Video game creators toiling like galley slaves

[dArKeR]

Charles Dickens himself would shudder, I should think, were he to see the way young adults are put to work in one semi-modern corner of the US economy. Gas lamps are long gone, and the air is free of soot. But you can't look at a place like Electronic Arts (EA), the world's largest developer of entertainment software, and not think back to the early industrial age when a youthful work force was kept fully occupied during all waking hours to enrich a few elders.

Games for video consoles and PCs have become a US$7-billion-a-year business. Based in Redwood City, California, Electronic Arts is the home of the game franchises for NFL football, James Bond and Lord of the Rings, among many others. For avid players with professional ambitions to develop games, EA must appear to be the best place in the world. Writing cool games and getting paid to boot: What more could one ask?

Yet there is unhappiness among those who are living that dream. Based on what can be glimpsed through cracks in EA's front facade, its high-tech work force is toiling like galley slaves chained to their benches.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/bizfocus/archives/2004/11/21/2003211991

[DireStrike]

1. EA is a terrible company and always has been.

Their work is substandard, poor, usually a rehash of things already done.

This abominable treatment explains some of the dearth of creative ideas coming from them.

[unblock]

2. yes, but they're lining up to do so

these aren't chimneysweeps from a century ago, kids who were forced to work in the most unpleasant of circumstances when all they wanted to do was play.

these kids ARE playing. yes, they work insanely long hours, but they know they are working on some really cool stuff, and that getting your name on a hot seller could be huge for your career. they'd stay up all night playing, anyway.

show me people working insanely long shifts at a place like walmart, and i'll cry union at the top of my lungs. but gamers are different, just as wall streeters are different. there are some specific rewards to the extra toil, whereas at walmart there's just unemployment avoidance.

[sendero]

3. I'm not surprised..

.... though I thought most of this stuff was produced in Asia.

Having worked in programming and graphics, I understand how much tough labor goes into making a single frame (a character moving probably has 20 frames a second or so) of an animated character. The more realistic games like Call of Duty boggle my mind at how much grinding work goes into creating all of the playspace, action and characters.

I'm sure that the smarter people will start to let computers do more and more of this, the backgrounds and textures are more or less computer-generated - but modern video games are truly a feat of mass effort :)

[NuttyFluffers]

4. had to do contractual work several times at several locations.

it definitely had a gloom about it, unlike other tech offices i've been to. and the head offices in redwood shore just radiated a palpable evil and sadness that i couldn't finish my job there. i just couldn't show up for the follow-up days. they had the same stick-up-the-ass evil and gloom that nVidia felt like. and to think i tried so hard to get a job there before. after that contractual experience i never wanted to go back again. no regrets.

it's really sad here in silicon valley now. so many businesses gone, so many office spaces closed. an era passed by and i'm looking at the ghosts i had contact with. and those that are still around run like mad on the hampster wheel staving off inevitable outsourcing... i'm so glad i never went into computer science or graphics. breaks my heart to see younger people with more loan money out than me and barely finding enough work to scrape by. those expensive AS degrees from private tech schools are particularly sad stories.

[Massacure]

5. EA killed the Command and Conquer Franchise to line their wallets

I fricken hate that company.

[porkrind]

6. Red Alert....I loved that game!

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