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

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.

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.

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.