employee rights on gaming industry

I wouldn't work for them. I only have a little industry experience but both those clauses are pretty harsh. I mean, do you really want to give up programming as a hobby if that's something you enjoy? The second would worry me much more though. Unless they're going to pay you through that time, or they're paying you a lot, that could be tough on the budget. As to webcams etc., we don't have anything like that at my work, though I know some people who do have e-mail and internat monitoring but I've never heard of key presses or webcams. It's not that it couldn't be a decent job, but think whether you really want to work in those conditions.

tj963

OK, so I don't work in software (but do work in R&D industry), but my response to this would be...

Bye!!!!!

Not being allowed to do any software development at home is just downright ridiculous. What's next, not allowed to go to the loo at home? Some restrictions based on IP are OK; blanket statements like that, no way.

Not allowed to work for another company after you've finished the project? Way to increase the unemployment levels! Again - limits on IP, and non-disclosure agreements - yeah, fine. Blanket restrictions - are they smoking something funny?

On-the-job monitoring is more commonplace, by my understanding - certainly I've worked places where all internet usage was monitored, but only to the extent that certain keywords would be picked up on - which is only fair (most companies don't want their staff googling for 'hot jugs' while at work). The example you present does seem a wee bit more draconian however.

A lot of people do seem to accept an awful lot in their desire to work in games, and that desire does seem to get used against them (EA, I'm looking at you). The example you present is outrageous though.

Sure you're not pulling our legs?

On the other hand - things you've heard are very different to what's actually in your contract, and what actual working conditions are like. Ever played Chinese Whispers?

Jim.

those type of agreements can be part of a contract. One word, make sure you read your contract, and what you can and can't do.

It's not exactly common from my experience, but I've been working with independent studios, who are more lenient and more on a personnal level. However I wouldn't be surprised to see that kind of clause be part of a work contract in bigger studios. Game programming is not a matter of national security for god sakes, these people should get back to earth from time to time.

Personnaly, I would tell them to get stuffed. There are non-disclosure agreements, which are fair and square, and there is insane unfounded paranoia.

As for preventing you from joining another company after a few months, I'm not sure how legal that would be, at least in Europe or the UK. You're hired for a job, and in the game industry, that can mean a year to a few more years. Very volatile. Unless I've got at least a 5 year guaranteed contract, I wouldn't even bother.

As for monitoring your workstation and generally infringing on your privacy and rights, I've heard that's relatively common, but again, there are degrees, and I've never witnessed it myself (although it doesn't mean it didn't happen [looksaround]).

Game development is a lot of R&D, and the implied paranoia regarding *technology* and know-how, wrapped around by poorly managed businesses, with very high risks, and a very volatile employment situation for your average employee. Blink, and you might miss the company going bust or being made redundant. It's a very funny business, and very shady practises. It's fun when you're young and the consequence of loosing your job don't really apply to you, but when you get the familly, the mortgage, the car and the kids, that's another story. Besides, getting holder, you'll probably get fed up with all that circus and will be considering a change of career pronto.

So if you feel you can take it, why not... The job can be lots of fun.

Not common at all. I work for one of the biggest studios and we don't have much like that in our contracts. I'm free to work on whatever I want at home (though it's likely that if i develop something game-related and my company wants it, then it's theirs).

We're free to quit and go jump to the competition whenever we want.

The webcam monitoring is a little big-brotherish. But the "monitoring your email, etc" is pretty standard.

You should NEVER work for a company that has a non-compete clause that prohibits you from getting another job at the end of the year. That's absurd. How are you supposed to make money after the project is over? All the other stuff isn't a big deal, but this clause is ridiculous. The only industry in which I've heard of this is the pharmaceutical industry who do that with their research scientists. But in software.... no way.

-me

p.s.

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Original post by oliii One word, make sure you read your contract, and what you can and can't do.

One word?? =)

Non-compete clauses are usually limitted to doing the same job in the same industry. i.e. If you're an AI designer for game company A you might get hassled if you jump ship to be an AI designer for game company B. If company B does, say, medical simulations instead of games there probably wouldn't be a problem. It's up to the contract though. If you worried don't depend on our half-baked opinions, talk to a lawyer.

