EA Spouse blog

[chrisbid]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/

 

very interesting blog, its a spouse of an EA employee that alleges that they treat their employees like a seven year old in an asian sweatshop. not just to meet deadlines, mind you, this is constant with no comp time or any additional benefit for getting the job done well

[Mock]

I have a friend that works for them...said that it was like the friggin pentagon in that place...all kinds of security and crazy lockdown situations....kinda weird to me...lol.

[Albert]

I read that a few weeks ago. Not really surprising for anyone in the game industry, EA doesn't exactly have a good reputation. I am glad to see this issue getting more attention, though, as it is more widespread than just EA, although what is described in the above article is pretty extreme. But pretty much "crunch mode" is commonplace at most game companies, and usually has to do with poor scheduling, poor project management, unrealistic and optimistic expectations by programmers developing new technologies, pressure from publishers to get the game out the door by a certain date, having to create demos for tradeshows like E3, and so forth.

 

I've been there, and it's not fun. I also have friends who have gotten out of the game industry because of burnout.

 

There is presently a class action suit against EA in California regarding overtime pay and EA's refusal to pay it. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

..Al

[Mock]

CA has weird employment laws...as an employee, I think they are better off with it in CA, I think they have a slight slant towards the employee as opposed to other states regarding OT pay and general rights...will be interesting to see what happens.

[chrisbid]

There is presently a class action suit against EA in California regarding overtime pay and EA's refusal to pay it.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  

 

 

 

EA Games....

 

Challenge Everything!

[dvdguy]

I've been there, and it's not fun.  I also have friends who have gotten out of the game industry because of burnout.

 

That's a shame. Burnout is such a great game... sad to hear that people quit their jobs because of the car smashing goodness.

[Brad2600]

EA sucks anyway.

 

Look at the quality of their games lately. It's practically gone down the shitter. I'm talking about their non-sports titles, just to clarify but since I hate sports titles, you could include those too.

[ninjarabbit]

My brother was going to study to become a video game designer but he said it was just too much for him.

 

I think some of these companies are working the guys too hard and it shows in the quality of the games. Too many bugs, a overall rushed feeling to them, and too many games that start out good but finish weak. I'd personally rather have fewer, higher quality games but economic disagrees with me. I wish companies would remember that a game is only late until it's released but a game is crappy or medicore forever.

 

Maybe that why I like Nintendo so much, sure they take their sweet time making their games (I say this as a N64 owner back in the day) but once the game does come out I'm usually guarenteed a 4 star game at least.

[tyranthraxus]

EA sucks anyway.

 

Look at the quality of their games lately. It's practically gone down the shitter. I'm talking about their non-sports titles, just to clarify but since I hate sports titles, you could include those too.

 

In the early days I was excited to see their new sports games now its

like oh a new NHL XXXX their sports, like all old ones have gotton just

so blah because they just sell the same game over and over with new

stats. And I think their sales are down because of it, isn't the latest NHL

selling for like $30?

 

EA seems to buy up cool franchises and then corpratize their new

company and never recapture the old magic. They crashed all of the

once mighty franchises of Origin for example.

[Albert]

EA seems to buy up cool franchises and then corpratize their new

company and never recapture the old magic. They crashed all of the

once mighty franchises of Origin for example.

 

Yes, it's a tragedy to see what happened with Origin. I moved here to Austin not long after EA took them over, and still had aspirations to work for them at some point (I was working for Looking Glass Technologies at the time). However, many of the people I worked with here in Austin had worked for Origin in the past, and they all had stories about how the company had gone downhill after EA took over. The axe finally fell a few months ago, sending several hundred employees looking for work elsewhere. It's sad driving by that building and seeing that the Origin sign has been removed.

 

..Al

[Dones]

Back in the early 90's I had a friend who used to make fun of them by saying "Origin: We create headaches!". Their games always had steep hardware requirements and were difficult to configure (usually needing custom made DOS configs). Seriously though, most of their games were so good that it was incentive enough to put up with all the usual DOS configuration nightmares.

[Albert]

Back in the early 90's I had a friend who used to make fun of them by saying "Origin: We create headaches!". Their games always had steep hardware requirements and were difficult to configure (usually needing custom made DOS configs). Seriously though, most of their games were so good that it was incentive enough to put up with all the usual DOS configuration nightmares.

 

Ahh, yes, I remember that quite well. They were one of the few companies pushing the hardware edge, and playing their latest games almost required you to pony up for some new hardware. I remember when Ultima VII came out, what a pain in the neck that one was, it even had its own proprietary memory manager. Between the various Ultimas (and Ultima Underworlds), Wing Commanders, Strike Commander, and others, Origin probably greatly accelerated the rate at which people were upgrading their machines.

 

..Al

[liquid_sky]

Back in the early 90's I had a friend who used to make fun of them by saying "Origin: We create headaches!". Their games always had steep hardware requirements and were difficult to configure (usually needing custom made DOS configs). Seriously though, most of their games were so good that it was incentive enough to put up with all the usual DOS configuration nightmares.

 

Ahh, yes, I remember that quite well. They were one of the few companies pushing the hardware edge, and playing their latest games almost required you to pony up for some new hardware. I remember when Ultima VII came out, what a pain in the neck that one was, it even had its own proprietary memory manager. Between the various Ultimas (and Ultima Underworlds), Wing Commanders, Strike Commander, and others, Origin probably greatly accelerated the rate at which people were upgrading their machines.

 

..Al

 

And no matter how good of a computer you had, you still almost always made a boot disc to run the game and the game alone I miss Strike Commander.

[Cobra Commander]

EA seems to buy up cool franchises and then corpratize their new

company and never recapture the old magic. They crashed all of the

once mighty franchises of Origin for example.

 

Yes, it's a tragedy to see what happened with Origin. I moved here to Austin not long after EA took them over, and still had aspirations to work for them at some point (I was working for Looking Glass Technologies at the time). However, many of the people I worked with here in Austin had worked for Origin in the past, and they all had stories about how the company had gone downhill after EA took over. The axe finally fell a few months ago, sending several hundred employees looking for work elsewhere. It's sad driving by that building and seeing that the Origin sign has been removed.

 

..Al

 

Ya I read recently they baught "Criterion" a company that makes development tools "RenderWare" wich is said to be being used in over 500 games that are out or in development, or something like 1 in 4 console games in the works. Meaby EA is getting to big for its britches, or for the betterment of gaming in general.