LiveJournal - EA Games write up
Hi, I would like to put some bits of my personal experience:
I work for a little game developer company here in Spain, we work a flat 45 hours / week, with extremely few chunk times that usually involve working an extra hour for a week or two, no more, and these extra hours are compensated with extre free time.
The problem with little companies is usually the fact that sometimes they can't afford paying all months full, so, there's a tradeof between what you want.
Anyway, in the long run, the "if you don't like it there are hundreds that want your seat" does not work, it's happening to me already: it's true there are hundreds of wannabe kids wanting to get my seat, BUT, only a very few of these kids have the true knowledge to do the work. My boss knows that and realizes that I'm very, very valuable for him...
And as a little advance, in the last decade, most spanish developer companies exploited talented people, that eventually went out of the business of went to UK or France, then, these companies ran out of talented people and ended closing doors due to poor quality products.
Companies have to understand one single truth: if we are not trated like kings, we well keep our best ideas to us.
Well, from Slashdot you get a followup link now.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/11/11/news_6112998.html
I really hope the industry changes, because it really does need too.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/11/11/news_6112998.html
I really hope the industry changes, because it really does need too.
Quote:Original post by IFooBar
EA *knows* that if someone quits, there're a million other kids that would give their left leg to work in the industry - so EA can do whatever they want because there's always a replacement just around the bend.
Only implementing extremely complex software systems that games have become, as well as jumping into the project in the middle of development and immediately picking up where the last person left off takes a bit more than someone's left leg. EA can do this because its employees let it, not because it can easily find a replacement for anyone (which, I assure you, it cannot).
That's what you'd think. I figured how could EA be so stupid to have that "if you dont like it, leave" policy. I thought about it for a while and then realized they're pretty smart. You see, they pay the avarege programmer for an avarage days work. ir: the programmers get a 9-5 salary. 8 hour days right? So say the avarage pay is like 60K (for instance) annualy. That's 164 dollars a day and comes to 20 bucks an hour.
So EA has a budget of 20 bucks per programmer hour. Now come in their tactcis: Make the programmers work twice as long. They end having to pay 10 bucks per hour. So if they had 10 employees, theire salary budget would be 600K. But since they make those emplyees work twice as much, they can get rid of 5 and have the 10 do teh same work, and not only stay within their 600K budget, but actually have 300K in *reserves*.
Now one of the 5 quits, so they hire a new born in place. The newborn has to learn the ropes of course, weeks are lost. Not only do they lose the original programmer, but they have to allocate another programmer to train this new guy. So say for a month, the team is technically down to 3 people because one is learning and one is teaching. So they lost 10K in the whole process (5 per programmer for the month).
But in the long run, with 5 emplyees, working overtime with no pay They've actually made 290K !
They can even take this one step further and make a little less, but also not let production drop at all. how? Just by keeping two extra on the team (when talking 100s of emplyess this is trivial). By keeping two extra emplyees, when one leaves. One of the two reserves can take the old ones place, and the other reserve can teach a new guy. So instead of making 290K they make around 200K, but they lose no productivity whatsoever.
So EA has a budget of 20 bucks per programmer hour. Now come in their tactcis: Make the programmers work twice as long. They end having to pay 10 bucks per hour. So if they had 10 employees, theire salary budget would be 600K. But since they make those emplyees work twice as much, they can get rid of 5 and have the 10 do teh same work, and not only stay within their 600K budget, but actually have 300K in *reserves*.
Now one of the 5 quits, so they hire a new born in place. The newborn has to learn the ropes of course, weeks are lost. Not only do they lose the original programmer, but they have to allocate another programmer to train this new guy. So say for a month, the team is technically down to 3 people because one is learning and one is teaching. So they lost 10K in the whole process (5 per programmer for the month).
But in the long run, with 5 emplyees, working overtime with no pay They've actually made 290K !
They can even take this one step further and make a little less, but also not let production drop at all. how? Just by keeping two extra on the team (when talking 100s of emplyess this is trivial). By keeping two extra emplyees, when one leaves. One of the two reserves can take the old ones place, and the other reserve can teach a new guy. So instead of making 290K they make around 200K, but they lose no productivity whatsoever.