Working on personal projects at home could be considering moonlighting and most companies take a dim view of that sort of thing because they feel it would take away from your primary job. Also if the project gets to be successful and/or notorious then the company would either want a cut of the action or not to be associated with you, as appropriate. If you have prior work *be absolutely sure* to tell them up front and get in writing that you own all rights and responsibilities for your prior work.

I don't particularly agree with either attitude but that's the way it is some places.

If the job involves high-security information that could be easily stolen and/or abused then a certain amount of more instrusive monitoring is, perhaps, justified. But if you're going to be the typical joe random nobody programmer and they want to have key loggers and 24x7 camera monitoring of your workspace then tell them to go fuch themselves. That sort of crap on top of the stuff above just proves they don't care about thier employees.

A certain amount of email monitoring and logging of web sites visited is normal in my experience. Unless you're giving away company secrets or downloading porn/warez they probably won't care to much as long as it doesn't effect your work.

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Original post by vicviper Hi, soon, I might be hired to work on a relatively large project for a relatively large company, and I'm worried about several issues that I've heard, I don't know if those things are something common in the industry, or just the policies or only one or two draconian companies. The first issue that keeps me worried, is what I've heard that, when you're hired for a game project for console, you're not allowed to do anything related to software development at home, even if it is a free, non commercial project, or a personal entertaining / learning project.

I'm pretty sure they can't have any control on your private life. Spain is a democratic country, and private life is respected as in any other E.U. country. Therefore, forget this :)

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Original post by vicviper The second is the clause that, after finishing the project, I will not be allowed to work for another company for several months / ( years ? )

Again, this is part of your private life - plus, if they fire you, they should not limit you in your job search.

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Original post by vicviper Also, I've been told that at job we will be monitored with webcams, and all actions in the computers (key pressing, email, chat, web browsing) will be monitored. Is this common in the industry?

Any kind of monitoring is forbidden in France. Employers don't have the right to spy the employees. I find it strange to know that it is not forbidden in Spain... Are you sure about this?

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Original post by vicviper In general, how far can go these sort of contracts to affect my life beyond the job place scope? and, what's considered acceptable by the majority of people, and what not? Thanks

Beeing monitored, not having the right to choose what I want to do during my spare time, having the right to change my job if I don't like my current one, and so on. These are not acceptable :)

Regards,

usually the section which says "you can't program"... or whatever are actually worded to say that anything you do related to the project [regardless of if you do it on company time and/or property] becomes property of the company.

clasues like this aren't only for programmers, and aren't only for game developers

read your contract, talk to a laywer, see what you can get changed [and you need a laywer to properly word your changes]

Anything you write at home becomes the property of the company? That sounds like endentured servitude which I believe is illegal in the United States.

What gives them the right to take something they did NOT PAY you to create? Since video games use artwork, they very well could demand a picture you paint as theirs. Or since video games contain music they may claim all rights to a song you composed in your free time. They basically own you and everything you create during your private time? that's bullshit.

Are those clauses actually upheld in court?

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Original post by vicviper The first issue that keeps me worried, is what I've heard that, when you're hired for a game project for console, you're not allowed to do anything related to software development at home, even if it is a free, non commercial project, or a personal entertaining / learning project.

They can't stop you from working at home, but they can probably stop you from releasing it especially if its related to what they are doing. Otherwise no one cares a damn actually.

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Original post by vicviper The second is the clause that, after finishing the project, I will not be allowed to work for another company for several months / ( years ? )

When I spoke to a company's director and a few professional game programmer, this is usually done to keep the people from leaving in 2-3 months for more financial gain. And secondly to keep honest people more honest. They don't generally enforce it and as once your contract is completed, they can't stop you from earning a livelihood.

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Original post by vicviper Also, I've been told that at job we will be monitored with webcams, and all actions in the computers (key pressing, email, chat, web browsing) will be monitored. Is this common in the industry?

Well monitoring depends from place to place. Certain places they have webcams if they think its necessary. Some are just security crazy, and some don't even care. It doesn't matter.

