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EA's Open Letter to Ubisoft
Alex Petraglia writes "I'd actually laugh at this if I didn't find it so disturbing. An open letter sent from Alain Tascan, General Manager of EA Montreal, to Joel Tremblay, Ubisoft Montreal, begins as such: 'On behalf of all game makers in Quebec, I urge Ubisoft to stop the illegitimate practice of forcing talented people to sign employment contracts that restrict their creative and economic freedom.' EA came under great scrutiny last year with claims of stifling employee creativity, refusing to pay for overtime, and generally engaging in less-than-savory practices. Additionally, it's widely known that EA currently seeks to gain greater control over Ubi through a hostile takeover."
The pot told the Kettle : "You're black".
vote with your wallet and don't purchase any of their games. It's not like they're a monopoly.
"Quit making decent games. You make us look bad."
This is a sig. It is appended to the end of comments I post.
"Since your people are contracted, we can't steal them away to burn them out and abuse them like rented mules. No fair!"
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
Non-Compete clauses are typical in plenty of industries. This is just a bunch of posturing by those jackasses over at EA. Screw them.
My blog
Did this letter get intercepted from the Bizzaro Universe?
I'm a consultant. I work with a group of consultants. They would promote themselves Klingon-style if it meant becoming an employee, with benefits and (relative) job security. What kind of crack is EA smoking?
EA criticizes Ubisoft over their non-competes, when 1) EA has been criticized for something completely different and 2) EA is rumored to be planning a takeover of them. I'm missing where the "I'd actually laugh at this if I didn't find it so disturbing." comes in...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Ubisoft should reply telling EA to stop running talented people into the ground and putting them off working in the industry
Did you get that thing I sent ya?
I don't see a copy of the letter, ala Smoking Gun.
I pulled the above from this article:
http://www.nyunews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/0
I don't know what sort of evil corprate games they are playing, but knowing E.A. they will probably manage to shaft everyone.
If you're going to be dishonest, do it on the big scale. Do you treat your workers like shit? Deny it, if you don't pretend like it doesn't exist in the first place, but turn around and claim the high road and accuse your competitors of doing it. People are more dazzled by audacity than they are turned off by dishonesty, and so long as the "cha-chings" outnumber the "tisk-tisks", you're golden.
Works elsewhere, as you can imagine. Take that hateful son of a bitch Bill O'Reilly on Fox. The man dumps contempt on absolutely everybody he can, and when it's revisited to him, he pretends to take the high road and chastise those who point out what he does, including a recent stab at NBC. The hypocrisy is so blatant it's blinding, and yet so long as there are a bunch of yokels stupid enough to keep tuning in to Fox to watch the fireworks, he'll get his paychecks and all the critics will be wasting their breath.
Even in politics. Look at George W. Bush. The man lied about WMDs in Iraq. There are other lies, the administration bleeds them, but this one serves as an example well enough. The man lied about WMDs in Iraq, and not just a few, but stockpiles and delivery systems and plans to get more. When the UN started sending back reports that the disarming was going steadily, Bush stepped it up and demanded on television that Saddam stopped playing his games, even when all evidence at the time, and all evidence after the fact, pointed to the fact that Saddam was cooperating more than he was hindering. What did Americans do after Bush started that needless war? They re-elected him. IN RECORD NUMBERS.
It's a question of power. People love people who wield power audaciously. It's why the Napoleans and Alexander the Greats and even the Hitlers get their power and keep it. For all our evolutionary advances, we're still tribal creatures. We love shows of power, because it reminds us that we have it, which is much better than realizing that you don't.
When taken to the extreme they unfairly restrict a person's trade.
E.g., Computer programmer writing games for Ubisoft, moves to EA. Cannot do so, as 'computer game programming' is competing.
Clearly if a programmer for an unreleased game in a certain genre with unique features left Ubisoft and joined EA to help write a game in the same genre, it'd be an issue. I don't see how it should stop them joining EA to program something in a different area.
If you want to retain your employees, then give them an incentive to remain with you, such as good working conditions, good wages, a fun job. Don't indenture them to you by restricting their freedoms if they choose to leave, i.e., work for us in this dark cellar, have no fun, no wage increase, oh and if you leave, we won't let you get another job except in MacDonalds.
(yes, that's taking it a bit too far, and EA aren't exactly renowned for their good working conditions and practices, but hey...)
Dear EA:
Screw you!
With our best wishes,
Ubisoft.
you would rather be a consultant. At least then you are paid by the hour. 80 hour weeks for 6 months at a time while death marching to an unrealistic gold date is no fun. When I was putting in 100+ hour weeks at a now defunct game company I calculated I could make more money on a per hour basis by being a manager trainee at McDonalds.
