EA is NOT a good company to work for
Jason Olson pointed out this. Read it and post similar experiences in my comments. I wouldn’t have a problem with working overtime (read: 50-55 hours/week) for a month or so to get a project done on time, but this is just ridiculous. Makes you wonder how many other companies do this to their employees.
What do you think the best way to send a message to EA is? Passing the link around is a start, but I kind of don’t want to buy anything EA makes now. Unfortunately this could hurt the very same dev’s that this lady is writing about, but it could send a message to EA. Any better ideas? Any similar stories about other companies?
November 11th, 2004 at 7:49 am
Unfortunately this is the way almost every consumer oriented software product has been brought to market..
It is also the reason I got out of that sector of the business.
The main reason it is so bad is you do not have a “real” schedule. They are mostly underestimated so you end up killing yourself just to meet an insanely wrong schedule. For instance in typical 12-month schedule I did 18 - 24 months worth of work. The scary thing is I am a fast developer so the real schedule should have been close to 20 - 24 months.
The only company that I worked for that was different was “Sierra” and then only one division of them. The amazing thing was that our group shipped every product ahead of schedule with every feature asked for and NEVER hit crunch time for more than 1 month.
Bottom line is management needs to react differently and as long as people are willing to put up with it, they won’t stop.
I got out when my son had to go to stay in the hospital for a few days. Friday - Sunday…. Now I was already working 7 days a week and averaged about 12 hours a day for the last 4 months or so.
When I informed my manager that I would not be coming in this weekend because I wanted to spend the time at the hospital with my son She went off on me asking me how I could put the project in danger… To put it nicely I was pissed…
That was my wake up call and about 2 months later, I found a job and ended the madness for my family and me. Oh yeah my bonus for all my effort, about $1,500 bucks and no time off.
November 11th, 2004 at 2:43 pm
[…] ymous wife confesses about her husband’s mistreatment at Electronic Arts. By way of Brandon who got it from Jason Olsen
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November 11th, 2004 at 9:40 pm
From my own experiences and the experiences of various co-workers (many of have had the displeasure of working for EA), this is very much the case, especially with the “big” game companies out there, Vivendi and UbiSoft, in particular come to mind, although I’ve heard no worse stories from co-workers than those told by ex-EA employees. Judging from your response, I take it your still in school? If so, sorry to say it bud, but brace yourself. This is the games industry. That’s not to say you _can’t_ find people-friendly studios to work for, as the big guys are taking more and more of the market share, those opportunities are getting fewer and fewer. The like to pay people in “cool”, with the assumption that they’ll get a bunch of kids that don’t know any better to come work for them. These kids usually don’t have families, and are just ecstatic to be in the industry, so they put in the insane hours with little thought of how they’re getting ripped off by their overall compensation. It’s the sad, sad truth - and I think we’re going to have to see a huge, publicly-visible lawsuit come about before things start to change.