Electronic Arse-Pirates

192 words.

I read an interesting article on Slashdot this evening which makes me a) thankful I never aspired to get involved in the game programming industry and b) likely to boycott purchasing any “big name company” games from now on. (By boycott, of course, I mean pirate.)

I can recall stories about ridiculous working conditions way back in the days of Doom and Quake. I remember joking with a fellow Crayola Clan member about avoiding the gaming industry. He did get into it, though, and went on to work ridiculous hours. He’s changed game companies at least three times in the last 4 or 5 years that I know of, too.

It’s one thing to work ridiculous hours when you’re one of the owners of a small startup company trying to “make it.” It’s quite another thing to work ridiculous hours when you’re a salaried employee for a huge mega-corporation, and you’re receiving no overtime pay or compensation of any kind. That should be against the law, imho. Maybe this explains why 99% of all commercially-produced games blow: All the developers are so sleep-deprived that they just don’t care.

EA Spouse Blog Entry

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