly against each other, with a small sub-set trying to do something organized and being undermined by the moron-tide.
Somehome, I suspect something similar may show up in "real world" attempts to get gamers to organize and do something useful.
I do network integration and support. Have for several years. Longer than you've been coding, in fact.
Now, I've supported various sorts of applications and OS environments, including some that have their own icons on Slashdot. Which means I've probably worked with some of the code you've written.
You know what? It's all had errors at one point or another. 100% of the software I've used has required patching or updating at some point to work out a flaw or error in the system.
News flash, kiddo; you're not perfect either. In fact, people like you are a joke, if a rather bitter one, among those of us who have to support the "high-quality" code you deliver. Engineers like you can't see around their own egos to discover the flaws in their code. But of course, your code is "clean"...
A snotty attitude won't fix companies like EA; litigation will fix companies like EA.
And China is going through their own Industrial Revolution now. I'm talking about the US. You know, where EA games is located? You know, what the original article was about?
It's fine by me if you want to play stupid about the Industrial Revolution. All it does is show how baseless your position is.
Great, it's an "unqualified cliche". Do some research. Learn about children working 60+ hours in the factories. If that's your definition of "unqualified" then that just shows again how little you know of the subject.
Call whatever you want. Industrialization is industrialization. That's the fact. Whether you're turning iron and coke into steel or laser tempering tungston/titanium alloys, it's still industrialization. Claiming that one or the other isn't because there are new technologies is idiotic.
So now you're talking globalization instead of industrialization. You might want to look up the term "segue". Or are you saying that the Industrial Revolution was not the same as globalization. If you are, then it's nice that you finally agree with me.
Not really. Importing labour was very expensive and time consuming. The railroads did so and we had slavery, but slavery was pre-industrialization.
Actually, you could always setup factories anywhere it was cheap to do so. Labour and transportation are costs in setting up a factory. Land is very, very cheap in the Australian desert. Yet not many factories go up there. They seem to be focused where the labour is plentiful and cheap. Maybe you should do some more reading?
Why do you associate QA with the Industrial Revolution? That's a flaw in your "thought" process. And yes, of course there was "manufacturing theory" 100 years ago. It wasn't Six Sigma or anything, but they understood the materials, labour and profit. Try to get a grip on Reality.
Fascinating. You seem to be simultaniously arguing that the IR did not affect the US, that the IR did affect the US, that workers weren't abused, that workers were abused, that manufacturing did not happen in the US 100 years ago, etc, etc, etc.
you suck.
You should never say that you're too good because somebody out there is always better and might get your job or perform better.
Sure, a lot are "hacks" but you can't start saying "OK. BE LIKE ME OR WORK MORE HOURS".
The new guys have to learn and gain experience by going thru smaller companies like you did. You don't become a good programmer over night.
I can see the employees point of view. EA must've held these people hostage. They put guns to their heads. They made them come to work. They forced them to stay late.
I just don't get these whiny people. They don't have any experience, they're fresh out of high school, trade school, junior college, or regular college, and they want megabucks, short hours, and the rest of their lives handed to them on a silver platter?
As someone else mentioned, where else are you going to get a job without any experience at that age? I'll give you a clue. McDonalds is always hiring. I hope you don't mind grease.
-- No sig for you!
Well, you are a clearly better than all of us. But you have a small penis.
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.
In SpaceQuest X, the last inStall, as a young swashbuckling janitor, you sneak into the EA (extra-terrestial aliens) mothership and have to save many lowsome programmers enslaved by evil PHBs that crack the whip for hours on end. After bringing them home, they will all open lawsuits against you for taking away their income. You will be sent deep into the mines of Xarcon Penitentiary where you have to mop 10,000 floors of pure granite.
We can also compare it to EA Games' marketing budget, estimated at >$100M in the last quarter. Cut your marketing budget by 30%, and you can hire enough programmers for them to have normal lives and increase production.
Ignorance at it's best. You have no understanding of business. The same crap is spewed about pharmaceutical companies all the time.
Money spent on marketing drives revenue. Marketing is not a cost, it's an investment. Sure, there are marketing campaigns that fail ( bring in less revenue than the campaign cost itself ) but by and large a companies marketing budget is less than the revenue it creates for the company.