Ignoring all that's said above, I'm sick of seeing James Bond games by EA. They all suck really. What I find mildly hilarious is that their new JB game is called "Goldeneye: Rogue Agent", but ironically has nothing to do with the movie the N64 game was biased on. This one is just centered on a 00 agent who lost his eye and had it replaced with a golden cybernetic one. Do they seem to think that people with fork out money thinking it's a redone version of the shareware one for 64 with more levels?
Quote:Original post by IFooBar
snip
No, they are still stupid. The quality of work that people produce at 80 hours of work a week is nowhere near the quality of work they produce at 40 hours a week. Its something called diminishing returns. So forcing your programmers to work twice as much does not produces twice as much code.
In fact, there have been studies showing that a 40 hour work week for programming is the limit, and anything above that starts becoming counter-productive. When you are going on no sleep, you start making stupid mistakes that take longer to find and fix than if you hadn't worked overtime and did it right in the first place. In a worst case scenario, the work done in the first 40 hours is cancelled out by the second 40 hours.
Also having a codebase that been worked on by 50 programmers is going to be a lot harder to maintain and improve upon than had they just kept the original 5 programmers. If theres a turnover rate of 50%, then chances are that the person who wrote code a year ago isn't around to explain whats going on when you need something explained.
Then having your employees on a constant deathmarch is not exactly good for morale. Poor morale also helps to crush productivity. And if they know that they are forced to be there twice as long, they'llstretch the work out to fill the deadline, since they might as well be doing something while they are there.
And from the looks of the Gamespot article, if they win the class action lawsuit, it looks like EA's going to be paying for the overtime anyway.
Quote:Original post by Big BQuote:Original post by IFooBar
snip
No, they are still stupid. The quality of work that people produce at 80 hours of work a week is nowhere near the quality of work they produce at 40 hours a week.
Absoutely, but consider teh fact that EA ,mostly works on licenses, and sports titles. So people do tend to buy those, even though they're nowhere near the quality that they could've been at if the work environments were decent.
But anyway, I was making an attempt at getting into the EA-upperlevel head. I think I did a *pretty* good job of it. I can actually read my post and think: "geez what a donk!" [lol]
Quote:
And from the looks of the Gamespot article, if they win the class action lawsuit, it looks like EA's going to be paying for the overtime anyway.
Well I hope they do. They sure as hell deserve it.
Quote:Original post by nev
EA being evil is common knowledge.
and they don't only make sports games.
they buy/dissolve/enslave good companies too (looking glass, anyone?)
Come to think of it thats really quite true. Westwood used to be a great studio, I loved C&C, then EA took it over and starting pumping out shit. And yet the only reason they stay around and can do this is because we buy their shit. Why do we put up with terrible software??
Well, I know the answer actually. It's because EA and the like wait for a small studio to gain a reputation with a series, then purchase it, put their crap on the shelf with the series logo and everybody buys it because the previous ones were good, and they can get away with 3-4 titles this way before they wear out their welcome with my credit card.
Then on top of that they treat their employees terribly. I'm at a loss to find any saving grace for EA..
I believe this stuff needs more exposure because it seems to be the only way to make people conscious that they are being exploited. To do this not only for the present employees, but also for the students. I am one myself, and I can tell you that many of my peers do not care to work for 20000 CAN$ for more than 40 hours a week-- as long as they work! I find it sad.
I also believe that the employees (not the managers) are the best placed to solve the problem. After all, they are making the game, and not the managers. What if tomorrow all of them go on strike then what would EA do?
[Edited by - Darkneon on November 16, 2004 4:58:29 AM]
I also believe that the employees (not the managers) are the best placed to solve the problem. After all, they are making the game, and not the managers. What if tomorrow all of them go on strike then what would EA do?
[Edited by - Darkneon on November 16, 2004 4:58:29 AM]
This topic is closed to new replies.
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