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Coders Want Fatter Paychecks Too
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» moondancer replied on Fri Jun 3, 2005 @ 8:37am |
 Coolness: 92980 | Coders Want Fatter Paychecks Too
The video-game industry's geek workforce has something to say to Hollywood actors: Get in line for your share of the industry's profits. "I'll back (the actors) when game programmers and artists get residuals first," said Mark Long, co-CEO of independent game-development company Zombie Studios. Based in Seattle, Long's 12-year-old company is behind such titles as America's Army and Shadow Ops: Red Mercury. "(They're) nuts if they think they deserve residuals for a half-day of voice-over work," said Long. "A development team (might) slave away for two years to produce a title." The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists recently contacted members who have worked as game voice-over actors to request authorization of a labor stoppage against about 70 game publishers. The unions argue that actors who voice game characters should be entitled to a share of the industry's skyrocketing profits. But the actors' demands have sparked renewed protest in tech circles that game workers deserve better treatment, too. If actors deserve residuals, the argument goes, then so do the people who write the code, build the characters and make things blow up. Unlike the Hollywood practice of providing a cut of profits to actors whose onscreen work makes movies come alive, there is no standard of profit sharing in the gaming industry. "Why should we pay actors royalties when programmers and artists don't (get any)?" asked game designer and programmer Ron Gilbert. "Hollywood is driven by the 'points' that everyone gets, (but) the games industry is not. It's a very different economic model." Beyond profit sharing, many game workers say they have even more basic needs that have long gone unaddressed. "Quality of life" issues have become an increasingly contentious matter for game-industry workers in the United States, as corporate profits rise in tandem with pressure to outsource labor overseas In November 2004, the International Game Developers Association issued an open letter to the gaming industry protesting "horrible working conditions" and calling for more "mature and responsible human resource and production practices." A study conducted by the association in 2004 found that "crunch time" is common for game workers: Roughly 35 percent of respondents said they worked 65 to 80 hours a week. And according to the survey, a "crunch work week" for 13 percent of respondents totaled more than 80 hours. Nearly half of survey respondents reported that overtime was generally not compensated. Some game workers have taken their complaints about working conditions to the courts. In July 2004, Electronic Arts animator Jamie Kirschenbaum filed a class-action lawsuit claiming that EA failed to comply with California labor laws requiring the company to pay its workers for overtime. A widely circulated letter(see next post) penned by a person identifying themselves as an "ea_spouse" detailed the subjective experience of crunch conditions. "The stress is taking its toll," wrote ea_spouse in the now-infamous 2004 letter. "After a certain number of hours spent working the eyes start to lose focus; after a certain number of weeks with only one day off fatigue starts to accrue and accumulate exponentially. There is a reason why there are two days in a weekend -- bad things happen to one's physical, emotional and mental health if these days are cut short." Another element in the present conflict between game publishers and Hollywood talent unions is that of hourly pay rates for voice-over artists. Currently, the standard fee is $275 per hour for voice sessions; SAG and AFTRA want more Those numbers may sound unfair to game-industry developers expected to work long hours under extreme pressure conditions to crank out code. But voice-over artists don't have it easy, counter working actors like Wil Wheaton, who has voiced characters in games including Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and the forthcoming Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six title. "Yeah -- $275 an hour would be a huge amount if actors did that kind of work several times a week," said Wheaton, "but the average, working-class actor is lucky to get four of those jobs a year." Wheaton, a member of both unions as well as a former member of the SAG board and of the Television and Theatrical Negotiating Committee, voted to authorize the strike. "It's unpleasant, but it's a necessary negotiating tool," Wheaton told Wired News. Peter Babakitis of San Anselmo, California -- a freelance creative director who has worked on both game and conventional entertainment projects -- thinks the strike is a good idea. He argues that in the long run, a SAG/AFTRA labor stoppage could benefit game developers who are not represented by a union. "What's wrong with profit participation by actors, musicians, artists, programmers and anyone else connected with a game title?" asked Babakitis. "The development of the unions in the film industry has allowed for a very prosperous business that has the stamina to continue exporting media to the rest of the world, unlike the game market, where we are importers. "When gamers think that actors are out of line for asking points, then you are also preventing programmers, writers, level artists and everyone else from asking for participation," Babakitis told Wired News. "When actors get points, then perhaps programmers, artists and writers might not be that far behind -- and game production might suddenly become competitive internationally again." Whether or not SAG and AFTRA get the profit-sharing agreements they demand, one outcome of the strike threat is clear: Game-industry workers are devoting renewed attention to the possibility of creating a union of their own. Results of the talent unions' strike vote are expected to be tallied on June 7. written by Xeni Jardin |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» moondancer replied on Fri Jun 3, 2005 @ 8:42am |
