Why you should boycott EA, and tell them you're doing it

[unixronin]

ea_spouse tells the story of the EA Sweatshop and EA's apparent employment and HR policy -- "Lie to prospective developers, get'em in, use'em up, burn'em out, then discard'em and get a new batch."  EA is working their developers eighty to ninety hours a week for a year at a time, with no overtime and no comp time whatsoever, and their product schedules are clearly planned on that basis from the start.  EA has apparently decided it's more cost-effective to regard entire development teams as single-use, throwaway fungibles.

Quoth micheinnz:

As others have said, if you choose to boycott EA because of how they treat their workers (and if I were a gamer I'd be seriously considering it), please drop them a line every time they release a title you'd otherwise have bought, explaining why you're not going to.  Silent boycotts make no difference at all.

Comments

[iphy.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha.

Are you going to boycott Yahoo!, Google, Apple, LiveJournal, eBay, IMDB, and every other Tech company especially those who are largely Internet-based, too? Sorry, I am being partly sarcastic here. The long hours expected of "startup" software development teams is nothing particularly new or interesting.

On the other hand, the lying and the discarding appears to be entirely valid. Unfortunately, I've known people in the gaming industry and all of the major players seem to be doing it. I have friends with personal experience with this kind of thing from EA and Blizzard and heard stories about others. Unless you're planning to boycott all the big guys, I don't see the point in singling out EA.

I've been trying to go the other way, I make a point to buy from small and independent folks whenever there is something they're offering in which I am even remotely interested. HPS Simulations (http://www.hpssims.com/) is an excellent example of how a small and righteous company can stay in business even when they cater to a very small niche market. It's a good counterexample to all of the Big Names who insist that all games must be produced/dumbed down for the mass market or they're not profitable.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The long hours expected of "startup" software development teams is nothing particularly new or interesting.

Oh yeah, sure. But EA can hardly be considered a startup.

I guess once one or two major players start doing it, everyone else who wants to stay in the game pretty much has to follow suit or throw in the towel. But necessity does not make virtue.

Personally, even without this, I think that having a few giant companies like EA and Vivendi gobble up everything else in sight is bad, long-term, for the entire videogame industry.

As for HPS ........ hmmm. When we have money again, I must remember to check out their War over Vietnam. I'm missing having a decent combat flight-sim, but I don't really want to buy Microsoft if I have a choice. Several of the others look interesting, too, particularly the naval campaigns.

Now, where can I bookmark this where I'll remember what it is....

[iphy.livejournal.com]

No, EA is not a startup, the "development groups" mostly are.

[radarrider.livejournal.com]

It does appear that a class-action lawsuit (http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/11/11/news_6112998.html) has been filed by EA employees over this matter.

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

You might find Accidental Empires (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0887308554/qid=1100464895/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/002-4847466-4889636) an interesting read, particularly the chapter entitled, Chairman Bill leads the Happy Workers in Song.