🚀 go-pugleaf

Dev wasted my time on 1/18/2005 12:14 PM with the following:
> The garbage posted before.  I don't feel like quoting it.

 From the top kids:

"Churning out one licensed football game after another doesn't sound 
like challenging much of anything to me; it sounds like a money farm."

Ooooh, so you're saying that EA wants to make money for the games they 
produce.  Gawsh, guess that means other companies just do it for the 
good vibe.  No, you ass, sports games have ALWAYS been remade.  Remember 
Pong?  Football games have been around since the days of the Vectrex and 
even earlier.

Reproducing them is not an evil attempt to make money (although I'm sure 
that the couple million tucked in their pocket isn't a down-side), it's 
simply taking the last game and making them better (or as 'better' as a 
football sim can get)

Besides, teams change, so the games should rightfully change to reflect 
these things.

Player stats, taunts, and general play can be improved by new versions.

Relax.


"I am retaining some anonymity here because I have no illusions about 
what the consequences would be for my family if I was explicit."

Really now?  So you use a service like LiveJournal which would probably 
readily hand over your IP address and allow the big bad corporation to 
track you down?

Honestly, what do you think EA is?  The Italian Mafia?  The Russian Mob? 
  The Chinese Triads?


"[general whining about long hours]"

Ok, nobody put a gun to your flippin head and told you to work at EA.

If you don't like the hours, don't work at the job.

Simple as that.

People are (or should be if they're worth fighting for) smart enough to 
decide what they like and don't like.

What about the people who *like* working at EA?  I'm sure there are 
some.  I'm positive that there are people who you have convieniently 
overlooked who enjoy their job.

I think maybe you don't quite understand the difference between "crunch" 
and "hard work"

The quality of a game is directly proportional to the amount of work put 
into the game.  Corporations have deadlines, thats a given.  Sure, it 
sucks ass to work long hours, but when a company has high standards and 
works hard to meet them, I personally support that.

"EA's attitude toward this -- which is actually a part of company 
policy, it now appears -- has been (in an anonymous quotation that I've 
heard repeated by multiple managers), "If they don't like it, they can 
work someplace else." Put up or shut up and leave: this is the core of 
EA's Human Resources policy. The concept of ethics or compassion or even 
intelligence with regard to getting the most out of one's workforce 
never enters the equation: if they don't want to sacrifice their lives 
and their health and their talent so that a multibillion dollar 
corporation can continue its Godzilla-stomp through the game industry, 
they can work someplace else."

Gee-willy.  They seem to be the ones with their heads firmly screwed on 
here, because thats how it works.  Unless there is a very serious 
violation of ethics at play, you can either talk it over with a 
higher-up or leave.

"The EA Mambo, paired with other giants such as Vivendi, Sony, and 
Microsoft, is rapidly either crushing or absorbing the vast majority of 
the business in game development. A few standalone studios that made 
their fortunes in previous eras -- Blizzard, Bioware, and Id come to 
mind -- manage to still survive, but 2004 saw the collapse of dozens of 
small game studios, no longer able to acquire contracts in the face of 
rapid and massive consolidation of game publishing companies. This is an 
epidemic hardly unfamiliar to anyone working in the industry. Though, of 
course, it is always the option of talent to go outside the industry, 
perhaps venturing into the booming commercial software development 
arena. (Read my tired attempt at sarcasm.)"

Oh, but working at Vivendi, Sony, or Microsoft is out of the question, 
right?  No, you want to work at EA, its your *DREAM*

Once again, a skewed perspective on the situation that completely rules 
out the folly points in your argument.

What about the software development field isn't booming?

Successful software makes for a successful developer.  The only software 
fields that aren't seeing a bit of this success are the ones who don't 
put effort (read: CRUNCH TIME) into their work.

"EA's annual revenue is approximately $2.5 billion. This company is not 
strapped for cash; their labor practices are inexcusable."

Is this a NET revenue, or just how much they pull in?

You have to take into account the money they spend each year (building 
offices, utilities for said offices, employee salary, etc.) to keep the 
machine operating.

"The interesting thing about this is an assumption that most of the 
employees seem to be operating under. Whenever the subject of hours come 
up, inevitably, it seems, someone mentions 'exemption'. They refer to a 
California law that supposedly exempts businesses from having to pay 
overtime to certain 'specialty' employees, including software 
programmers. This is Senate Bill 88. However, Senate Bill 88 
specifically does not apply to the entertainment industry -- television, 
motion picture, and theater industries are specifically mentioned. 
Further, even in software, there is a pay minimum on the exemption: 
those exempt must be paid at least $90,000 annually. I can assure you 
that the majority of EA employees are in fact not in this pay bracket; 
ergo, these practices are not only unethical, they are illegal."

This is a matter for your lawyer, not for posting on Livejournal and 
wasting my time.

Here's the Senate Bill 88: 
http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/99-00/bill/sen/sb_0051-0100/sb_88_bill_20000919_chaptered.html



I don't even want to read anymore into this.

It is a flagrant waste of our time (as was this entire reply)


Honestly.  Work sucks, thats why it's called WORK.


-- 
Noob - "do you hack?"
Justin - "i hack like a maniac!"
Noob - "do you have digital cable?"
Justin - "i have *ALL* the cables!"