Yes, the benefits were good.......... but nowhere near the compensation for the long hours.
Fly Fish? Participate in our forum
there is no job security in the game indistry. Period. Top talent is laid of with impunity at the end of development cycles. I worked under a really great lead programmer who has an incredible work ethic, is very talented, and who would work 100+ hours every week to make sure we didn't slip our milestones. He has numerous credits on top titles. Last I heard he was laid off by Lucas Arts (him and the majority of the project's team) after putting in blood sweat and tears to see the project to completion.
You are disposable in the games industry. there is no job security.
Fly Fish? Participate in our forum
Someone had better mod you up because this is one of the most thoughtful things I've seen on Slashdot in years. I've been trying to think of how to explain this for years in better terms than "people love to watch a good ass-kicking".
Yeah I hate to agree with EA on anything because I think they are pretty evil. But non compete agreements I hate even more. So for these poor souls that signed this they are supposed to bow out of the games industry for a year if they are unhappy at their current position? Sounds like they would be indentured servants to Ubisoft. So don't sign it you say or go work for someone else right. I agree but that is not so easy a decision when you are a yong person trying to break into the industry. I personally will never sign another non compete agreement. Having been burned by this myself. But that means a great many jobs are off limits to me and or I am likely to be fired in the future for being unwilling to do so. Which sucks these things should not be legal.
This has nothing to do with EA wanting to steal away talent or Ubi having "unethical" business practices (In EA's opinion). This is about EA trying to make their takeover better for their bottom line. If EA gobbles up Ubi, they have to then deal with the employment contracts. Usually a contract has buyout if the employee is terminated. Well, if EA buys Ubi they are going to probably terminate plenty of employees to cut their costs. They can't do that efficiently if they have to pay X dollars for every employee they terminate. This is just EA trying to improve their bottom line for a takeover plain and simple. But they are doing it under the guise of being a good company.
Error: Sig not found.
Way I heard it, wasn't it a bunch of Splinter Cell devs who were pissed at Ubisoft for not paying them royalties, and sold themselves as a new studio to EA? And doesn't EA own nearly 20 percent of Ubisoft?
Some people need to learn to keep their memos confidential.
Top talent is laid ... with impunity at the end of development cycles.
Where do I sign up???
Third Post?
Pot.
Kettle.
Douchebag.
In Quebec, for example, it is often considered "offensive" to speak English on a public street, and represents intolerance of the pure laine Quebecois majority.
Similarly, it is "offensive" for Ubisoft to engage in a practice that shows intolerance for EA's desires, EA being the larger, "majority" employer.
Standard Orwellean doublespeak - nothing to see.
Of course, I viewed this attitide as disgustingly fascist (both in Quebec, *and* the rest of Canada), and left. YMMV
Realize that you're talking about a place where the government can overrule the highest court in the land, and routinely does so ("notwithstanding clause"). Democracy unchecked by law is mob rule. Some might argue that Canada sucks less than the U.S. under Bush *in practice*, but it can suck far, far worse, in *principle*. Another example: Canada models it's socialized health care system after Cuba and North Korea. Comparing it *constitutionally* to Nazi Germany doesn't strike me as much of a stretch -- we just haven't found our Hitler yet. (Yeah, yeah, Godwin can shove it).
You could've hired me.
From what I see, it's fourth!
Oh damn, this is going to start an infinite loop, isn't it?
"All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes."
In Quebec, for example, it is often considered "offensive" to speak English on a public street, and represents intolerance of the pure laine Quebecois majority.
I gotta say:
WTF?
Look, in San Franciscio the majority of residents speak English, but I don't consider it "offensive" to hear someone speaking Spanish or Chinese on a public street.
If there's any "intolerance" going on there, it's in the minds of someone who can't bear to hear something other than their preferred language spoken in public!
Actually, the federal government has never used the notwithstanding clause, and Québec is (effectively) the only provincial government that has used the clause; see Wikipedia.
Another example: Canada models it's socialized health care system after Cuba and North Korea.
The healthcare systems in these countries are often grouped together because they are the few countries with fully public healthcare. However, Cuba and North Korea have fully public healthcare because they are communist countries, whereas Canada has fully public healthcare because there isn't much demand for private alternatives. Also, Canada's system was not modeled on either of the other countries's systems; all three came into effect around 1960.
I think you need to read up on what the notwithstanding clause actually says, because while I question its usefulness and purpose, it's nowhere near Nazism like you imply.
This poo is cold.
EA, complaining that other companies that they are restricting creativity? Oh, right, NBA Street V3 was SO MUCH more creative than Vol. 2...
