Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community  

Go Back   Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community > Interests > Tilted Gaming


 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 11-11-2004, 01:50 PM   #1 (permalink)
Junkie
 
EA Spouse tells her story.

Not sure if this belongs here or not, but it seems like the right place.

Someone with a live journal by the name ea_spouse tells her story and issues with EA's mentality.

This has been posted on slashdot and some other sources, AFAIK.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/
FngKestrel is offline  
Old 11-11-2004, 02:05 PM   #2 (permalink)
can't help but laugh
 
irateplatypus's Avatar
 
Location: dar al-harb
thanks for the link, a good read...

this sort of thing is frustrating, but i don't think it is rare. we, in the tech sector, have been putting up with a substandard working environment for years. the problem is that unionization isn't practical as well as stiff competition for jobs. if gamers decided to boycott games coming from these puppy-mill type development conglomerates, i'd get behind it.
__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill
irateplatypus is offline  
Old 11-11-2004, 02:05 PM   #3 (permalink)
Getting Medieval on your ass
 
Coppertop's Avatar
 
Location: 13th century Europe
And this is one reason why I don't work in the gaming industry. I enjoy life outside of work. Even if overtime was paid for those 45-odd hours each week I doubt it'd be worth it. So how close to your experience is this, FngKestrel?

Last edited by Coppertop; 11-11-2004 at 02:13 PM.. Reason: typo
Coppertop is offline  
Old 11-11-2004, 02:07 PM   #4 (permalink)
Psycho
 
00111000's Avatar
 
Location: Mostly standing in a blue semi-circle
It's pretty much dead on. When I was first in the game industry I was in QA..the lowest rung on the ladder. I pulled 80-90 hour weeks 10 months out of the year and slept in my cube probably 6 days a week. The longest week I ever pulled was 103 hours when we finaled Falcon 4. The only good thing during that time was Californina still payed overtime and doubletime so I was rolling in cash but I no time to spend it or do anything with it.

A good buddy of mine worked on the past few sims/urbs games and recently left EA because of these tactics. He would work 20 hours a day for months, ship a game, get a month off and then go back to the same grind again.

I get comments all the time like "oh, your job must be so easy and fun...you make and play games all day!" I just smile and nod, I do love what I do and am damn glad I'm not pumping gas or busting my ass doing construction(nothing against you blue collar guys!). But in the end it comes down to it being a job and a very demanding job. Missing a ship date usually equals thousands of dollars in sales and execs do not like that at all.

There are some perks though...get to see all the newest games before anyone else, work with some real interesting people. Seeing new technology is always a blast also.
_________________
__________________
- And so he says, 'I don't like the cut of your jib.' And I go I says, IT'S THE ONLY JIB I GOT, BABY! -
00111000 is offline  
Old 11-11-2004, 02:29 PM   #5 (permalink)
Junkie
 
Yeah, I had to post this because I've done QA at EA. When I started working there, it was like, "Dude, I'm working at EA!" At the end, it was, "Man, all I want is a 40 hour work week."

00111000: I was definitely in a same boat. I tested almost all the Sims titles that came out in 2002. That was a long year. When I was done, I was able to pay for my eye surgery out of pocket because I had made so much money and had no time to spend it.

I know people at EA who have talked to me about returning there as an artist instead of QA. It's definitely something that would probably good for my career, but I have to wonder about its affect on my general wellbeing. One thing is that when I was in QA and pulling those hours, we all looked forward to the day where we would be in production, and we imagined that everything would be better. It's unfortunate to find out that that's not the case.

I've talked to people about the pros and cons of unionizing, but it's definitely a mentality of, someone else will take your job if you don't want it. For testers, it's definitely regarded as unskilled labor, which I would argue is a fallacy. The testers I know are at the top of their game, consistently, in a position that has huge turnover and incredible mind-numbing effects.

That being said, I refuse to get out of the game industry, for now. But I do hope that the industry matures a bit more. I remember reading in an interview in PC Gamer, to paraphrase Bruce Shelley, I wish some of these people would take some of their experience points in industry and put them into maturity.

The industry needs to look to the long term and understand that you prepare for the future by taking care of your employees.
FngKestrel is offline  
Old 11-12-2004, 04:01 AM   #6 (permalink)
Tilted
 
Location: Az
EA workers readying class action lawsuit against EA
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/11...s_6112998.html
joeyaz is offline  
Old 11-12-2004, 06:26 AM   #7 (permalink)
Tilted Cat Head
 
Cynthetiq's Avatar
 
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
I didn't work for EA, but did work for Disney Software in the early days of gaming pre Falcon 4( ).

