A good read...

http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/

Thankfully I don't work for EA. I'm even more happy I already had a job when a guy from there called me about openings there. Not that I'd have considered them, but still.

Guy I know confirmed all of this and then some from first-hand experience. Ouch :sad:

No amount of money is worth 12 hour workdays 7 days a week. These people are insane for continuing their employment with EA. If I worked at my old job at WalMart that barely required a high school diploma at those hours I'd earn over $32,000 a year (minus taxes), and it would probably be more entertaining than sitting on my ass looking at a computer screen in a dark office.

That is totally unacceptable, and makes my respect for EA drop yet another notch.

Many of these people are getting younger and younger (as the experienced vets do leave, leaving spots for naive youth). If they're on their first title and leave the project, they may not find another job at all. It's a tough enough industry as it is, and some people there probably believe it's par for the course everywhere.

Crunch is a fact of life at any studio, and will be for some time to come. It's one thing, though, to put in extra hours on your assignments to make sure everything gets done on time and to the standard you have set for yourself. It's another to require it. And apparently it doesn't matter if your work -is- done, I learned from a source I know who was on the team in question here... Even then you have to stay all those hours. For 'moral support.'

I can at least say for sure I know one publisher and its first-party studios that treats its employees well.

I took an intro to gaming course that included a full class worth of lecture on why EA is a pile of crap. Do your part, don't buy their games, and don't let others buy their games for you. Their licensing always makes people not into video games think their games make good presents.

Ive done my part, every EA game I have is copied from someone else, who copied it from someone else...

BF1942 was pretty damn good tho.

wil5on said:
Ive done my part, every EA game I have is copied from someone else, who copied it from someone else...

BF1942 was pretty damn good tho.

Yea, I felt that was a bit more original than some football game, although it was mostly multiplayer.

I rarely buy EA games, I think Burnout 3 may be my only one, and a
little bit of me died inside when they snapped up the rights to it :sad:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/11/11/news_6112998.html

Attorney Robert C. Schubert is filing a class action suit against EA over the same issue. The grounding that this guy has for the lawsuit seems shaky at best. Lets see what happens...

Another guy has turned up with lots of fellow employees echoing his views in the comments:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/joestraitiff/368.html