http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/ "EA: The Human Story [Nov. 10th, 2004|12:01 am] My significant other works for Electronic Arts, and I'm what you might call a disgruntled spouse. EA's bright and shiny new corporate trademark is "Challenge Everything." Where this applies is not exactly clear. Churning out one licensed football game after another doesn't sound like challenging much of anything to me; it sounds like a money farm. To any EA executive that happens to read this, I have a good challenge for you: how about safe and sane labor practices for the people on whose backs you walk for your millions? ..." (to read on open above url) anyone still eager to become a game programmer? anyone here IS a gameprogrammer ( i mean an employee) ? what are your thoughts? is it a dangerous way to go in live - becoming a game programmer?
I've got a friend who's been working in a couple of developpement teams. He stopped when became sick because he was just working TOO much. That was pretty insane...
@cyberguile: whats yourfriend doing now? still programming, but outside the gaming industry ? what sicknesses he did develop? headaches? depressions? i am just curious, how too much work can make one sick..
I can't exactly say what he was doing (as I know almost nothing about gaming developpment) but I know for sure he was working in a "debugging team" (I know it coz a couple of other friends found a "beta testing" job thanks to him). Sometimes, he was working like 70 or 80 hours a week with a LOT of pressure (in france, legally, you should work 35 hours a week), saturday and sunday included to make sure a game was bug-free before release. He was always extremely tired and a couple of time passed out just like this because of his tireness. He just didn't have no more time to have a social life ! I remember periods we couldn't even get him on the phone for two or three months ! He moved on something else now, was bored with all these things. His father had a shoe shop: he took succession (yeah, he is the new Al Bundy ) Can't tell for whom he was working, though. But in Lyon, EA, infogrames , Eden and I think Ubisoft had buildings so I assume it was mainly for some of them.
another interesting reading about Electronic Arts: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1 ... me_to_.php "Is It Time to Dump EA? By Ernest Adams This column is a little out of the norm for The Designers Notebook, because its mostly about business rather than design issues. Still, it reflects some of my thoughts about where the industry is going, so I think its within my charter. Electronic Arts stock has been in the doldrums for about three years now, and every gain seems to be followed by a setback. A few weeks ago, Larry Probst, Electronic Arts longtime CEO, announced that he was retiring in favor of John Riccitiello, a former Chief Operating Officer who left for a few years to work in venture capital, and has now returned to take over the helm. Then a few days ago Reuters reported that managerial changes were in the offing, which is code for somebodys going to get fired and that Riccitiello is looking for ways to improve efficiency, which is code for a smaller number of people will have to do the same amount of work. ...." (for more, read the article)
you know, we can really just click on the link to read the article. right? btw, in france you should only work 35 hours a week? meaning no less or no more? either way that's pretty crazy!
It's a little more complicated. To put it simply, as there are of course lots of particular cases: the legal weekly work time in France used to be 39 hours. When it was lowered to 35 hours several years ago, companies had basically two choices: either actually have their employees work 35 hours a week, or keep the 39-hours rhythm but in compensation, give extra holidays to their employees, the amount varying roughly from 10 to 20 days depending on negociations. So if you're lucky, you can get up to 9 weeks of holidays a year: 5 weeks (standard base), plus 4 weeks of extras... As you can guess, in actual practice, whether you work 35/39 hours totally depends on your company and sector of activity: some people "work" 35 hours (ie do nothing, take frequent and long coffee breaks, 2 hours at lunch time etc.), while others do a LOT of unpaid overtime, work on week-ends and stuff... About the initial question, a couple years ago I worked with an ex-Ubi soft employee, and what he told me about it was exactly like this EA story. He eventually quit because he couldn't stand anymore working that much, not being allowed to take holidays because of super-tight deadlines, with no form of compensation whatsoever. Anyway, I worked in IT for several years, and I always heard that the video game industry was particularly crazy...
thanks for fixing the posts, herc. much more navigable now. i open this thread with an ounce of skepticism since i had read really great things about EA in the eighties and early nineties. those sort of working conditions do seem frightful, but at the same time: a man should be able to decide where he wants to work. it's up to him to weigh the pros and cons of his job. i know of companies and employees who would not be able to survive on a thirty-five hour work week. now if it's illegal, than that's one thing...
