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| Member Since: 1997-07-31 | |
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| Silverlance | Comment 1: 2004-12-08 02:50 |
As a full-time, paid, and somewhat experienced programmer (though not in the game biz; no way in hell I'd work there  ) I've had my share of overtime. In fact I get it often enough, though rarely more than an hour or two. After a full day of trying to track down bugs while you have about three or four new features to add before the end of the day, though, ten minutes seem like an eternity. Working an 18 hour shift would not be something I'd want to do.Developpers are people just as much as gamers. And games are just that: games. It's quite sad to see people panic because they may not get some hot game on TEH FIRST DAY IT COMES OUT OMG!!! I think this situation gives a very good look at what developpers, not just programmers, have to go through just to get some game that will start to die within a month or so of its release date out on the shelves. These people have to work hard as hell, and are often paid very little (my salary and that of your average game programmer are about equal; the difference is that I've only been working there for less than a year and technically I don't even have my college degree.) And being of the opinion that they should work unpaid overtime hours because gamers have grown too spoiled to wait more than a day to get eagerly awaited hits is not something you'd have if you were pressed to finish a project and had to work a few hours overtime to avoid a deadline. Anyone remember working through the night to get an assignement ready for high school or college? Imagine working twice as hard with your job on the line.  At their core, game developement is about money. Face it: Square isn't bathing in the joy pleasing their fan gives them. They're money-makers, they exploit opportunities to make money, and they won't invest in an idea that would not generate sizable revenu just because a few fans would be pleased. Imagine being at the head of a company and having to not only pay a hundred employees ($15 an hour for 100 employees for 40 hour weeks? That's a lot of cash to shell out in a week!), but also to maintain your company (invest in new technologies, cover the cost for rented equipment/locals, pay off debts...) and show a sizable profit margin to keep investors from selling their shares off. Yes, you will have to give your fans the finger and sell what sells; it's called "real life." Hence the 3 FF7 spinoffs.  However, if developpers slacked off and worked more hours, companies would have to invest more in their salaries because of additional working hours, and quite frankly the impact it would have on sales wouldn't be too considerable ("So yeah, Gary got the particle engine for the waterfall to sag less; looks more realistic!" "Sweet. This will change the minds of people who don't like our franchise and wouldn't want to buy our new game!") Companies would register a lower profit from their games, and in the end we'd just be back at square one. The bottom line is... games suck. People play them too much anyways. | |
| i90east | Comment 2: 2004-12-09 15:46 |
| Wow, those are some crazy overtime hours. Overtime pay is inefficient. Shouldn't the game companies simply hire more employees instead of working their current employees to death? If each employee produces a profit for the company, wouldn't more employees produce more profit? They could pump out games faster at a higher quality. Bleh, break time is over for me. Back to work! | |
| Silverlance | Comment 3: 2004-12-10 03:12 |
| More employees doesn't mean the game will sell any better. It does, however, mean more salaries to deal with every week. The base concept is decided by very few people, so at its core, hiring more people won't do a thing to make a game any more fun. On the other hand, it will help, say, make the graphics look a little better because people've been able to put more time into them, or the music sound a little better. Or if they work people overtime, the project will be completed faster. In that case the balance between having more paid salaries but less weeks to pay people before money comes in is the deciding factor wether it's beneficial to invest in more people or not. Usually in these kinds of projects, you're given a deadline and have to meet the objectives in the alloted time. If you can't, that's when you end up having to do overtime work; not because the company asks you to, but because you and your team just can't meet the deadline. I've had to do that at work sometimes when we'd be delivering a project to a client. On the last week, if we realize we still have way too much stuff to do, we take an hour or two extra everyday because, frankly, our jobs are on the line and we want to keep them. So while companies are understaffed, they can still pull off the same results with less people anyways because people like keeping their jobs. Less salaries to pay, no real difference in revenue. Or in layman's terms... Step 1: Less salaries to pay. Step 2: Step 3: Profit! | |
| Hamedo | Comment 4: 2004-12-10 17:06 |
| Damn you, gaming companies. We should all go back to pencil and paper D&D, guys. | |
| MorgueN | Comment 5: 2004-12-12 00:24 |
| Well I'm willing to wait longer for a complete game without any bugs. And it's true how can make something that is supposed to be fun, when you are not having fun. Human beings should have to endure so much. | |
| Ejoty | Comment 6: 2004-12-12 23:50 |
| Personally, I don't need to buy a game right when it comes out, so if it takes a bit longer than that's okay. If it costs a tad more than that's fine with me too. If the employees have grounds for a lawsuit, then I wouldn't complain about suffering as a gamer. Besides, if every one of us can say we've played every good game in existence and can't wait for more then.... we should take a break from gaming anyway. | |
| Tonepoet | Comment 7: 2004-12-13 00:59 |
| This doesn't affect me personaly, that's because I hardly ever buy new games in the first place. It is interesting though, I just read all 16 pages of the complaint. Also I read a plain english explination of the law in question. However, there seem to be some exceptions for the amusment and recreational field mentioned near the bottom. Also it may help to know that the jobs in question are involved with the instalation copying and prodution of images into video games. The exact jobs are: •animators •modelers •texture Artists •computer graphics artists •lighters •visual effects artists •environmental artists •and people with simmilar job titles. (<- That is exactly what it says in the complaint.) They are calling themselves "Image Prodution Employees" and all claim they have nothing to do with how the art is sopposed to look. The Image Production Employees only mention that they produce it exactly how thier supervisors tell them to. I have an opinion on this already but I want to make sure I'm not missing any facts. That is why I am reading the California Labor Code, on the payment of wages, before I say anything. It is a long document though, so I might just skip it. This is the California Labor Code as provided by the Offical California Legislative Information website. Just incase anybody else wanted to read it for themselves. As for the EA complaint, I got it off of the NPR website R51 provided, via a search. Keywords: EA overtime. | |
| Rangers51 | Comment 8: 2005-05-17 15:15 |
| Blast from the past, kids. Thanks to [dohtml]<a href="http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/forums/conprofile.php?username=Iceman">Iceman</a>[/dohtml], we have a followup to this story. The lawsuit against EA is still pending; in addition, Vivendi Universal has come under suit from their employees as well. This MSN/CNET article, though, goes into more specifics as to why the entire computer industry is confused at the moment. | |
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