I worked in two games companies in Poland, and in both situation was quite similiar: no payed long hours, low salary and feeling of being easy to replace slave :-) However I loved making games, so it was fine with me while I was young, but now i quited the business and changed field to more civilized one. No chance to build one's career there.
greets
I work for EA as a programmer.
It's not as bad as some people here think. If you're working 80 hour weeks, I guarantee that you're either volunteering your time, a spineless moron, or in the process of looking for another job/quitting.
This isn't just a problem at EA. This sort of stuff happens everywhere else in the games/IT industry, it's just easy to sling mud at EA because their a large evil corporation. The guys at Id software work the exact same schedules and I can assure you that they're not all millionaires.
There are much shittier jobs to have. This is really a non-issue. Anyone who's thinking of quitting their cushy IT job, try working a 12 hour day on a construction site. When you pull a 14 hour day at EA, you're not mining coal or assembling BBQ's. You get free meals, video game machines abound, a beautiful lounge area. It's not a bad place to be at all for 14 hours a day.
That being said. I work at the Vancouver studio, and I have to say that I'm not really feeling all this EA negativity. I work normal hours (40 - 50 a week), my project is on schedule, and I'm very passionate about the game I'm working on. I may be a special case, but this just isn't seeming to affect me? Any other EAC slashdoters care to comment?
I think that a lot of this negativity is just sensationalism. I programmed games as a hobby many years before I started doing it proffessionaly, and I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. There are a LOT of people who are extremely happy with their jobs in the games industry.
- Mr.Oreo
Why do they need a survey? They can just process the timetables
Thanks for the suggestion.. I just spent an hour reading interviews. The arguments for and against are spectacular. Just some of the things I read..
The startling fact is that Wal-Mart gets 60-70% profit margin off of Asian imports, and ONLY 15-20% on domestic produced goods.
Wal-Mart buyers have intimiate knowledge of every producers products and cost of production. Manufacturers are forced to outsource to China or be replaced by import goods.
Wal-Mart demands price decreases every year, and offers to buy larger quantities in lue.
Wal-Mart imports approximately 10% of the total American imports (by cost) from China. That's 15 billion dollars. Sales Revenue (last 12 months) is at 280 billion.
What America is doing every year is sending 150 billion dollars to China. We're not selling much to China either.. so eventually we will go bankrupt because we can grow our own income as fast as we're mailing it across the ocean.
A healthy fair trade would be to grow both of our economies.
My own worry.. I think we're starting to feel the pressure as our Dollar plunges even lower. There's a good article on Market Watch
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you here. I'm sure Will has a healthy dose of ego, but I see no reason for false modesty either.
I think he makes an excellent point. I've noticed that the extra output you get from working 60+ hours/week for a months is about 0. I think working 80+ hours may well make you end up with fewer work done. Sure, crunching for a few weeks is fine, but your work will suffer if you do 80+ hours for half a year.
Also: with working conditions like this, the overturn of employees is tremendous. This means you'll be left with few experienced programmers on your team. As Will's story is showing: having experienced programmers on board can save you a LOT of time, and will keep your code reusable. Also, the output of experienced programmers is usually a lot higher than that of inexperienced programmers, and of much better quality.
I've been working as an ASIC designer in a highly experienced group for about 6 years now. The output of this group, despite working about 40-45 hours a week has been 2-3 times as much as that of comparable teams elsewhere in the company, even though they often put in as much as 60-72 hours/week. I think EA should have a chat with Will, and perhaps they'll learn something...
You could make 59 cents per hour in the nike plant making shoes? Oh and no bennies either...
You have a very good point. And that's why I started my own company. Twice.
If he's half as smart as he claims to be, why give up all the extra money to some CEOs salary when it could go in YOUR pocket...
I will never support EA games. I will only burn the games and play on my modded PSII. I even tell people not to buy their sports games and buy sega sports games instead.
I hope you have a speedy recovery.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
I'm not usually one for championing lost causes, but I do feel compelled to speak up on behalf of Ultima IX. I played this after it came out in the UK, over 6 months after the US release. As a result, I played the "final" version of the game, as it was fully patched out-of-box in the UK.
It wasn't the weakest installment in the Ultima series. For me, that dubious distinction has to be conferred upon VIII. The gameplay wasn't too bad, even if it wasn't particularly open-ended. The combat system was among the best that I'd encountered in a 3d RPG up to that point.
