Slashdot Mirror
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?
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.
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.
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.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
And within a few weeks of work you become a angry me first programmer. It's the last thing industry needs to do with it's young stars.
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?
...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.
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?
No kidding. 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. Then when a bunch of Korean/Indian/Chinese workers started producing higher quality games for less money, you'd have to hear these exact same whiners go on about how we're outsourcing.
When will people learn that the globally competitive environment isn't going to provide them the cushy existence for little work that their grandparents got. Get over it. Learn to compete and quit whining.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
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.
When I started in my first job I worked unbelievably long hours BY CHOICE. I wanted as much experience as possible as fast as possible, and got it. It's served me very well.
If I was entering the industry today and had a crack at EA, I'd be first in line to take on those crazy hours for 'low pay'.
Take a close look at what that 'low pay' is. It ain't so low.
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?
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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$60K isn't a lot if you're living in a major urban center like Silicon Valley--it's only a little more than $30K in the sticks. And the $120K in options is only good if EA's stock price *quadruples*, something that's totally unlikely; the actual amount will end up being more like $30K, which, spread over the four years it takes to vest, is less than $10K a year.
So what we're really talking about here is about $70K/year in a high-cost-of-living environment for 80 hour weeks in a highly skilled environment. You're right, things could be a lot worse, but they could also be a lot better. My salary's around that, and I only work 40 hours a week.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
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
If you are refering to the $60,000 not being low it is all relative. In Chicago 60k is a decent amount, but is totally not worth it if you work 80 hours a week a week. I don't know what the cost of living is by the EA offices but I'm not sure it's not the same as bumblef*ck, iowa. And you figure that $60,000 / 80 hours * 50 weeks in a year (assuming 2 weeks vacation and holidays in there), you are only making 15 bucks an hour (plus benefits). I guess it is your opion of 15 bucks an hour worth it considering your only free time involves sleeping.
Why's that then, are they short on cash?
When will people learn that the globally competitive environment isn't going to provide them the cushy existence for little work that their grandparents got. Get over it. Learn to compete and quit whining.
Yes but there's a difference between perhaps asking an hour or two here and there, and, if the stories are to be believed, asking for 80+ hour weeks for several weeks on end with no overtime pay.
Get paid to search..It's geniune and
Except you are screwed if you do not get in right out of college, when you can afford to work the long hours for only enough pay to sustain yourself. If you have even a few years of non-games programming experience or a family to support, then you cannot afford to do it. Most people in this situation are effectively barred from the industry.
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.
That's really a pretty crappy analogy. Chickens don't unionize or seek out their preferred owner.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
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.
Are you trying to say that people here have no right to demand a high standard of living, becuase people elsewhere will work for less ? EA brings in billions of dollars a year. A tiny fraction of that would allow their projects to have reasonable schedules, and give their employees something resembling normal lives. Are you saying it is unjust to ask for this ? Or that it is somehow not possible ? Maybe EA is just greedy and doesn't respect their employees, like a whole shit load of other companies these days.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
"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.
I notice he's not complaining about the salary though, so what does that have to do with the "gallery slave" conditions? He's highly skilled and performing a low skill job for moderate pay. So what?
WASTE - The Secure P2P
Simple question, simple answer. The reason is that in America we don't pretend that we are actually running the show instead of companies. If we followed your lead and made it harder for large companies to screw over the IT crowd in the U.S.A., then those companies would say "damn, North America now costs us more, lets just move all our operations over to India or China where we can rape their local IT people any way we want."
You might say "well if our laws haven't driven the companies away, why would the U.S.'s?" Again a simple answer: there is not enough money lost by the Canadian IT regulations to make up for how much it would cost for North American companies to move overseas. (much smaller labor market than the U.S.'s) Now if you locked up the largest labor market in North America with the same regulation, suddenly it WILL be cheaper for them to pick up shop and leave. Some are already doing it just because of the few labor laws we do have (compared to nearly none in India)
The same thing happens in the drug industry. You know why you Canadians are allowed to control the price of drugs? Its because the companies make enough profit in America to make up for the fact that they make much less profit in Canada. I promise that if the U.S. drug market did not fill their coffers as they please, they would tell Canada "You know what, we don't want to give you the drugs so cheaply. Either pay up or we'll bail." Thats why they used their bought and paid for presidential administration to fix the loophole of U.S. people buying Canadian drugs. Its a lot better PR to just keep us Americans away from your cheap drug prices than tell your country "Well, we are going to stop selling drugs over here because the imports to America is killing our gravy train over there."
