Re: Sounds like EA
anonymous
November 11 2004, 00:32:48 UTC
Just got back form doing hard time there for a month. 14 hour days, 7 days a week. I make less than half of that 90k salary I'd have to get in order to be exampt from overtime pay.
HOW TO COPE -- I used to work at MaxisatomatomNovember 12 2004, 11:18:16 UTC
First, I made an agreement w/my SO that I would put in whatever hours I had to during the week so that I would not have to work weekends (this is before they started instituting mandatory 6-7 day work weeks). I got used to sleeping 5 to 6 hours a night so I could put in 14-16 hour days during crunch time
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Re: Two things...grafxman256November 10 2004, 19:27:15 UTC
Nitpick correction - Blizzard was owned by the same company that owned Sierra, not owned by Sierra directly. That company was then rolled over to "Vivendi Universal" when Vivendi bought up Universal. Sierra might have liked to pretend they owned Blizzard, but Blizzard always had the right to tell Sierra off, and did so on many occations. (I used to work for Dynamix, which was owned by Sierra, and we were always rooting for Blizzard in those exchanges.)
Re: Two things...floatingatollNovember 11 2004, 18:00:18 UTC
I think that Garage Games absorbed some of the residual Sierra programmers, and I know of at least one of them that's still in town doing computer work, too.
EA isn't the only company to do this kind of practice but it's certainly the most extreme case I've ever heard of.
Where I sit, it seems Sony have similar ideas about how to treat employees but I 'only' did about 50-60 hour weeks for 4-6 weeks (I can't remember exactly how many weeks it was - they all blurred into one another at the time). That was horrific but still not even close to what you've been put through.
I'm headed for a smaller company and hoping that the publisher doesn't screw it over. :/ Doubtless, there'll be another fresh-faced newbie to replace me when I'm gone.
Been there, done that, and currently hoping for the same lack of screwage.
There's another problem here that hasn't been mentioned, and that is how you get into the industry in the first place. Small companies (quite reasonably) don't feel they can afford the risk of taking on someone without significant experience. That means young programmers who want to get into games pretty much have to go through the giants in order to have a chance to get that 2-3 years and 2-3 titles. That's certainly why I was at Sony.
Yeah. I'm going the long, slow, and even more uncertain route of trying to do my own projects, slowly building them until they're something a small company would be proud of. Chances are I'll have a small company by the end of them. Then, chances are I'll stop after game two or three and never make a cent.
Going in through one of the big companies is one way to get in, and it's probably the easiest, but there are others. It's easier if you're an artist, whose skill is clear from one glance at a portfolio... but basically what will happen in the future and what is already happening is that designers, writers, and programmers will have to start creating portfolios of their own. I've worked for a couple of small studios and talked to many others, and most of them would quickly snap up any programmer who had their own small portfolio of self-made projects -- it shows initiative and follow-through to take even a small project to completion. You would be amazed how few people actually do this, though. The catch-22 of getting into the industry, I think, was more difficult in the past ten years than it is now, in part because the whole industry is bigger and in part because it is becoming more aware of the need for new talent. The other thing is the presence of the IGDA and growing hub of game conferences, which are tremendous networking tools
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They need to get themselves organised and take action. EA (and other companies) only get away with it because game developers don't join unions, and take a foolish macho pride in working stupid hours. Also because historically a lot of them have not had anything better to do with their time. It really is time that game developers set the DTI (or California equivalent) on their employees
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Actually, the problem is that no one wants to be the whistle blower. They are all afraid that if they do/say something, then they will never be able to work in the industry again, which is probably right.
The problems stated are fairly common in the industry, although it seems that EA is pushing it to extremes. And yes, these practices are completely illegal. Most of the time, the requests to stay longer hours are done orally, so that there are no paper trails and when the employees do their time sheets, they are asked to put down only 40 hours, again destroying any kind of proof. If the employee complains, the company claims that they never asked and that the employee was doing it out of his own violition.
Hard to proove something when you have no physical proofs...
