by date
Plan for Greg Findlay
Plan for Greg Findlay
| Name: | Greg Findlay |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Mar 14, 2005 | |
| Rating: |  Not Rated | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
| RSS Feed: |  or Subscribe with  . | |
| Profile Page: | View profile page for Greg Findlay |
Blog post
In EA's defence; the place for indies is new game design; The answer to overworking employees is less work, not different benefits.
Before I start this I want to warn anyone reading that I'm defending EA a little. I don't work for EA but I have friends who do although this isn't coming from them it's just my thoughts.
There is definitely a massive amount of EA hate going around here and I'm not on the EA band wagon or anything I just don't think running around with pitchforks yelling EA is bad is very productive. EA does do a lot of things right, they make boatloads of money after all and although money isn't the be all of games it does keep a company afloat to make more games. For one thing the production quality of EA games is very high. Some of the tech they have is top notch. Everyone's sore point is that EA doesn't create much in terms of gameplay. You're fooling yourself if you think EA is ever going to be a source of massive game innovation. Not because of the people they employ but because of the size of the company. There is a certain point were the size of you company hurts you because you simple can't listen to the ideas your lower teir employees have anymore and it becomes a neccessity for one person to make decisions. That's where the creativity is lost.
This is where indies come in. They don't have that structure and can do what ever they want. The sad thing is that EA is catching up in the creativity department and it'll be a sad sad day if they ever do catch up because indies have so much more potential. The place for indies is the for front of game design innovation. Your product is not going to sell unless you do something new to interest game players. Leave it to companies like EA to make the same game with a little twist because they have x million dollars to market the game. What's going to sell your game is word of mouth and your only going to get that if your game is fun. The glitz of flashy games last a few minutes, what keeps players playing (and talking) is fun factor. Think about this: if I see a really great looking game I tell a friend (or a couple of friends) about it once just to say it looked cool. Unless someone else brings it up in conversation I never mention it again. If I'm playing a fun game I do the same thing. The difference is if a game is fun I will most likely bring it up in conversation again ("Damn man I can't believe your haven't pick this game up it's awesome" or "I'm just going to go home, watch a little TV play a little of <game name>").
EA recently made a press release that they will be changing the way they compensate employees to go from giving stock options and other fringe benefit to paying overtime. I don't think what EA is doing is really addressing the problem and is more of a silencing tactic, which is pretty much what the EA rep says in this article. The problem is employees are over worked, I don't think how they are compensated is going to change that and five years from now the people who receive overtime pay and not stock options are going to be kicking themselves when the stocks are worth 5x the amount they received in OT. I think the benefits at EA are pretty good, it's the fact that their employees work stupid long hours that's the problem, which is pretty much industry standard. EA is trying to find ways to solve the problem, whether or not they have a decent solution we'll see. If they come up with one we'll all be thanking them later.
There is definitely a massive amount of EA hate going around here and I'm not on the EA band wagon or anything I just don't think running around with pitchforks yelling EA is bad is very productive. EA does do a lot of things right, they make boatloads of money after all and although money isn't the be all of games it does keep a company afloat to make more games. For one thing the production quality of EA games is very high. Some of the tech they have is top notch. Everyone's sore point is that EA doesn't create much in terms of gameplay. You're fooling yourself if you think EA is ever going to be a source of massive game innovation. Not because of the people they employ but because of the size of the company. There is a certain point were the size of you company hurts you because you simple can't listen to the ideas your lower teir employees have anymore and it becomes a neccessity for one person to make decisions. That's where the creativity is lost.
This is where indies come in. They don't have that structure and can do what ever they want. The sad thing is that EA is catching up in the creativity department and it'll be a sad sad day if they ever do catch up because indies have so much more potential. The place for indies is the for front of game design innovation. Your product is not going to sell unless you do something new to interest game players. Leave it to companies like EA to make the same game with a little twist because they have x million dollars to market the game. What's going to sell your game is word of mouth and your only going to get that if your game is fun. The glitz of flashy games last a few minutes, what keeps players playing (and talking) is fun factor. Think about this: if I see a really great looking game I tell a friend (or a couple of friends) about it once just to say it looked cool. Unless someone else brings it up in conversation I never mention it again. If I'm playing a fun game I do the same thing. The difference is if a game is fun I will most likely bring it up in conversation again ("Damn man I can't believe your haven't pick this game up it's awesome" or "I'm just going to go home, watch a little TV play a little of <game name>").
EA recently made a press release that they will be changing the way they compensate employees to go from giving stock options and other fringe benefit to paying overtime. I don't think what EA is doing is really addressing the problem and is more of a silencing tactic, which is pretty much what the EA rep says in this article. The problem is employees are over worked, I don't think how they are compensated is going to change that and five years from now the people who receive overtime pay and not stock options are going to be kicking themselves when the stocks are worth 5x the amount they received in OT. I think the benefits at EA are pretty good, it's the fact that their employees work stupid long hours that's the problem, which is pretty much industry standard. EA is trying to find ways to solve the problem, whether or not they have a decent solution we'll see. If they come up with one we'll all be thanking them later.