We get screwed for you. If we don't get screwed, these companies will just go to a continent where the screwing can be much more intense.
Open Source Sushi
That's what you have to do if you're starting out in the record industry (working at a major recording studio).
That's roughly $12,000 a year. $70,000 sounds like a dream. So as far as "$70K/year in a high-cost-of-living environment for 80 hour weeks in a highly skilled environment.", I kinda wish I had stayed in software.
mund freud.
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!
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...
Uh...as a researcher, I work 60-80 hours a week and make more like $40k. In Los Angeles. And I don't get the free goodies that these guys get.
Somehow I cannot sympathize too much. If the author actually understood what sweatshop conditions are like, or how galley slaves actually lived, I might sympathize.
One day these guys will win a big "victory" from EA that gives them overtime pay, benefits, etc. That's the day that they get outsourced to India. Then they'll be bitching about how evil the corps are when it's really they themselves who made it advantageous for the corp to do so.
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".
Except that married or not married, >80h working weeks suck you mentally dry. You never get any actual free time. You start to find it hard to focus on you job and your work quality and speed will suffer badly. Many will come sick. You lose your friends (if any). And so on. There's a reason the weekends are off for most people; more than that is too much.
:).
So yes, you get a little bit more money than you would from, say, McDonalds. I still say it's not worth your health (if you snap, you might be sick for many years). No amount of money is; I find the salary irrelevant in this respect.
And another thing, many people seem to think that EA is recruiting new (to the industry) folk. Because the industry is in the state that it is, there are many qualified people on the market; some will end up at EA (no need to hire rookies if you get the real deal). Also EAs recent strategy seems to be that EA buys any competition and merges the companies. Think about it. Maxis, Westwood, Criterion, DICE and so on. Those people will then be moved on to EA projects and be forced to EA habits. There goes the neighbourhood
Ah, beautiful... mathematics in a vacuum. Sure, look around for resumes of CEOs that can grow a large company but don't pay him. See what kind of useless sack of crap you get to run the company out of business and put ALL of the employees out of work. What brilliant business strategy. Maybe you should start your own multi-billion dollar business venture!
Better yet! Cut marketing by 30% and assume that sales will stay at the same level so they can do more hiring. You should write a book!
Finally, that operating profit will have to be used to continue to grow the business, to war chest against future sales shortfalls, or possibly given to investors as dividends (like Microsoft has been doing). It's not just "free money" that can be used for righting whatever social injustice you think is being done.
These are complicated dynamic systems where you can't just start yanking numbers around as you please. Every dollar you take from one part of the business affects another part of the business, and the NUMEROUS game development companies that went out of business over the last few years is testament to the fact that EA knows how to do something right.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
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
You're missing the point. The real reason why this kind of thing has to be done by regulation is that if it's beneficial to business (which it probably is, else EA wouldn't do it) then sooner or later every business is going to wind up either doing it themselves, or having to compete against others that are doing it.
The whole idea of business regulation is to block off this sort of thing so that the need to compete with others who are doing it, doesn't force firms to start.
Ahh, an advocate for paying CEO's $10M a year. What about the ones who run their companies into the ground? Or the ones who screw the shareholders? Or the ones who like to dump toxic waste in vacant lots in the night?
There isn't any market mechanism for reducing the pay of bad CEOs. There usually isn't even any mechanism for firing them. Why? Because they're not in it for the long-term good of the company, they're in it for the short-term profit forecasts. That's a good way to put all of the employees out of work, all right.
EA knows how to do something right.
Yeah. EA knows how to buy licenses at cut-rate prices, strip-mine them to create cookie-cutter games, and market the hell out of them so an ill-informed consumer culture will eat them up.
