EA Spouse Outed

patio11 writes "EA Spouse, who sparked a revolution (or, at least, a wave of lawsuits and promises for improvement) in the game development industry with a blog post decrying labor practices at Electronics Arts, was outed as Erin Hoffman in a Mercury News article. She and then-fiance, now-husband Leander Hasty were plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits against EA and continue to develop games and be activists for better working conditions for game developers." From the article: "More than a year later, game developers have won settlements in three class-action lawsuits alleging EA created exhausting work schedules without paying overtime and successfully pressed employers to ease unrelenting workloads. And EA Spouse, whose true identity has been cloaked until now, is becoming a voice against America's culture of overwork."

Comments

Already Revealed

[Xyl3ne]

Kinda dupe?

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/04/26/1733244.shtml

Company details are very interesting

[cliffski]

Whats interesting here is the guy used to work at taldren, who as I recall made Starfleet Command, and then went to work on Battle For Middle earth for EA.
SFC was seriously good, and BFME sucked big ones. So it seems clear even if it was not already obvious that working people to death WILL result in substandard dross games, even if they obviously have the talent.
Sadly BFME probably made mroe money, so the suits at EA who probably dont even like games dont give a damn.
Thank god I left that stupid industry to work as an indie.

Re:Company details are very interesting

[mwvdlee]

Well duh; if you're already working 7x13, would you still care about working the extra time to make it anything better than the worst quality you can get away with without getting fired?

Is this the root of EA's problems?

[GundamFan]

Sleep deprived cranky game developers can't possibly be very creative, can they?

Also unrealistic deadlines have a negitave effect on creativity.
EA is a victim of it's size... they have a huge pressure to be sucessfull so huge in fact that they lose sight of what really makes games (and all art) great.

Great inventive games do not always sell a lot of copies and that is the real crime here... EA wouldn't make crap if people didn't buy crap and then complain about it (but not return it because the big chains have made quality of product not a reason for a refund... but that is a diffrent rant.)

Demand quality and don't settle for buggy incomplete games and this "problem" of overworked developers might just solve itself... or at least save gameing from a slow painfull death.

Re:Is this the root of EA's problems?

[GundamFan]

I thought about that while I was typing my message here is what I think... I think there are two types of creativity here the ability to do great things with small resources, or the ablity to freely create. When being icreative in the first way I think most people think "how can I accomplish my goals with what I have" and "what goals can I change to meet my situation". With more free creativity you end up with less compromising over goals but also less progress over time. What really is needed is a good balance of the two, without a deadline nothing would get done but deadlines that come too soon often make products rushed, compromised in other ways or both.

Re:Is this the root of EA's problems?

[Kadin2048]

Sleep deprived cranky game developers can't possibly be very creative, can they?

Nah, artists always work best when they're coddled, fat, and happy. Oh, wait ...

Just kidding, although I do think that sometimes a deadline is the kick in the pants that's sometimes needed for people to produce their best work, there's no excuse to just abuse your people continually. You can only maintain that kind of increased tempo for a certain amount of time, before it just becomes fatiguing and output quality is going to drop.

I've actually worked on a few big projects where I remember the "big push" at the end with some fondness. Okay, at the time I probably would have called you stupid for saying that, but in retrospect I knew that it brought the team of people I was working with together and caused us to make a better product than we probably would have done, if we had spread the same number of hours of work out across a traditional work schedule. (Disclaimer, I'm not in gaming, but I can't imagine it's that much different.) However I can only imagine doing that regularly ... that's not going to do anyone any good.

Back on topic here -- does anyone know where I can get the backstory on ea_spouse? I didn't follow this too closely when it was going on so I'm wondering if I can fill myself in.

Right on!

[MyLongNickName]

...has been cloaked until now, is becoming a voice against America's culture of overwork....

I, for one, am tired of this culture of overwork in America. Occassionally I have to close my browser and answer a phone call. This is intruding into my social life entirely too much.

right back at ya, fascisst pig!

