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EA Settles Overtime Lawsuit
Heffenfeffer writes "Gamasutra reports that Electronic Arts is settling their class action suit with their programmers to the tune of $14.9 million. It also turns out that one of the named plaintiffs of said lawsuit was the spouse of the formerly anonymous blogger "ea_spouse" who wrote a scathing commentary on EA over a year ago which may have formed the basis of this suit."
I'm REALLY trying to act surprised about EA making programmers work overtime and not pay them.
I'll let you know if I get there.
The games industry can pay low wages and make people slave because it's "cool" and people want to be in it. Sad really.
All that overtime and their games still suck?
mix of the two really. With the job market full of bursted bubblers it's hard for a new grad to get their foot in the door with a lot of companies. EA has a good policy for accepting programmers without 5+ years of experiance so they end up with a large number of fresh grads working for lower wages because they are still wet behind the ears. After 12 months of working a crappy job to pay the bills, and 1500 unansered resumes I applied there. I got a different job before EA offered an interview, but after that long of saying "how can I help you today sir?" ANYTHING looks like a good job.
just how much of that money each employee will actually see...
Game creation is, the name implies it, a creative process. You start toying with ideas, you tinker with implementations, you twist and tweak one thing or another.
Now, when your creativity, imagination and illusion are shattered under hours of overtime, you start to hate what you used to love. You stop wanting to create a great game, you start wanting to get that damn thing outta the door and never see it again.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
At least until I've seen what's behind the curtain. Yes, I do have the math skills, the DX experience and the necessary understanding to create a good engine.
But I certainly don't want to see my creativity shattered under unbearable timetables. I don't mind doing overtime. Currently, an average work day is like 10-12 hours. 'cause it's fun.
Being FORCED to work 14 hours and more is by no means any kind of motivation. Actually, I'd probably start sabotaging my own work.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The fact that they did indeed lose, despite the current business climate speaks volumes about just HOW BAD things were. Once things came out, it was simply impossible for the court to turn a blind eye to EA's reprehensible business practices.
It's not clear from TFA.. did EA actually lose a case (as in being ruled against in court of law,) or is this an out-of-court settlement?
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Because he's got a wife who is so supportive and caring and willing to stick with him through tough times and fight the good fight with him. Why, what did you think I was going to say? Awwwwww, nooooo, come on... get your mind out of the gutter. You should be ashamed! Pervert.
So did EA change how they operate? Or did they shell out the $ as a "cost of doing business" and are continuing to overwork the poor guys? Are there any EA headcounts here that can vouch for them (either in the negative or positive)?
and, on a side note, I wonder how this affects (if at all) EA Canada.
I am glad to see programmers actually standing up on their hind feet and suing. We have been treated like crap for too long and yet we do nothing about it. Maybe someday we will get up the nerve to strike. Or, even better, form our own companies and refuse to work for abusers like EA.
Of course, it helps that they were working in California, a state where workers have rights. A lot of studios seem to be moving to Austin and other Texas towns. They are moving here for the same reason Nike has its sweat shops in 3rd world countries. No meaningful labor laws.
Now that EA has been forced to compensate programmers for overtime how long do you think it will take them to move all their programming work to states and countries where they can leagally expoloit programmers?
Stonewolf
>> EA has a good policy for accepting programmers without 5+ years of
>>experiance so they end up with a large number of fresh grads working
>>for lower wages because they are still wet behind the ears.
while this is nice for the youngsters to "get their foot in the door", it is kind of is suspicious, don't you think? why do you think these fresh green pups had to work so many long hours? could it be inexperience?
on the other hand, I know this problem is not ALL fresh young pups... stupid managers can really kill a project and its people. but again on the other hand, when a non-technical manager can only get advice from the youngsters, that's a problem too.
What do we learn?
- It's a problem to have all young people. You really want a mix on your team to balance fresh ideas and experience. Perhaps something like 1/3 of senior, mid, and junior. (only a guess)
- It's a problem to have managers think that they can cut corners by hiring young people only. It's a problem if that manager doesn't have a clue by themselves and they're taking advice from young people, who don't reliably have a clue (sometimes do, sometimes don't)...
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Making choices is all very well, but those choices need to be made on information. The EA employees in question were at least decieved, and perhaps even intentionaly lied to. The conditions they worked under were extreme even for the games industry, and their willingness to 'go that extra mile' for the company was ruthlessly exploited. If they'd been told the truth about what would eventualy be expected of them, there's no way they would have accepted it. EA either exploted them, or at least totaly missmanaged the project and relid on thes people to make it good. Either way, EA owes them. Simon Hibbs