"We hate you, now bend over"... EA, Sony and who else?

[0roo0roo]

heh well there was the lawsuit as said. and people wonder why theres a problem getting kids to choose tech fields in college... bring on the h1bs

 

[taltamir]

They won two lawsuits... graphic designers in 2004 and programmers in 2006... each lawsuit awarded 15 milion dollars to a different set of 200 EA employees (200 employees per lawsuit) who were worked that way... since 2001. And were NOT payed overtime!

However 15m divided by 200 is 75k... and most of that probably went to the lawyers...

It was a "work unpayed overtime or we fire you"

Most of the people DID change jobs later on... But sometimes you can't just drop it at the drop of a hat... also the company is saying "well, its a temporary crunch time"... but that temporary crunch drags on and on and on...

 

[Train]

I cant imagine working that many hours would be productive at all. The most I can manage writting code in a busy week is 55, maybe 60. If I go over that my brain turns to jello and I am pretty much useless without some down time to recover.

 

[taltamir]

nobody accused ea of not being stupid... just tyrannical.

 

[JasonCoder]

Now I get it. In 2001 things were bad. Jobs were scarce in technology (bubble went *pop*) so many companies whose loyalties were awesome during the boom decided to put the screw to the employees when jobs got scarce.

I did hear about multiple companies that did this sort of thing. www.fuckedcompany.com had a field day listing them every day. Some people even worked that way with NO PAY WHATSOEVER for multiple weeks hoping the company would eventually make a buck and pay them their paycheck. You can bet your ass the management team didn't have a problem taking a check.

 

[taltamir]

management probably got a bonus for all that money they "saved" the company...

 

[purbeast0]

dude this news is like over a year and a half old. most of us already know about this.

and i'm sure EA is nowhere NEAR as bad to work for as it states in those articles, because they basically HAD to clean up their act after it got public.

 

[Regs]

Maybe some of these people who get fired....should....start another....company. Argh en stuff.

 

[oznerol]

I'm relatively content with EA games. I've never had a problem with buying Madden. Just note that is EA sports - they also have other divisions. The upcoming Rock Band is EA, so is the Orange Box, and Skate was EA as well.

I have no idea why people hate the company so much.

If you don't like the games, don't buy them. If you work for EA and don't like your job, don't work there.

 

[purbeast0]

Originally posted by: ducci
I'm relatively content with EA games. I've never had a problem with buying Madden. Just note that is EA sports - they also have other divisions. The upcoming Rock Band is EA, so is the Orange Box, and Skate was EA as well.

I have no idea why people hate the company so much.

If you don't like the games, don't buy them. If you work for EA and don't like your job, don't work there.

its the same reason people hate every company that is on top of their market. it's the in thing to do.

well and also the fact that their games ARE just rehashes of the last ones w/some new gimmicks added (typically, not always). but the vocal internet people are in the huge minority of the entire gaming community.

 

[Beev]

Ubi is getting to that point...

 

[Modelworks]

Yeah EA killed sim city.
Everyone was hoping for an improved sim city 3000.
They gave us , the sims, visits sim city, sim city societies.

"were going to take away all that micromangement, no more running water, power, laying roads, zoning and give you cookie cutter buildings and areas where the focus is on the people in the city and not the city"

They totally missed the point of the series.


sigh.
I refuse to buy EA titles now.

 

[Beev]

Originally posted by: ducci
I'm relatively content with EA games. I've never had a problem with buying Madden. Just note that is EA sports - they also have other divisions. The upcoming Rock Band is EA, so is the Orange Box, and Skate was EA as well.

I have no idea why people hate the company so much.

If you don't like the games, don't buy them. If you work for EA and don't like your job, don't work there.

I agree. I love the Burnout series, which is made by Criterion, who I believe is now a division of EA. Can't stand the rest of their stuff, though.

Also, Orange Box is just published by EA. They don't really have a say in it development-wise. Although they are porting the PS3 version...

 

[AMCRambler]

I wish they had just upgraded the graphics in Battlefield 2 and re-released it. Instead we got the farce they call 2142.

 

[yowolabi]

Originally posted by: Train
I cant imagine working that many hours would be productive at all. The most I can manage writting code in a busy week is 55, maybe 60. If I go over that my brain turns to jello and I am pretty much useless without some down time to recover.

Exactly. And now we know why EA's games are always so buggy, bland, and featureless.

Someone asked about how it could be profitable for EA to buy up all these other game companies for huge money, and then running them into the ground. The secret is that it isn't profitable directly. However, if they buy every company that makes games better than them, people will have no choice but to buy EA games. Also, no one will remember what a good game looks like, thus making EA games look better.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: yowolabi

Originally posted by: Train
I cant imagine working that many hours would be productive at all. The most I can manage writting code in a busy week is 55, maybe 60. If I go over that my brain turns to jello and I am pretty much useless without some down time to recover.

Exactly. And now we know why EA's games are always so buggy, bland, and featureless.

Someone asked about how it could be profitable for EA to buy up all these other game companies for huge money, and then running them into the ground. The secret is that it isn't profitable directly. However, if they buy every company that makes games better than them, people will have no choice but to buy EA games. Also, no one will remember what a good game looks like, thus making EA games look better.

thats an excellent point... people bought generals and the like. despite sucking compared to westwood in the pre EA era, there were simply no other new RTS games being released at the time.

And no, I don't hate EA because they are successful. And I don't hate them because they make sucky games. I hate them because they buy the companies that make the best games ever, and then destroy them. Going over the creative manager's heads and doing things THEIR way. (ie, release an incomplete product and never finish it due to lack of proper support. Shut down online servers. Remove all the creative improvements that were planned for the sequels in order to make the new game identical to the old one...)

You ask why people don't just leave them and start competing companies... some do. The problem is the amounts of money it takes to develop a game nowadays... So it is not too common. But it happens.