[Thud457]

Work hard, millions on welfare are depending on you!

Re:right back at ya, fascisst pig!

[blincoln]

I know someone on welfare who is brilliant and would love to have a job instead.

Unfortunately, she is legally unable to look for a job as long as she's on welfare. She can't go off of it to look for a job because some necessary medication she takes is hundreds or thousands of dollars a month, and even if she did get a full-time job that had medical insurance, a lot of places make you wait awhile before you're covered. It's a catch-22.

I'm sure it's always worth a laugh for some people to take cheap shots at welfare recipients, but the reality is not often the way you may think.

Shouldnt surprise anyone

[192939495969798999]

It shouldnt be a surprise that if you want people to work longer than a 40-hour week but you don't pay them for overtime, that you will get an inferior result. What exactly is the employee's motivation other than termination? That's like a prison mentality, 'either break these rocks or we beat the crap out of you. Once you're done breaking the rocks, we'll beat the crap out of you.' Not much to look forward to except a delay of additional punishment in terms of more longer hours in the future.

Eventually people will favor creativity, and people like me will 'herd the cats' and make some sweet games. Until then, have fun with John Madden 20XX!

Re:Shouldnt surprise anyone

[__aaclcg7560]

When I was working at Atari, the QA supervisors would tell the testers that if they didn't like their work conditions, they can go work for Taco Bell down the street. They stopped saying that when it became obvious that Taco Bell does have better working conditions at a slightly higher pay rate that some of the entry-level testers were making. They started losing senior people when Sony was paying $20/hr instead of $16/hr. Go figure.

entitlement

[JavaLord]

is becoming a voice against America's culture of overwork."

As opposed to the culture of entitlement in most european countries?

Re:entitlement

[corbettw]

Yeah, except that Europeans tend to be more productive per hour than Americans.

Really? According to the CIA World Fact Book, the US has a GDP of $12,410,000,000,000, compared to Europe's $12,180,000,000,000 (all figures in US dollars). Contrast that with Europe's population of 456,953,258 against the US's 298,444,215. That gives the us a per capital product of $41,582.31 against Europe's $26,654.81. So far it looks like the US is more productive.

Let's look closer. The European Union has a labor force of 218,500,000, compared to the US's 149,300,000. Leaving out the unemployment rates for each group (9.4% vs. 5.1%), we're left with 197,961,000 workers in Europe compared to 141,685,700 in the US. We'll leave that for a moment.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workweek, which sites a spreadsheet from OECD, workers in the US work an average of 1777 hours per year. Taking the average of the EU member states (the spreadsheet only lists individual countries), we get 1576.33 hours per year.

So, the US has a total of 251,775,488,900 work-hours per year, giving an average of $49.29 gross product per work hour. Europe has 312,051,863,130 work-hours per year, giving an average of $39.03 per work hour.

I'm sorry, who's more productive did you say?

Re:entitlement

[sesshomaru]

"Euroland's underlying economic performance is better than many commentators portray. Over the past decade, GDP per head has risen virtually at the same rate in euroland as the United States; euroland productivity growth (output per hour) and the rise in the employment rates were slightly faster than in the United States; and to maintain the same growth in GDP per head, U.S. workers have had to work much longer hours than their euroland counterparts." -- Kevin Daly, Goldman Sachs, January 2004

Re:entitlement

[sesshomaru]

The Conference Board, a respected US business pressure group, estimated this downward adjustment shaves 1.5% off the consumer price index every year and therefore reduces its inflation rate by that amount. But the inflation rate is deducted from the nominal gross domestic product numbers to give the real increase in GDP. If the inflation rate is understated by 1.5% compared with how other countries measure the same data, it follows that America's growth rate is claimed to be 1.5% higher than it is in reality. So its lead over the eurozone in the past four years, 10% growth against 4%, is almost entirely a statistical fiction.

This, if you accept it, provides the clue to the great conundrum of the so-called American recovery since 2000. Despite a huge expansion of its public sector, where 1.1 million jobs were created, employment is still only at the levels of 2000.