I sincerely hope you get modded up Insightful. :) If I had mod points, I'd have done it.
"In Quebec, for example, it is often considered "offensive" to speak English on a public street, and represents intolerance of the pure laine Quebecois majority."
What a bunch of crap. I can tell you this is not true. People like you give this province a bad reputation. You give the image that we are language facist. Which is far from being truthful.
I love reading this. Those cheap bastards ALWAYS have a similar clause in their contracts that ties up your entire studio from doing anything in the same genre for up to two years.
If we EVER stoop to working with them again, you can bet your ass that we will show them this letter.
What a bunch of arrogant pricks.
>>(for those who make a distinction, and there's a valid argument to making one, at several levels)
No, I'm sorry, but there's not. Get over it.
Do the rest of Canada a favour and pull your head out of your ass and get along with the rest of the country. We love Quebec, but frankly I'm getting more than a little tired of this separatist bullsh*t.
Quebec has all sorts of laws regulating things that some people can't understand - including me, and I was born there.
It's illegal to sell margarine that is the same colour as butter. A legal case challenging this law failed at the Supreme court.
It's illegal to work in construction for 2 specific weeks in the summer. Why? to give the workers a vacation, whether they want it or not. Given that winter is so cold, why force a vacation during 2 weeks of good constuction weather?
It used to be illegal for a bakery to bake bread on sunday.
Non-competes are generally not enforceable. And if they are, they must be limited in time, location, and line of work, and you must compensate the employee.
Quebec is one of the most union-friendly jurisdictions in North America. If the codemonkeys want to unionize, Quebec is the easiest place to do it.
You can't force employees to retire at 65 in Quebec.
You can generally fire an employee for any reason you want, but unless you are firing an employee for cause (theft, incompetence, etc), you owe them a severance. Severance can be large for long-term employees.
Bush was elected in Record Numbers? I thought the election was pretty close. Can someone enlighten me?
Then why have people taken the case for it to be made legal to purchase health care privately all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada? Sounds like pretty stubborn and persistent demand to me.
The Court agreed that preventing this was a violation of rights and freedoms, but stayed it's decision depending on whether Quebec would use the Notwithstanding Clause? Only to have the La Belle Province (Quebec) say it would use the Notwithstanding Clause to overrule the Court?
You could've hired me.
The same arguments have been applied against spoken speech in public streets, around schools, etc. And, while not having the same Bill 101 force of law, the "offensive" argument is often made.
You could've hired me.
Ubisoft Montreal's manager is Martin Tremblay, not Joel Tremblay. The original article on Gamasutra had it right.
Even if you are only one person who decides to "vote with your wallet," you are doing the right thing.
That's enough for me- I don't need the approval of an entire herd in order to justify my objection to the manner in which a certain company does business.
Who can blame Quebec for not wanting to becomes the next Miami or SW US, diluting our national identity because a bunch of illegals can't be bothered to learn the language? I am so sick of foreigners coming here and thinking they're entiutled to turn this country into the shithole they left. And that's before I think of the brainless apologists that want to make _me_ look like the devil for the crime of wanting to hear English spoken in America!
I think you guys are rooting for the wrong side here. The EA Montreal studio is pretty much independent from the rest of EA, and our work conditions are great. Fucking great, actually. (Can't comment on the rest of EA, I haven't worked there, but haven't heard of much complaining lately). Furthermore, the head of the studio and the rest of the guys who formed this studio are former Ubi employees who got screwed by Ubi, their non-compete clause and being overworked there, and they really mean it when they say they hate it because it's bad for the employees.
We're just trying to prove the industry and the rest of EA that you can make great (and original) games without overworking people. So don't blame us for that.
Oh well, back to work...
The audacity with which power is wielded is not so much the key to success as the finesse and scale to which it is exerted. Napoleon won power by getting the army completely on his side. Hitler won power by becoming popular with the masses and then turning them against the smaller groups. Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr., and every president in the last 40 years has won power because of the money and power their party throws behind him, not his own personality.
But Bill O'Reilly is still a bastard.
What, me? Never.
AC for obvious reasons...
Work at UbiSoft and be locked in for a year
... financially.
Work at EA and get frequently fired the game you worked on ships, to be rehired later.
I wonder what's works better
Does "You can't legally sign away any of your basic freedoms in a contract" hold true in Canada as well?
I don't know much about the law of Québec or Louisiana specifically, but the laws of Australia, Canada, and the United States are ultimately based on British law in effect prior to the respective countries' independence. It's as if they share a common law. In some areas of the common law, foreign court decisions are persuasive even if not binding.