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Original post by vicviper In general, how far can go these sort of contracts to affect my life beyond the job place scope? and, what's considered acceptable by the majority of people, and what not?

Well, that depends.

Personally I think monitoring is VERY important to the employees as well as the employers. Some guys at a Software Development company in my state or something were sued a LOT of money for having MP3's on their company machines. I dunno about you guys, but if i owned a company i would be very wary as well. Webcams prolly not, but i would probably install software that would monitor my employees so we don't get caught in some huge thing because an employee did something he wasn't supposed to. (I believe monitoring the workplace is a very good thing as long as the employees are notified about what will be monitored)

Firstly, I am not a lawyer.
Secondly, I am an American. Your [OP] post indicates you are from Spain. I am unfamiliar with Spanish Employment Law.
Thirdly, this is not legal advice for you [OP] or anyone else. If you're really concerned, you should consult with a lawyer in your legal jurisdiction.

That said...

There are three things here.

Firstly... The clause regarding your work done outside of the company. From what I've seen, most clauses declare that any intellectual property you work on at the workplace, or on workplace time are owned by the workplace. Of course it's hard to prove that you didn't think about something you're working on at home at the workplace. And human nature what it is, you're likely to code similarly at work and at home, making it hard to prove that you didn't "borrow" ideas from the workplace.

Generally, this sort of thing can be gotten around by specifying with the company's lawyers "exceptions". Essentially say that you're working on such and such projects, and that they are your property. This way there's far less doubt afterwards what was developed by you and what was developed by the company.

Also, some places don't allow this sort of thing, or restrict it to industry [if you're working on web apps, a game cannot become property of the web app company since they should have no interest in it]. To my knowledge, this is fairly enforcable, and you should be careful.


Second, the non-competition clause.

Most places [in the US anyways] these clauses are not enforcable. When they have even been considered, it's usually with a direct competator. Still, you should approach the contract as if it was valid.


Third, workplace monitoring.

In the US at least, it's the workplace; it's their equipment; it's their network connection. They can do whatever they like. With a few exceptions this is fairly solid on the company's side. The common aspect for most companies is to monitor network activity. This usually means seeing what ports you're accessing, what ports you've open, what URL's you visit. Some review email [automagically via keyword search, or random human viewing], though more often it's simply archived to be reviewed later if there's suspicion of problems. I know of at least one place that installed remote monitoring [like VNC] on every machine, and would periodically check every one to make sure people were on the up and up.


Personally, I think that intellectual property laws require the first sort of clause. I also believe that the company should make it focused in scope, and anything broad like "anything you make during your time of employment with us" needs to be discussed with a lawyer.

I believe that non-competition clauses are usually just a waste of time. Always in the gaming industry.

I believe that, for a salaried employee, active workplace monitoring is dumb. Either they get their work done or they don't. Though I believe that recording network activity is a wise thing to do in case you find that someone leaked you game 4 weeks early or some such. Then you can go back and try and find who did it. Usually it's just a waste of time and effort. Anyone who knows what they're doing will tunnel whatever they're going to do through SSH and you can't monitor it [at the network level] anyways. Periodic checks for unlicensed software or media is also wise, but I don't consider that monitoring.

I heard and experienced some of the draconian measures however it probably makes sense if you look at it from employer's perspective. How many times you read about folks playing WoW on the job instead of doing work or browsing internet for too long? I read about it all the time. When Half-life2 came out many faked sickness so they could stay home and finish the game. Would you like that as an employer? How about as an employee :)

To start with, it wasn't emntioned that the job being offered actually had these clauses - as has been said, read the contract.
If you develop at home and never release it, who's to know? If you don't compete against them they won't care (unless they want an excuse to stop you working until 3am on your stuff and being too tired to work properly in their time!)
As I understand, not being able to work for X months after leaving normally entails you being paid for that time. Could be wrong though.

Hey,

To the OP, it sounds a touch restrictive [and orwellian] to me, but I'd read the actual contract, and if possible, talk to some of the people who currently work there to see what things are really like before you decide if you're wanting to join their ranks.