QA did suck and was lots of hours.

The environment is becoming more and more like a TV production environment without the guidance or fules set forth by the production unions.
__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.
Cynthetiq is offline  
Old 11-12-2004, 07:37 AM   #8 (permalink)
Psycho
 
crossova's Avatar
 
Location: new york
wow! i didn't know slave labor existed in the IT industry like that. Im on the lowest rung of the IT ladder myself (HelpDesk Support) but i'd be damned if they asked (attempted to force) me to work past my 5pm work time.

I feel sorry for those who have to work hours that were described in that blog.
crossova is offline  
Old 11-12-2004, 10:19 AM   #9 (permalink)
Crazy
 
Wow, that's pretty scarey. EA came to my university a few weeks ago with their "Liason Dude" (or his job title was something similar, but did have 'Dude' in the title). In fact, I have their recruitment pamphlet on my lap right now. I had heard that working in the game industry was grouling.
Makes me wonder if I should still apply for some jobs there. I know there's a lot of competition for jobs in the industry right now, but would I really want to work something like that?

Either way, great information for somebody like me who was considering EA as a possibility for employment (still may, but it's certainly not as high up on the list now)
scott_p_1 is offline  
Old 11-15-2004, 11:29 AM   #10 (permalink)
Junkie
 
More livejournal about EA and the gaming industry. Is this just rampant everywhere?

http://www.livejournal.com/users/joestraitiff/
FngKestrel is offline  
Old 11-15-2004, 11:43 AM   #11 (permalink)
Canadian Beer Ambassador
 
Location: Cumming, GA
This practice is rampant everywhere. My buddy at Bungie was putting in 7 day a week gig's since June for Halo2. Damn near 80 hour work weeks.

One must remember however, that the game studio's sometimes (depends on title) pay a bonus based on how the game sells. My bungie buddy is about to double his salary this year with the bonus. Do the hours suck? You betcha. Will he complain when he gets a 100K bonus check? Probably not.
__________________
Take Off Eh!
theburner is offline  
Old 11-15-2004, 12:30 PM   #12 (permalink)
Oh shit it's Wayne Brady!
 
CityOfAngels's Avatar
 
Location: Passenger seat of Wayne Brady's car.
Quote:
Originally Posted by irateplatypus
...if gamers decided to boycott games coming from these puppy-mill type development conglomerates, i'd get behind it.
I haven't bought an EA game since the old Madden Games for Sega. I perfectly content with my ESPN NBA games from Sega. So in essence, I am boycotting EA, I just didn't realize I was.
__________________
The words "love" and "life" go together. It is almost as if they are one. You must love to live, and you must live to love, or you have never lived nor loved at all.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeraph
...the best way to keep a big secret would be to make it public with disinformation...
CityOfAngels is offline  
Old 11-16-2004, 12:02 PM   #13 (permalink)
is awesome!
 
Locobot's Avatar
 
No wonder EA so consistantly produces complete drech. That's no way to foster creativity.
Locobot is offline  
Old 11-16-2004, 05:10 PM   #14 (permalink)
#1 Irish Fan
 
heccubusiv's Avatar
 
Location: The Burgh
That really sucks, my friend got a internship for EA games and he loved it, he said he got to play video games all day as long as he got work done on time and he could rent out 2 pieces from their huge game library a day... i guess that how they suck in people
__________________
Fuck Ohio
heccubusiv is offline  
Old 11-19-2004, 10:39 PM   #15 (permalink)
Buffering.........
 
merkerguitars's Avatar
 
Location: Wisconsin...
My friend used to do QA for sierra, pulled alot of hours and was rolling in the cash, but like most of you said, how can you spend it when all you do is work? He said if you work nintendo or microsoft it's hell, get paid as low as possible and get worked the hell out of you without overtime. I have heard there are many factors that make game companies pull such horrible hours is because of, people retiring early so that are hardly anybody really experienced working there and that all of a sudden they decide they need to bust ass around christmas time.
__________________
Donate now! Ask me How!

Please use the search function it is your friend.

Look at my mustang please feel free to comment!

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=26985
merkerguitars is offline  
 

Tags
spouse, story, tells

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT -8. The time now is 11:06 PM.

Tilted Forum Project

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360