In terms of bugs, I didn't have it too bad. This was probably a combination of the fact that I had a patched version and also the fact that I was using a Voodoo 3 at the time; one of the few cards that the game got along nicely with. It ran pretty well, with no real framerate issues.
But what really wowed me about the game was the graphics. There were absolutely incredible by the standards of the time and, to be frank, they've held up extremely well. It was the first game to simulate large outdoor environments which actually looked convincing to me. It's only been in the last year or so that I've seen other games match this feat.
If I could get experience at a big name game/programming company like EA games I'd put up with a lot of shit. It would only take a couple of years and you would have a big advantage getting where you really want to be. Anyone consider it could be a good thing they hire young "naive" programmers whereas most companies hire only those with a ton of experience?
Thank you Jaysyn, that was very nice of you to say. I am in recovery now, and as far as we are aware, I am in complete remission.
Thank God for small favors!
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d Capitalization really works: i helped my uncle jack off a horse
Fascinating. So people in the US 100 years ago were somehow able to manufacture goods without having a theory of how to do it.
smackdown. quoted, referenced and delivered.
You are not only thinking that going from 60 to 80 hours will reduce the total amount of work done, but it has been proven to be the case.
One quite old study was run in WW II times Britain, where it was shown that people working 57 hours a week were actually less productive (not productive per hour, but totally productive) then people working 48 hours a week.
Working 40 hours a week, a programmer can spend 10 hours planning, 20 hours implementing, 10 hours bugfixing. Working 80 hours a week, the same programmer will spend zero hours planning, 10 hours implementing (if they are lucky), and seventy hours trying to fix the mess he produced in the previous week because he was too tired to think straight.
Go figure...
$60,000 a year by 52 weeks...
by 100 hours [includes 20 hours for overtime?]...
=$11.53
Whoa there.
First, I must assume that these guys get some time off, a few paid sick days, and days off for holidays. So let's say they work 48 weeks a year weeks a year.
And say they work double the normal work week - 80 hours - every single week. I don't know where you got your 100 from.
Comes out to 15.62 an hour. Spectacular? No. But They're better off than someone who temps for $15 an hour because they get health insurance and (presumably) some other benefits.
I would hate to make 15.62 an hour but if it was my only option in getting experience in my industry when I was fresh out of college, I'd do it.
Coincidentally, I got hired in 2003 making a bit over 60k (prior to the bonus, anyway) in NYC. It's livable.
The only difference, I put in long hours (maybe 60 hour weeks?) because I wanted to, not because I was forced to.
Ecce Europa - Web Design for Business
You're not disagreeing with me there. See I agree with you. I never denied having a tight group of skilled people working reasonable hours will produce some amazing results.
:P
The original poster mentioned that if someone who is a tenth as skilled as him works 80 hours a week while he works 40 then that worker will appear only a fifth as skilled. He was not really clear, and most of his post was not really on topic, but I assume he meant to imply that the people at EA must work those hours so they don't seem unskilled. He neglected that idea that they might be forced to do this if they want to keep their jobs, despite how good or bad they may be.
Will's point was never about EA as much as it was a rant about how he's sick of everyone being a crappy coder compared to him. He wants all of these underskilled (when compared to him) people "out of his industry." One can only assume he meant to imply that the exploited workers of EA are a part of that group in his eyes. He feels no sympathy for them instead attributing their mistreatment as a side effect of their incompetence. If Will had that chat with EA he'd tell them to "get out of his industry."
Anyways yes you are correct, and I think someone needs to put a stop to what EA is doing especially if EA truely is breaking CA law as some have accused. I think 80 hour work weeks as a regular thing are counter productive. I think experience is definately something worth having. However, I also think Will needs to get over his ego trip.
So you get $60,000
Go in by let's say 50 weeks yields $1200
Go in by 112 hours based on 88hr workweek and 24 hr of overtime gives us...
$10.714 per hour
Let's see that with taxes, just feds forget state, local or sales tax..I will offer $7000 in deductions gives us a tax of $10,066
Gives us $49,934
by 50 and 112 yields
$8.91 takehome which proves you can juggle numbers any way you want to...
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
When You figure in the overtime you add .5 hrs for each hour of overtime to get the figure per hour pay.
Pardon my cynicsm, but overtime is when you get paid time and a half for every hour over 40 hours. Now if they got paid 60,000 for a fourty hour workweek it would comeout something like this for 80 hour work week at 52 weeks
$2596.15 a week or $135,000 a year. Somebody is laughing all the way to the bank and they want $49.95 for a game.
