As reported by
NPR on Morning Edition this morning, a class action lawsuit has been filed by several employees of Electronic Arts against the company. At issue is the matter of unpaid overtime, the amount of which has led the plaintiffs of the case to charge that EA fosters a poor work environment. The story articulates the extensive work hours and health problems caused by the game industry's "dirty little secret" - exploitation of their developers. The class action suit articulates that other California creative employees are entitled to overtime when the employees in question do not have control over the "creative vision"; that is to say, the employees create only what they're told to create; the suit seeks that the developers be treated the same as orchestra musicians and workers in the cinema industry.
The counterpoint is that EA, and other game developers, do only what they have to in order to sell games and give gamers what they want. Budgets are tight to keep the games at certain price points in some cases; timelines are nearly always tight, as people expect their games to be available for the Christmas season, or at the beginning of the sports season for sports games.
The questions for gamers, really, are these: Are we willing to pay more for games so that the developers are compensated for overtime on months of 18 hour days, six days a week? Are we willing to accept that we might get the new Final Fantasy, or Tekken, or Madden, or any game developed in the US, a little bit later than what we hoped? Do the developers, as salaried employees, really deserve to be paid overtime; would the quality of the games be enhanced by adding this provision? It's clear what the developers think - we'll have to wait and see if the courts agree.
The story is 6:35 long, and can be streamed via Real Media or Windows Media Player 9. You can reach it at
NPR's archive.