EA scandal(Is anyone surprised?)

[Ned]

Originally posted by DanS
Is that $60k a starting salary? If not, then that's not very good wages, especially in California. Over time, they won't get the good programmers.

I'm inclined to leave this to the industry to figure out.

These are kids direct from school, which makes the salary not that bad. Apparently, they keep the staff young by using the killing hours. The combo is very cynical, since they don't even pay straight time for the extra hours.

[LDiCesare]

Not paying their employees is already bad, but what's really stupid is that they stress them so much and make them work when tired, and that doesn't get good software produced. They would probably get as good games if they spent less time coding but more time really managing their projects, as the author points out.
The problem in my opinion is that those people in charge of development of games are in a young industry that still has a lot to learn in terms of project management and quality insurance. They think they can compensate lack of quality by adding quantity of work and fail to realize they are actually hurting themselves.
I wish I had bookmarked the story of a prorammer who said he had had a good manager on his game project, and there was another project that started at the same time. His manager managed to get the game made andout in time. The twin project was late, so the manager had to ask for extra hours, extra work, got late, but finally managed to get the project out (late) because she spent lots of work (both hers and her team). She was rewarded by the firm, as the top management siad: "Look, she's a good manager, she'll spend extra hours to get her project out." Obviously, she was the bad manager since the other one, on a similar project, had managed to get his project faster and with less stress for everyone involved. But executives always think people who work more work better, which is not necessarily true.

[DanS]

It might be a cynical approach, but it's not like the kids don't get something out of it. They get good experience and a solid jumping off point on their resume.

If they didn't get something out of it, then I would expect them to not work there in the first place or quit once they figure out what's going on.

The same thing happens with the management consultants.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by DanS
If they didn't get something out of it, then I would expect them to not work there in the first place or quit once they figure out what's going on.

Yeah sure...

[DanS]

Uh huh...

[alva]

..or become complete burn-outs before even reaching 30.

Long hours

[DanS]

Have you done long hours, alva?

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by DanS
It might be a cynical approach, but it's not like the kids don't get something out of it. They get good experience and a solid jumping off point on their resume.

If they didn't get something out of it, then I would expect them to not work there in the first place or quit once they figure out what's going on.

The same thing happens with the management consultants.

Sometimes it's not that easy, DanS.

Maybe they didn't realize what they were getting into and have mouths to feed.

You make it sound like people can just jump around and get a new job any time they want to.

Enough with the corporate whoring.

[alva]

Originally posted by DanS
Have you done long hours, alva?

I have worked in kitchens for about a decade and though the work itself was extreemly intensive. (I'm talking adrenaline overdose here), in general we were always - with few exceptions - to get the job done withing normal-ish hours.

If you're good at your job, you can do - and certainly long term - as much in 6 hours than you can do in 10.

[Dinner]

I'd definately want to jigger around with the over time laws a bit in order to better define who is exempt and who isn't. Just enough to discourage abusing employees but not so much these companies just fire everyone and move to India.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I'd definately want to jigger around with the over time laws a bit in order to better define who is exempt and who isn't. Just enough to discourage abusing employees but not so much these companies just fire everyone and move to India.

It's a slippery slope for sure, and hard to balance.


I can see the corporate side of it, they have built in a competitive advantage by using all these exempt rules to get people to work 2 jobs for each person. That doesn't make what they have done right, but they have built a system that depends on that.

On the other hand it creates retention problems, and destroys the quality of life for alot of workers.

[DanS]

You make it sound like people can just jump around and get a new job any time they want to.

They can. People move around once every couple of years, on average. This isn't the Soviet Union, after all.

[Ted Striker]

okay DanS

I don't know what world of privilege you live in.

[DanS]

Well, I work in the legal industry. There's lots of movement at every level of the organization. I've been in my job for about 7 years and am one of the grey beards. Now, such movement may be unfamiliar to people from some other countries, but I expect you have seen the same thing in your industry.

[Commy]

All I can say is...

WELCOME TO A FREE MARKET

I do feel sorry for them, but they did choose the job. Unfortunately for us, EA is the largest gaming company, so it won't be moving anytime soon, and even worse, it indirectly own civ and SMAC...god save us all...