Per hour comes to$25.96 per hour.
Again I would like to add it is amazing how people with a calculator can juggle figures to meet their needs.
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
They had manufacturing 100 years ago. That is the fact that you are unable to accept.
Again, they had manufacturing 100 years ago. It doesn't matter how YOU "define" "manufacturing theory".
They had manufacturing 100 years ago. That is the fact that you are unable to accept.
You can try to introduce whatever tangent you want and "define" it anyway you want, but none of your attempted deceits will change the fact that they had manufacturing 100 years ago.
That pain you're feeling right now is called "SMACKDOWN"!
Wouldn't that mod point have been better used by someone giving it to an excellent but lesser read post? This is an obvious example of too many mod points.
You're the one that tried to make claims about QA and "manufacturing theory".
So, take your pick:
#1. QA and manufacturing theory prove that manufacturing was not happening 100 years ago, which was why you introduced them.
#2. QA and manufacturing theory have NOTHING to do with manufacturing 100 years ago so you have still no supported your claims.
#3. QA and manufacturing theory are evidence that you don't have a clue what you're talking about and trying to fill this discussion with bullshit.
They either support your position, or they do not. Which is it?
If they support your position, then their absence 100 years ago means that manufacturing was not happening 100 years ago.
If they do not, you've failed.
You introduced them to this discussion so it's up to you to defend their introduction.
!!! SMACKDOWN !!!
Honestly, thats a BIG favor you should be thanking a lot of people as well as the allmighty for (as well as yourself).
It's fun watching you try to squirm out of defending material that YOU introduced.
In fact, it's more than just fun.....
It's !!! SMACKDOWN !!!
Yeah, I have thanked all of those people many times over, effusively!
And I would certainly thank God if I believed in Him, which regrettably I don't. It would have certainly made it easier for me if I believed that when I die, I would go to Heaven.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d Capitalization really works: i helped my uncle jack off a horse
There, within two posts, you've managed to contradict yourself and I have provided references.
It is the dreaded !!! SMACKENING !!!
You say I don't have a position.
You say I do have a position.
You say they weren't manufacturing.
You say they were manufacturing.
You say QA matters.
You say QA does not matter.
You don't know WHAT you're saying.
And I keep applying the SMACKDOWN!
It is the !!! SMACKDOWN !!!
It's called "logic", not "fetish".
Again, your position is that globalization is like the Industrial Revolution because they didn't have QA or manufacturing theory 100 years ago.
While I say that globalization is only like the Industrial Revolution only in the aspect that the workers are exploited. In every other respect, it is very different.
You counter by saying that they did NOT have QA or modern manufacturing theory 100 years ago.
No. I restate my position and show how your "facts" do NOT contradict my position NOR do they support your position.
That is the !!! SMACKDOWN !!!
You cannot understand this because you do NOT understand globalization. Globalization is NOT about QA or "modern manufacturing theory" or ISO or any of that. Globalization is about moving the factories closer to cheaper, off-shore labour.
I seem to. I've been restating it over and over and over.
Yet you keep trying to claim
Yes, that's EXACTLY what you said. "...the facts stand..." and 100 years ago they didn't have QA.
Of course, since QA has NOTHING to do with whether manufacturing is happening or not (if it did, then 100 years ago they would NOT have been "manufacturing" since you say they did not have "QA"), QA has NOTHING to do with this discussion.
It is !!! THE FINAL SMACKDOWN !!!
You have, on more than 3 occassions, attempted to use QA as "support" for your position, when QA does not have anything to do with the discussion.
Because you have done that, that is sufficient evidence that you do not UNDERSTAND the discussion.
And so I deliver !!! THE FINAL SMACKDOWN !!!
Either defend your use of QA as support or do not. If you do not, I am triumphant! You have faced !!! SMACKDOWN !!! and will live the rest of your life in abject humiliation.
You didn't explain why QA was relevant to the discussion.
You didn't explain why "modern manufacturing theory" was relevant to the discussion.
You didn't counter any of my points.
You just claim that you're right without supporting your position or countering mine.
Yep, that's your style. I recognize it from your previous posts which, likewise, lacked any intelligent content.
I've destroyed your QA claims and in doing so I've destroyed your position. What's that called again? Why yes, that would be the
!!! SMACKDOWN !!!