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Original post by Shining Blue Anything you write at home becomes the property of the company? That sounds like endentured servitude which I believe is illegal in the United States. What gives them the right to take something they did NOT PAY you to create? Since video games use artwork, they very well could demand a picture you paint as theirs. Or since video games contain music they may claim all rights to a song you composed in your free time. They basically own you and everything you create during your private time? that's bullshit. Are those clauses actually upheld in court?

The reasoning behind those laws AFAIK are that the ideas behind them belong to the company. If you're researching/implementing some advanced AI stuff at work and then program AI in your spare time, then they'll argue that the work is derivative from your job, and that it's likely that you thought up the ideas that you used on your project at work. It sucks, but there's good reason behind it - to prevent people spending all day at work developing ideas that they're able to later use for their own personal profit rather than in the projects that they are supposed to be dealing with. Similarly, the no-competition clauses are generally meant to prevent you from holding onto said ideas and writing stuff with them after you've left. If your new job is in a different area then it shouldn't be that much of an issue.

And yes, of couse it's crap, but unfortunately it's something that's potentially common and costing these corporations muchly money. And the law's generally concerned with protecting the corporations nowadays.

CJM

Reminds me of a thread in the 'Business' section:

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=182254

-cb

OP> The best thing to do is just comfront your potential employer in the interview with any questions you want answered. They will probably be quite interested in what you actually want to do with your free time. I think the clause is probably there to stop you producing a product that could directly compete with something they are selling (and paying you money to make).

Game development jobs are not easy to come by, heck these days it's hard enough to get into a full time development role anyway (well in some parts of the world anyway, I personally know 3 people whos jobs have gone to India now). So I would think twice before turning them down just on that point, if you have a chance to get in and get some experience, take it.

Chances are coding all day you will probably want to do something else social and non-code related anyway! [wink]

From what I'm seeing it sounds like that information is just a paranoid worker's interpretation of some very standard clauses that are usually part of work contracts. The whole "the company owns any IP you develop" is a very standard clause and I imagine any big company will have that. From from there to not allowed to do any programming at home at all there is quite a big leap.

Not allowed to work for another company is again, a non-compete clause, also very widely used. But like many have said before, I think that interpretation was way too drastic. The legality of that clause is questionable (it infringes on your right, a constitutional one in the US, to earn a living), and from my experience most companies won't them enforce except in extreme cases (like if they think you took their technology and gave it to a competitor).

Monitoring to a certain degree will exist practically on every company with more than three computers. They don't want to have nasty stuff (someone mentioned illegal mp3's) on their network, and they don't want you screwing around on their time. Being observed by cameras is a bit creepy, and I've never heard of something like that in hi tech, but it's common in other places (gas stations, banks, convenience stores, etc. Those cameras are there to watch the workers just as much as they are for criminals from the outside).

shmoove

This topic didn't strike me as having to do with general programming so I moved it to the lounge. Please use technical forums for technical discussions. [smile]

* Companies can not disallow you from doing non-commercial private development work on your free time in the EU. You can do whatever you want besides your job, unless you make money from it (in this case, it's a little more complex, see *), or it impacts on your contracted work time (ie. if you do private development during your paid work time).

*) In some EU countries, you have the right to take as many jobs as you want simultaneously, including within the same industry. You could theoretically even work for two competing companies at the same time, which is the case for temporary employed consultants, for example.

* Generic non-competition clauses are illegal in the EU. Period. It is common practice to offer high level employees and managers lots of money, if they terminate their current contract, and change over to the competition. Depending on the specific member country, some restrictions can be put into the contract, but that's usually done in a separate agreement.

* Generic employee monitoring is illegal in most EU countries. There are very strict guidelines on what your employer is allowed to do, and the "illegal" list is usually very, very long. All monitoring must be specified in detailed terms within the employment contract. In France, for example, every employee has the right to demand the deletion of any collected data that might personally identify him - if it doesn't relate to a crime he committed.

You should check with your local law (and a lawyer) obviously, but the draconian employment conditions you mentioned are generally not used (ie. not legal) within the EU.