In previous post-war recoveries where there has been such a purported growth surge, there have been millions of new jobs. But in this case, America's job creation record is one of the worst in the developed world and worse - no doubt to most readers' astonishment - than that of the eurozone. --- How America fakes its figures, Evening Standard (London), Feb 3, 2005

Yes, everything is fine, full steam ahead, what icebergs?

Re:entitlement

[ggwood]

I've heard other (European? Japanese?) workers are more productive per hour then America's so often that it's sort of become an ingrained assumption for me. However, I find your numbers persuasive. I think the difference is that your numbers are for the whole economy and specific studies are done in, say, the auto industry or something.

If both you and the studies I've heard are correct, it would seem Americans choose to work in more productive fields, on average.

I'm not an economist - but the people I've heard from are. I'm suggesting a way both you and what I've heard could both be correct.

Next time I run into any of my macroeconomist friends, I'll run your argument by them.

Re:Ingrained Behaviour

[AKAImBatman]

So it will be awhile before we're like the Europeans.

We don't want to be like the Europeans. Generally speaking, the US produces far more and creates much more wealth than most European countries. This is not only good for the economy as a whole, but it's also a good way to increase personal income and purchasing power. Europe knows this, and thus countries like France are starting to repeal some of their Draconian employee protection laws.

The problem in the US is that some employers abuse the strong work ethic. They only see graphs that say More Work == More Profit without properly understanding how things like employee exhaustion and low morale impact their bottom line. They also fail to understand that far more work can be produced by improving working conditions and morale rather than demanding slave hours. Unfortunately, many employees are reticent to change jobs during times of economic uncertainty, and they're also cautious about bringing suits against their employer. Thus some (not all) employers get away with it for a time. However, it can't last, and employers end up shooting themselves in the foot long-term.

Re:Ingrained Behaviour

[Ford Prefect]

This is not only good for the economy as a whole, but it's also a good way to increase personal income and purchasing power.

Absolutely - when I was over in the USA the other week, I found my effective personal income and purchasing power was greatly increased by the sorry state of the Dollar compared with the Euro.

So please, carry on! I have my eye on a rather nice telephoto lens to complement the one I bought last week, and the reduction is price is brilliant! :-)

Re:Ingrained Behaviour

[AKAImBatman]

I found my effective personal income and purchasing power was greatly increased by the sorry state of the Dollar compared with the Euro.

Putting aside the remark about the "sorry state" of the dollar (it's only a 1.2:1 ratio for the Euro, yeash), the lower value of the dollar is intended for exactly what you're using it for: Encouraging US production and foreign purchases. Thus your money is going into US pockets instead of European pockets. Which is good for the US at the moment, and very, very bad for the EU countries currently experiencing a recession.

The dollar gets adjusted above foreign currency when wealth creation gets out of hand. This shifts the equation more towards the US becoming a world consumer and the rest of the world becomes producers. In short, money fluctuatations are what keep countries economically strong, and not a very good indicator of general health.

Re:Ingrained Behaviour

[sesshomaru]

Encouraging Chinese production and foreign purchases. Thus your money is going into Chinese pockets instead of European pockets. Which is good for the Chinese at the moment, and very, very bad for the EU countries currently experiencing a recession.

Fixed that for you.

I'm not so sure

[Malakusen]

And EA Spouse, whose true identity has been cloaked until now, is becoming a voice against America's culture of overwork." Does America really have a culture of overwork, compared to other countries? Sure, we may work harder then Brazil or France or something, but India, China, Japan, Korea, alot of places like that are kicking our ass because we tend towards laziness.

Re:Ingrained Behaviour

[gorbachev]

"We don't want to be like the Europeans"

Speak for yourself.

Re:Ingrained Behaviour

[sesshomaru]

Most Americans don't really believe in capitalism anyway. I'll give you an example. I'm tired of my current job, and I've saved up enough to buy a Lincoln Towncar. "Ok," I think, "I'll quit my job, and I'll charge people for rides to various places in my brand new Lincoln Towncar. I'll keep my current beater for personal driving."