| Coolness: 92980 | EA: The Human Story
My significant other works for Electronic Arts, and I'm what you might call a disgruntled spouse. EA's bright and shiny new corporate trademark is "Challenge Everything." Where this applies is not exactly clear. Churning out one licensed football game after another doesn't sound like challenging much of anything to me; it sounds like a money farm. To any EA executive that happens to read this, I have a good challenge for you: how about safe and sane labor practices for the people on whose backs you walk for your millions? I am retaining some anonymity here because I have no illusions about what the consequences would be for my family if I was explicit. However, I also feel no impetus to shy away from sharing our story, because I know that it is too common to stick out among those of the thousands of engineers, artists, and designers that EA employs. Our adventures with Electronic Arts began less than a year ago. The small game studio that my partner worked for collapsed as a result of foul play on the part of a big publisher -- another common story. Electronic Arts offered a job, the salary was right and the benefits were good, so my SO took it. I remember that they asked him in one of the interviews: "how do you feel about working long hours?" It's just a part of the game industry -- few studios can avoid a crunch as deadlines loom, so we thought nothing of it. When asked for specifics about what "working long hours" meant, the interviewers coughed and glossed on to the next question; now we know why. Within weeks production had accelerated into a 'mild' crunch: eight hours six days a week. Not bad. Months remained until any real crunch would start, and the team was told that this "pre-crunch" was to prevent a big crunch toward the end; at this point any other need for a crunch seemed unlikely, as the project was dead on schedule. I don't know how many of the developers bought EA's explanation for the extended hours; we were new and naive so we did. The producers even set a deadline; they gave a specific date for the end of the crunch, which was still months away from the title's shipping date, so it seemed safe. That date came and went. And went, and went. When the next news came it was not about a reprieve; it was another acceleration: twelve hours six days a week, 9am to 10pm. Weeks passed. Again the producers had given a termination date on this crunch that again they failed. Throughout this period the project remained on schedule. The long hours started to take its toll on the team; people grew irritable and some started to get ill. People dropped out in droves for a couple of days at a time, but then the team seemed to reach equilibrium again and they plowed ahead. The managers stopped even talking about a day when the hours would go back to normal. Now, it seems, is the "real" crunch, the one that the producers of this title so wisely prepared their team for by running them into the ground ahead of time. The current mandatory hours are 9am to 10pm -- seven days a week -- with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30pm). This averages out to an eighty-five hour work week. Complaints that these once more extended hours combined with the team's existing fatigue would result in a greater number of mistakes made and an even greater amount of wasted energy were ignored. The stress is taking its toll. After a certain number of hours spent working the eyes start to lose focus; after a certain number of weeks with only one day off fatigue starts to accrue and accumulate exponentially. There is a reason why there are two days in a weekend -- bad things happen to one's physical, emotional, and mental health if these days are cut short. The team is rapidly beginning to introduce as many flaws as they are removing. And the kicker: for the honor of this treatment EA salaried employees receive a) no overtime; b) no compensation time! ('comp' time is the equalization of time off for overtime -- any hours spent during a crunch accrue into days off after the product has shipped); c) no additional sick or vacation leave. The time just goes away. Additionally, EA recently announced that, although in the past they have offered essentially a type of comp time in the form of a few weeks off at the end of a project, they no longer wish to do this, and employees shouldn't expect it. Further, since the production of various games is scattered, there was a concern on the part of the employees that developers would leave one crunch only to join another. EA's response was that they would attempt to minimize this, but would make no guarantees. This is unthinkable; they are pushing the team to individual physical health limits, and literally giving them nothing for it. Comp time is a staple in this industry, but EA as a corporation wishes to "minimize" this reprieve. One would think that the proper way to minimize comp time is to avoid crunch, but this brutal crunch has been on for months, and nary a whisper about any compensation leave, nor indeed of any end of this treatment. This crunch also differs from crunch time in a smaller studio in that it was not an emergency effort to save a project from failure. Every step of the way, the project remained on schedule. Crunching neither accelerated this nor slowed it down; its effect on the actual product was not measurable. The extended hours were deliberate and planned; the management knew what they were doing as they did it. The love of my life comes home late at night complaining of a headache that will not go away and a chronically upset stomach, and my happy supportive smile is running out. No one works in the game industry unless they love what they do. No one on that team is interested in producing an inferior product. My heart bleeds for this team precisely BECAUSE they are brilliant, talented individuals out to create something great. They are and were more than willing to work hard for the success of the title. But that good will has only been met with abuse. Amazingly, Electronic Arts was listed #91 on Fortune magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For" in 2003. 