I'd have to say that your strategy makes excellent sense from a long-term perspective, depending on waves of incoming employees with no idea what's going on, and as long as consumers will buy incrementally-roster-changed cookie-cutter sports games.
So, about until another company makes better games, puts them out, and kills EA. Take a look at the history of the gaming industry, and you'll see that this business model tends to last about five years before collapsing. I'd say EA is about at the top of its arc... and it's going to pull an Atari pretty damn soon.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Thanks for reminding me, I had forgotten this detail. I am not a lawyer, but I've heard in some states verbal agreements are legally binding, even though they are hard to prove.
I hope new hires will be aware not to accept verbal agreements, if they can do so without being dropped from the roster. A class action lawsuit should be able to fix this, and if the employees start getting compensated for their crunch times, EA will realize that it'll be cheaper to get more people and ease the individual schedules. I know it sounds wrong to make a place better because it's cheaper that way, but the nature of this industry has made it possible for EA to get away with thinking this way. Hope things get better soon for all the folks working 80 hour weeks there...
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.
Ahh, an advocate for paying CEO's $10M a year.
Some CEOs are more than worth the money. Apple was headed into the dirt until Jobs returned to fix things. He saved the jobs of thousands of people and provided products that have given millions more happiness or at least some semblance of satisfaction.
A CEO is the general of his organization. At a large company, his decisions can have billion dollar consequences and directly affect the livelihood tens of thousands of employees. At that scale, $10million to ensure that it will happen is a small price to pay.
What about the ones who run their companies into the ground?
They should be fired. Company boards that make those decisions deserve to lose their companies.
Or the ones who screw the shareholders?
If they did so breaking the law, they should get jail time.
Or the ones who like to dump toxic waste in vacant lots in the night?
That's illegal, so they should pay fines and go to jail. Why keep constructing these veritable straw men?
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
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)
1. Your overhead figures are naive. It is more realistic to assume
that an employee costs twice their salary.
2. It's a free market economy, so you can't complain about
executive compensation unless it is out of whack wiith the
compensation for similar executives.
3. According to the fincial status you linked to, the company
only has 2.488 Billion in Cash. This is only 100 Million more
then their anual operating budget. I deally a company should
have enough cash on hand to run for 18 months, EA is short of
that.
4. In our real world, a company has to grow in order to
maintain it's stock price. A company that fails to maintain
it's stock price will be purchased and destroyed. So you
can't really take away anything EA needs to grow.
5. People own EA stock. As inflation happens that stock becomes
worht less unless it increases in value. For a stock to increase in
value it often has to see it's rate of growth grow. So you can't
really hold trhat against them.
In an ideal world points 2-5 would not be true, and your
argument that EA has the means to reform would be true.
Unfortunately we do not live in an ideal world. The sooner you
and everyone realize that the bettter off we will be. A lot of
people waste a lot of time campaigning for reforms that make
sense in an ideal world, but don't in the real world. Imagine if
all that wasted effort wasn't wasted.
And for the next 20 yaers everyones grandparents (who had it easy) are now going to rely on all us kiddies to work hard at crap rates to pay their bills and freebies.
Great world we live in, slaves to the oldies. Just tell em, "youve got your retirement and 3 houses, use em, Im not paying for your cushy lifestyle while we slave away in such a way that you didnt."
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
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!
Why keep constructing these veritable straw men?
Because all too many companies are headed by CEOs such as these.
You say they should be fired, they should pay fines they should go to jail. I agree. The problem is that they don't!
Far too many are rewarded based upon what they promise, not what they Deliver.
-- That which does not kill us has made its last mistake.
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.
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.
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 : )
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.
Hey then if this sounds good to you, come on over to EALA. I'll give you three months before you're walking around with the thousand yard stare, bitching like a little girl...
Just like the rest of us.
Go read "the Jungle" by Upton Sinclair and you'll realize that what the parent said is a lot like what someone from the early 20th or late 19th centuries would have said to almost any worker who complained today.
Actually, it's story largely parallels what seems to happen at EA (though not to the same extent): Optimistic young people come here and eagerly work long hours, then realize they're getting screwed by the system.
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
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.