Eeeerk! "I'm sorry, " says average American, "You can't do that. In fact, we've passed laws against it."

"But why," I ask, "I have a perfect driving record!"

"Well, " says the average American, "It isn't safe, you'll need a special license. You'll also have to pay super high taxes, to the point where it won't be economically feasable for you to do this as a business. Oh, and we can't have just any car being used to ferry people from here to there, you'll need a Taxi medallion. We limit those, and even if you could get one (and you can't) it'll cost you."

"How do I know you speak for all Americans? " says I.

"Well, after all, this is a democracy, we wouldn't have passed all those laws if we wanted any old person to be able to run their own cab company."

"I think you just passed all those laws to protect the income of the cab companies," says I.

"Well, prove it! If you can prove it, maybe you'll be able to change enough people's minds to get the law changed. I wouldn't count on it though, the established cab companies have quite a large lobbying budget."

"Yay, capitalism, " I say, weakly.

"Yes, yay capitalism, now get back to work," says the average American.

Real Life Example: Illegal Charters

Americans work long hours

[SmallFurryCreature]

It is their way of life. Are they right? Well it all depends on what you use as measurement and how you measure it.

Some very silly people use money as a measurement forgetting totally that money does not have the same value. 1 dollar in say New York has a totally different value then 1 dollar in say Greece. Hell everyone knows this is even true in far small areas like say New York vs Hicksville.

So any comparison between the money produced by either economy is silly. Even more if you realise that even in europe working hour practices are different. The brits for instance lean far more to american working hours.

So who is right?

Funny thing but one of those wise lessons from american sitcoms/dramas is that nobody on their death bed ever regretted not having spend more time in the office.

If you do not live to work then surely the only sensible number of hours to work is the amount you need to be able to afford to live right?

So how much do you need to live? This can get very funny. It starts simple. Cheap supermarkets are open from 8 to 8 in Holland. (Can't say for the rest of the world so don't attack me for that). There are a few that stay open later but they typically charge more and only carry the brand names (wich are more expensive) and don't have sales. The cheapest places to get food however is the market wich opens officially at 8 but is usually closing as early as 16:00.

So now you get the following effect. If your unemployed you got the least amount of money BUT have the time to shop at the cheapest place, the market. If you got a 40 hour 8-5 job the market is out so you need to shop at the regular but slightly more expensive supermarket. More money but your also spending more on food. Now if you work longer hours and can't make the regular opening hours you need the special stores at train stations. More money offcourse in salary but your food expenses shoot up. Work even more and you won't even have time to cook and eating in restaurants or takeaway really becomes fucking expensive.

Kids follow a similar pattern. The more you work, the more you make but also the more you spend on childcare. I had one co-worker who flatly refused to work on a friday (4 day contract) unless the company paid him double since that was his day to take care of the kid and if he worked on friday his entire salery would go to childcare meaning he effectlivly worked for nothing AND missed out on spending time with his child.

Same with other stuff. You can eat better cheaper and healthier if you can shop for fresh food every day. Don't have the time? Pay more AND pay for a huge fridge and the electricity.

The above is not just crap made up by some slashdot idiot. The effect that being going from unemployed to employed while leading to an increase in salary actually ends up with the person having less money is a big problem for countries with a decent social security system.

Some of you may even have experienced the effect of a promotion and payment increase actually ending up with you having less "free" money because all of sudden you need to buy rounds not of beer but whiskey or wear real suits or chip in for golf clubs instead of mousemat birthday gifts.

Whenever I see someone defend a 80 hour workweek because they are more productive I don't even bother with trying to reason that such a person will be too tired at work to do a decent job. I just wonder how that person finds enough free time to actually have some fun. Congrats that you earn twice as much as me. I will be sure to envy you while I am sitting with my feet up in the sun after a short day at work.