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. But can they? 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.) To put some of this in perspective, I myself consider some figures. If EA truly believes that it needs to push its employees this hard -- I actually believe that they don't, and that it is a skewed operations perspective alone that results in the severity of their crunching, coupled with a certain expected amount of the inefficiency involved in running an enterprise as large as theirs -- the solution therefore should be to hire more engineers, or artists, or designers, as the case may be. Never should it be an option to punish one's workforce with ninety hour weeks; in any other industry the company in question would find itself sued out of business so fast its stock wouldn't even have time to tank. In its first weekend, Madden 2005 grossed $65 million. EA's annual revenue is approximately $2.5 billion. This company is not strapped for cash; their labor practices are inexcusable. 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. I look at our situation and I ask 'us': why do you stay? And the answer is that in all likelihood we won't; and in all likelihood if we had known that this would be the result of working for EA, we would have stayed far away in the first place. But all along the way there were deceptions, there were promises, there were assurances -- there was a big fancy office building with an expensive fish tank -- all of which in the end look like an elaborate scheme to keep a crop of employees on the project just long enough to get it shipped. And then if they need to, they hire in a new batch, fresh and ready to hear more promises that will not be kept; EA's turnover rate in engineering is approximately 50%. This is how EA works. So now we know, now we can move on, right? That seems to be what happens to everyone else. But it's not enough. Because in the end, regardless of what happens with our particular situation, this kind of "business" isn't right, and people need to know about it, which is why I write this today. If I could get EA CEO Larry Probst on the phone, there are a few things I would ask him. "What's your salary?" would be merely a point of curiosity. The main thing I want to know is, Larry: you do realize what you're doing to your people, right? And you do realize that they ARE people, with physical limits, emotional lives, and families, right? Voices and talents and senses of humor and all that? That when you keep our husbands and wives and children in the office for ninety hours a week, sending them home exhausted and numb and frustrated with their lives, it's not just them you're hurting, but everyone around them, everyone who loves them? When you make your profit calculations and your cost analyses, you know that a great measure of that cost is being paid in raw human dignity, right? Right? === This article is offered under the Creative Commons deed. Please feel free to redistribute/link. by: some easpouse "I am pleased and a little flabbergasted to announce that "EA: The Human Story" was nominated for Joel Spolsky's Best Software Essays of 2004. More details on this as they come." :D |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» basdini replied on Fri Jun 3, 2005 @ 8:26pm |
 Coolness: 145915 | and why not? |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» ApR1zM replied on Sun Jun 12, 2005 @ 6:00pm |
 Coolness: 165515 | holy shit thats true i use to work for a videogame company that did stuff that was pretty close to that! at the end of the project the overtime wasnt paid at all and they were paying us St-hubert to make us stay |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» moondancer replied on Tue Jun 14, 2005 @ 2:42am |
| Coolness: 92980 | yeah I was in the same situation too. and there was likewise lots of st-hubert! ubisoft? im vegetarian btw. they didn't need to give anythign to make people stay though, that's why they get away with all this shit, cause people are their loyal slaves. |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» Zz.ee.vV replied on Sun Jun 19, 2005 @ 8:31pm |
 Coolness: 194740 | i think this is a clear cut case for a Labour Standards Bureau application. you work overtime, you should receive overtime; thats the law. unless thyre signing volunteer forms or waivers I really dont see how this is legal. |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» moondancer replied on Mon Jun 20, 2005 @ 6:18am |
| Coolness: 92980 | At ubisoft they give over-time, even if it's the bare minimum(1.5), but it's as if you don't have a choice if you wanna stick around. but that's not the only issue. They abuse their power a lot ,nobody gets any benefits, ppl are always fired and hired again when they're needed. And yes, they do make you sign shit. They make you sign out of your 4%, but that's the fine print, the contract is too huge, nobody is gonna read it all. To avoid having to give benefits they give contracts for a certain time period. I dunno how EA gets away with it but it mgiht be in the contract or other loop-holes. They always give the bare minimum and it's the mentality that it's YOUR priviledge to be there and not the other way around so they could basically do anythign they want. |
Coders Want Fatter Paychecks Too
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