Meanwhile, I can easily substantiate my position, as I have many times before. Globalization is not the same as the Industrial Revolution because the workers cannot hitchhike to the jobs anymore and they would have to learn a new language.
Also, QA has nothing to do with the topic, unless you're claiming that manufacturing did not happen 100 years ago because, as you claim, they did not have QA 100 years ago.
There, nicely wrapped up and substantiated.
Meanwhile, you have nothing except your lies.
And the pain of !!! SMACKDOWN !!!
These employers pay these employees to keep trying different tasks until the employee happens upon the task that the employer hired the employee to perform.
Now THAT is hilarious.
No wonder you have such a messed up view of globalization. Maybe you should wait until you get out of high school and start applying for real jobs before you post things like "the biggest employers dont care
ahhahahahahahhahahahhhahhahaha!
So you're saying, again, that manufacturing didn't happen 100 years ago because you say they didn't have QA 100 years ago.
This is just too funny.
I fear the repeated !!! SMACKDOWN !!! may have affected your mental process.
ÉG vildi eins og minn launaávísun fyrir aðgerð neitun vinna nú.
Hahahahahahahahahhahahaa
Ef ú had raunverulegur reynsla og vitneskja , ú vildi ekki örf til reyna til fela á bak við neitun.
Traust er ekki the sami eins og nákvæmni.
ú mega vera öruggur , en essi hjartarskinn ekki meðalvegur ú ert réttur. Aftur , tungumál , gegn inn krafa , er gagnrýninn mikilvægur.
fn ) vera fær til krafa l ) eir á brjósti óákveðinn greinir inn í Englendingar arguement á meðan l ) hjartarskinn ekki spjara sig rigs svona.
Svo langt , ú hafa been ófær til færa sönnur á allir af inn krafa. Frá QA til tungumál. Í staðinn , allur ú gera er endurtaka the krafa essi ú hafa.
Afla rök fyrir handan inn krafa. Eða krjúpa áður the
!!! SMACKDOWN !!!
That makes #3. You have lost the point.
You don't seem to understand what "debate" is about. You don't get to just declare yourself the winner or the other person the loser.
You have to substantiate your postion and counter the other person's material.
There has been over 13 exchanges so far and most of your posts have been nothing more than "I've won".
Meanwhile, I've destroyed your claims:
#1. "QA" defines "manufacturing".
#2. "Modern manufacturing theory" defines "manufacturing".
#3. And most recently, that it is not important for the employee to understand the language of the employer.
Which leave you nothing but Meanwhile, my points that:
#1. It is far more expensive to travel overseas to follow the jobs.
#2. Seeking employment in those countries requires proficiency in that language.
Which means that globalization is not like the Industrial Revolution.
Amazing, I can still clearly define my position and my supporting statements while all you have is
You have been defeated by the !!! SMACKDOWN !!!
It's all about substantiation. You'll learn that when you get out of high school.
#1. I have not withdrawn
#2. Withdrawing does not mean you lose as long as my opponent refuses to provide support for his statements or counter my statements. It is possible to withdraw and win.Once again, you refuse to provide support for your statements and are unable to counter mine. I can still link to mine. Where are your's?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=130425&cid=10
You have two chances left.
!!! SMACKDOWN !!!
Here's a link to it in case you need to review.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=130425&cid=10
Too bad. I'm still giving you two more chances. It's up to you how you spend them.
Some of you wonder why those of us at EA just don't quit? Well, I am. Within the next two weeks. Working 6 months at 80+ hours a week, and a full month of 110 hours is just too much for me, my wife, and my kids.
If I thought there was any possibility of change within the company, I'd stay...but EA is a behemoth, full of useless, clueless management...and a corporate culture that just doesn't get that we're no longer making games in our garages.
I hope the new company I start at will be better...but I don't expect it to be. This is a problem throughout the industry; I'm giving myself one more chance to find a decent place in the industry. If that's no good, then I'm going to try something new.
Treat your veterans like crap, and you lose them. Using the term "veteran" here is ironic, since I'm only 30. When I was in my early 20's, I didn't mind having no life. But someday, people DO get older, and want to have a life, and a family, and some semblance of physical health. I think it's very shortsighted of EA to focus so heavily on people straight out of college...sure, you can exploit them more easily, but if you can't hold onto those with experience, then ultimately your product is hurt, through lack of knowledge and inexperience.