And, btw, EA is doing the same thing at its newly opened studio in Montreal...
It saddens me to hear that the situation is similar in Montreal. I had heard that EA Canada was being run better than this.
The interesting thing is that because of its security systems, EA itself electronically tracks the locations of workers in this particular studio, and workers have to sign in with security when they come in on weekends... so there is no obfuscation of hours worked here.
I have a friend that's currently at EA and he says the kind of pressure that is put on him is ridiculous. He was told that he had two weeks to work on a task, and a week later, when he told his manager that he was making good progress, his deadline was moved forward by a few days, meaning that he no longer had 5 days left, but 2!
Things like that make me glad I'm not working for that behemot...
At lot of my game industry friends have headed out the door to find work in film and multimedia companies where we complain about working more than 40 hrs a week. The pay is better and you actually sometimes get decent project managers, not 'shit-floats-to-the-top' types. I think the games industry is going to collapse at both ends, nobody whats the rubbish they pump out and nobody wants to work on the rubbish they wanna pump out.
Good luck to you and your partner - I hope things get better for them or they find a good replacement for their life, because 85 hrs a week is their life.
I have to admit that the film and multimedia industries are an enigma to me. We have talked about starting our own business as our abilities as pertain to games and other technology are compatible, but we've never considered going into film production or similar. I know that there are programming jobs there, since an ex-coworker of ours used to work for a company that did that, but there seems to be not nearly the community that there is for game developers.
Thank you for the well wishes, and for the comment. =) And be assured that it's EA that will be replaced and not his life, and not just for my sake. It's a tough decision because there are some extremely talented people working there right now, and my SO is of the type that just soaks up that experience and loves to learn, but everyone has limits...
moving from games to filmpond823November 11 2004, 14:58:56 UTC
Moving from games to film is easier than you might think. The jobs are very similar. I've done it. And there is a similar tight-knit community and networking that can help.
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If EA is violating the law frequently then a lawyer should begin contacting people within the company for participation in just such a suit.
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EA isn't the only company to do this kind of practice but it's certainly the most extreme case I've ever heard of.
Where I sit, it seems Sony have similar ideas about how to treat employees but I 'only' did about 50-60 hour weeks for 4-6 weeks (I can't remember exactly how many weeks it was - they all blurred into one another at the time). That was horrific but still not even close to what you've been put through.
I'm headed for a smaller company and hoping that the publisher doesn't screw it over. :/
Doubtless, there'll be another fresh-faced newbie to replace me when I'm gone.
Reply
There's another problem here that hasn't been mentioned, and that is how you get into the industry in the first place. Small companies (quite reasonably) don't feel they can afford the risk of taking on someone without significant experience. That means young programmers who want to get into games pretty much have to go through the giants in order to have a chance to get that 2-3 years and 2-3 titles. That's certainly why I was at Sony.
Reply
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Reply
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The problems stated are fairly common in the industry, although it seems that EA is pushing it to extremes. And yes, these practices are completely illegal. Most of the time, the requests to stay longer hours are done orally, so that there are no paper trails and when the employees do their time sheets, they are asked to put down only 40 hours, again destroying any kind of proof. If the employee complains, the company claims that they never asked and that the employee was doing it out of his own violition.
Hard to proove something when you have no physical proofs...
And, btw, EA is doing the same thing at its newly opened studio in Montreal...
Reply
The interesting thing is that because of its security systems, EA itself electronically tracks the locations of workers in this particular studio, and workers have to sign in with security when they come in on weekends... so there is no obfuscation of hours worked here.
Reply
Things like that make me glad I'm not working for that behemot...
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Good luck to you and your partner - I hope things get better for them or they find a good replacement for their life, because 85 hrs a week is their life.
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Thank you for the well wishes, and for the comment. =) And be assured that it's EA that will be replaced and not his life, and not just for my sake. It's a tough decision because there are some extremely talented people working there right now, and my SO is of the type that just soaks up that experience and loves to learn, but everyone has limits...
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Much better place for a programmer to work.
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