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EA Artist, Soon To Be Laid Off, Burns EA Management, Discusses Failed MMO

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Re: EA Artist, Soon To Be Laid Off, Burns EA Management, Discusses Failed MMO

#71

Post by gaius »

fleitz wrote: post #67
ahoyhere wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little outside perspective: This is exactly the way it goes with a huge percentage of IT-related projects, in many serious industries. The "Enterprise" is screwed.

The one thing about large enterprise projects is though, you can usually convince the mismanagers that it's good for their career, and the mismanagers end up disliking the competent programmers. If you're a vulture or a hyena a large IT project can become like a elephant corpse, easy pickings. Convince the mismanagers to move competent people to your team in exchange for your yes men. Then find a piece of infrastruct…

But why would I want to do all these things for the benefit of a toxic organization? That system feeds off people who try to do the right thing, then it chews them up and spits them out. In fact it relies on there being people who will do the right thing even tho' it means extra stress and no extra reward. Organizations like that deserve to collapse under their own weight.

Re: EA Artist, Soon To Be Laid Off, Burns EA Management, Discusses Failed MMO

#72

Post by mattm »

potatolicious wrote: post #70
mattm wrote: post #62

I have no inside knowledge of EA but from reading this and the EA Spouse letter in the past, I'm amazed EA can actually deliver any software.

I grew up in Vancouver, Canada - home of EA's largest office, and knew many people who worked for them. They deliver code because the number of glory-seekers is basically infinite. They can afford to burn people out and abuse them to no end because there are a hojillion more lined up outside the door, just begging for someone to get burned out and leave so they can get in. I also knew some testers, and heard about th…

Yeah, I remember talking to a friend who wanted to get into game development. I told him that the gaming industry has a bad reputation for making people work long hours for relatively low pay and a lot of stress.

His reply - "I don't care. I'll do whatever it takes."

I'm not into gaming so I don't really understand the drive. It seems to be very similar to the entertainment industry, except that employed game developers will never achieve the fame or riches of a well known actor or producer.

I'm all for being passionate about what you do as long as you know your value and don't let other people take advantage of it.

Re: EA Artist, Soon To Be Laid Off, Burns EA Management, Discusses Failed MMO

#73

Post by mattm »

teamonkey wrote: post #63
mattm wrote: post #62

I have no inside knowledge of EA but from reading this and the EA Spouse letter in the past, I'm amazed EA can actually deliver any software.

It's almost as if two whistleblowing-style blogs were not entirely representative of the company as a whole.

I have also heard other accounts as well but yeah, it's probably bad to draw conclusions based on a couple people's accounts.

However, despite their size, large companies do generally seem to be quite uniform in their culture.

Re: EA Artist, Soon To Be Laid Off, Burns EA Management, Discusses Failed MMO

#74

Post by _delirium »

mattm wrote: post #72
potatolicious wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in Vancouver, Canada - home of EA's largest office, and knew many people who worked for them. They deliver code because the number of glory-seekers is basically infinite. They can afford to burn people out and abuse them to no end because there are a hojillion more lined up outside the door, just begging for someone to get burned out and leave so they can get in. I also knew some testers, and heard about th…

Yeah, I remember talking to a friend who wanted to get into game development. I told him that the gaming industry has a bad reputation for making people work long hours for relatively low pay and a lot of stress. His reply - "I don't care. I'll do whatever it takes." I'm not into gaming so I don't really understand the drive. It seems to be very similar to the entertainment industry, except that employed game develop…

> It seems to be very similar to the entertainment industry, except that employed game developers will never achieve the fame or riches of a well known actor or producer.

Not quite as famous and rich, but I think the top-level game designers are famous and rich enough, especially famous among the audience the would-be developers themselves are part of, to provide the motivation. Many people really want to be the next Will Wright, Peter Molyneux, John Carmack, Sid Meier, etc., even if that isn't quite the same level of fame as being the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bigger problem is that the odds of becoming the next any of those are really low (and nobody new has managed to claw up into that list in >10 years).

Re: EA Artist, Soon To Be Laid Off, Burns EA Management, Discusses Failed MMO

#75

Post by flogic »

KevBurnsJr wrote: post #39

"So we shut up and did what we were told, by people too afraid to tackle real problems. It is a culture of fear [...]" In my experience, this is passing the buck. Culture is not something dictated by management. Culture is something that every person in an organization takes part in. Anyone can change it any time they like. It just takes a little brass. Shutting up and doing what you're told is not good enough. I've…

This depends heavily on the situation. It from the letter it sounds like the most realistic outcome of making waves is getting fired. Incompetence can become well rooted and surprisingly competent at protecting itself. If I were in this situation, I would keep my head down and start pumping out resumes.

Re: EA Artist, Soon To Be Laid Off, Burns EA Management, Discusses Failed MMO

#76

Post by kemayo »

loewenskind wrote: post #24
singular wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the key factors are politics and managerial ignorance - there appears to be a general consensus that the most qualified person for the job is the a. biggest suck up and b. the least technically knowledgeable guy/gal available. The problem with having politicals in senior positions is that they will, by their nature, happily abandon honesty + humility - the two most important qualities required by devs/managem…

>The problem with having politicals in senior positions This is a problem having politicals in any position of power what so ever.

The old saw about how the only person who should be in power is the person who doesn't want to be in power, huh?

Re: EA Artist, Soon To Be Laid Off, Burns EA Management, Discusses Failed MMO

#78

Post by DannoHung »

nkassis wrote: post #30
robryan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given some of the hype they come out with about the game and the IP it was a given they were going to get a heap of people to give it a shot, same with Age of Conan, it sold a heap of copies initially. Once you lose the player base it's a real uphill battle to retain them, if Age of Conan released in it's current state it would be a different story for them, would have kept a lot more people initially.

It would have been almost impossible for them to release Age of Conan in it's current form. The current form was fashioned after massive amounts of customer feedback. Developing a MMO in the dark for 6 years isn't going to make it better than a released game that takes a couple years to mature. The issue is that you can't charge 60 bucks for a half finished game and 15 bucks a month after that. You also have to conte…

Maybe they should stop developing them in the dark for so long?

What would it be like if they had a completely open beta from the point that there was a playable client and gave long term testers access to end-game prestige content on official Day-1, or a free year of game time, or something else?

Re: EA Artist, Soon To Be Laid Off, Burns EA Management, Discusses Failed MMO

#79

Post by nickelplate »

KevBurnsJr wrote: post #39

"So we shut up and did what we were told, by people too afraid to tackle real problems. It is a culture of fear [...]" In my experience, this is passing the buck. Culture is not something dictated by management. Culture is something that every person in an organization takes part in. Anyone can change it any time they like. It just takes a little brass. Shutting up and doing what you're told is not good enough. I've…

This might work at a startup or a small company, but at a large company like EA, it is nearly impossible for a single individual to change the culture. EA has been a staple of bad management in the game industry for years, but it apparently did not impact their bottom line. Why would they change? I am all for not backing down, but you've got to pick your battles carefully.

Re: EA Artist, Soon To Be Laid Off, Burns EA Management, Discusses Failed MMO

#80

Post by yesimahuman »

mattm wrote: post #62

I have no inside knowledge of EA but from reading this and the EA Spouse letter in the past, I'm amazed EA can actually deliver any software.

Good software even (I count the Skate franchise among my absolute favorites).
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