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 03/15/06 - Cathedral: Week 4 03/07/06 - Cathedral: Week 3 02/28/06 - Cathedral: Week 2 02/21/06 - Art project: Cathedral 11/17/05 - Plan for Greg Findlay 08/19/05 - Plan for Greg Findlay 03/18/05 - Plan for Greg Findlay 03/14/05 - Plan for Greg Findlay |
|---|
Submit your own resources!| Jeremy Alessi (Mar 14, 2005 at 06:53 GMT) |
| Marco Meier (Mar 14, 2005 at 07:01 GMT) |
| Joe Maruschak (Mar 14, 2005 at 19:02 GMT) |
one is that the amount of turnover and project cancellation in the industry is getting pretty extreme. I know that my stock options from Vivendi did not even have time to vest before they shut us down. I would have far preferred to get that money in a salary or a bonus than as options. In todays game industry job climate, the thought that you will even be in the same place (or that the place you work at will exist) 5 years from now is questionable. In the time that I have been at BraveTree, many of my friends have worked at 2-3 different studios (not by choice) due to closures and after project layoffs. Some may be kicking themselves for not taking the options, but my feeling is that those individuals are in the minority given the way things are being run right now.
As for EA, I don't dislike them because they are large, or that they have money, or that they don't do creative titles. They are publically owned, and they need to provide value to the shareholders, which they are doing.
I do take issue with how they are running things. They are an industry leader, and they should be providing an example of how to do it right, not how to do it wrong. These extended crunch periods that I am hearing about are ridiculous, and if a project manager imposes such a schedule on his team he should be dismissed for his incompetence or sent for some remedial project managment training.
It is pretty well known (only outside the games industry apparently) that extended periods of overtime result in a net loss of productivity after 3 weeks (with the 3rd week being actual equal in productivity to a normal week, but does so with extended hous and a higher defect rate).
When I hear these crazy stories about endless 80 hours weeks, it just blows my mind. If I was a shareholder, I would be pissed off, as this kind of madness results in a net prductivity loss of man YEARS on projects of large scope.
My comments are not EA hatred.. just incredulity that they run their business like this. Totally blows my mind that they make money in spite of their apparent incompetence when it comes to project scheduling and management.
| Chris "DiGi" Timberlake (Mar 14, 2005 at 20:14 GMT) |
I do not hate EA, however, how they run things (alot of hours, short deadlines) is kinda messed up imo. Developers need sleep, because if they do not thing, that logical part of the brain is kinda shut down, working this 80 hours, I had to write stuff down on paper to plan it out(What tables I had in a Database, how the pages on a site were loaded), then to turn around friday and realize everything i had done was screwed up and wouldn't work, so i started over with a different method, and blam, took me a matter of hours to do what had taken me all week.
IMO, it would be in EA's best intrest to work normal hours, and keep the benefits. (Gyms for the workers and their families, health plans, head docters for the employees and their families.) The reason i say this is because, a programmers/designers mind is the thing they need the most, they arn't physical workers, they're like scientists, they need to be of a sound mind. If they are not, then they cannot work correctly.
| Phil Carlisle (Mar 14, 2005 at 21:31 GMT) |
1) They used to pay stock options AND overtime not 5 years ago. This stopped, presumably to increase profits, which at a company of that size is the ONLY concern.
2) They are basically setting a bad example. Joe kind of hinted at it, but he doesnt mention the fact that almost every other publisher *dreams* of doing the same as EA.
Now, there are two ways to look at this. The first is to shrug your shoulders and wonder how people work there, or you can see that EA of course is an evil empire of hatred for mankind, but then its fine for people who can accept that and live with it.
From all the guys Ive known who've been through EA, you tend to find the type who hated it (like I would personally) and the guys who used it for experience and moved on when they felt they had that credibility.
So yeah, they *are* evil, I mean you simply cant argue that they treat development like a meat grinder. But, you can play them at thier own game and use them to leverage some love in your own direction.
Of course, you should never believe anything they say about bonus, royalties, shares, options, or anything else for that matter.
It definitely isnt evil if youre hurting for a job and need some kudos to buy into a better position though.
| Greg Findlay (Mar 15, 2005 at 05:31 GMT) |
I definitely agree that EA as an entity is evil. The only thing that concerns them is making money, I just don't want to assume that because they are evil I should ignore what they do because I'd be missing out on opportunity to learn at least something that could make my business better.
Oh, and if you haven't read this article about the state of the industry, it's a very interesting read. It's a transcript of a session called Burn the House Down from GDC.
You must be a member and be logged in to either append comments or rate this resource.
