Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EA: The Human Story (2004)

ea-spouse.livejournal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 156 posts

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#121

Post by KennyBlanken »

dijit wrote: post #80

> Their devotion to D&I I worked for a competitor and this is single-handedly the most frustrating thing I had to deal with honestly. Not because it’s not a noble objective, but because it was weaponised by a minority of people to control the studio in various ways, it was bullying in its purest form and extremely toxic - the environment felt really hostile, like saying something even moderately wrong would lead to a…

> So, I treat strong D&I initiatives as a red flag, personally.

Based off the general vibe of your comment, those companies don't want you. D&I driving away people who are made uncomfortable by D&I is working exactly as designed.

Somehow I have managed to be employed at a number of companies for decades without once been in fear about being bullied by false accusations of being misogynistic or racist. I've never seen another white person bullied under the pretense of having been racist or misogynistic.

I have, however, seen blatantly homophobic and racist behavior - some of it violent (in a professional workplace) and seen it covered up by management.

My guess is that you don't see 'light' racist, misogynistic, or homophobic behavior as problematic - "can't make a joke these days" - and therefore see the people who are disciplined for such behavior as "bullied."

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#122

Post by [deleted] »

dijit wrote: post #80

> Their devotion to D&I I worked for a competitor and this is single-handedly the most frustrating thing I had to deal with honestly. Not because it’s not a noble objective, but because it was weaponised by a minority of people to control the studio in various ways, it was bullying in its purest form and extremely toxic - the environment felt really hostile, like saying something even moderately wrong would lead to a…

[deleted]

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#123

Post by ldkdjdosk »

Mezzie wrote: post #117
dijit wrote: post #80

> Their devotion to D&I I worked for a competitor and this is single-handedly the most frustrating thing I had to deal with honestly. Not because it’s not a noble objective, but because it was weaponised by a minority of people to control the studio in various ways, it was bullying in its purest form and extremely toxic - the environment felt really hostile, like saying something even moderately wrong would lead to a…

The problem with D&I initiatives is that, ironically, they end up spearheaded by extremely privileged people. Those people usually have one (or MAYBE 2) main axis/axes of marginalization (see: upper-middle class/well off white trans women, rich straight POC, etc.). They then proceed to speak for every member of group X and/or declare that their problems are the only ones that matter. The other problem is that such in…

No post body was provided.

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#124

Post by dijit »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #121
dijit wrote: post #80

> Their devotion to D&I I worked for a competitor and this is single-handedly the most frustrating thing I had to deal with honestly. Not because it’s not a noble objective, but because it was weaponised by a minority of people to control the studio in various ways, it was bullying in its purest form and extremely toxic - the environment felt really hostile, like saying something even moderately wrong would lead to a…

> So, I treat strong D&I initiatives as a red flag, personally. Based off the general vibe of your comment, those companies don't want you. D&I driving away people who are made uncomfortable by D&I is working exactly as designed. Somehow I have managed to be employed at a number of companies for decades without once been in fear about being bullied by false accusations of being misogynistic or racist. I've never seen…

Everything is contextual, there probably is racism in my company, somewhere. Calling it out when seen is something that has been pretty normal in my professional life.

Maybe it’s because my first CIO was gay, or that I was working in a metrosexual community.

Same with racism, I grew up shoulder to shoulder with south Asians and black people because that’s just how life is when you live in a multicultural society and they haven’t been adequately scapegoated.

I can’t convince you that you’re wrong about this, because you’re not in most circumstances; but good people, in my experience, do not do nothing in the face of bigotry in the workplace.

The difference, however, is that there is an unmitigated independent group who have decided what utopia means and can not care about the means to their end.

The unfortunate situation I’m in is that I support their cause, but they’re bringing the movement down.

Addendum: you’re also subtly implying the MD was somehow guilty of being against D&I, as he was dragged publicly, despite literally spearheading these initiatives and winning many awards for his work in promoting D&I in the industry and independently in the region. I find that kind of a reach honestly.

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#125

Post by maximilianburke »

kevinh wrote: post #119
maximilianburke wrote: post #45

Good grief, this post is nearly old enough to vote. EA has changed a lot in those years, mostly for the better. I spent 13 years there from 2005-2018 and it was a great place to work; the people were great, the problems were interesting, and the hours were normal.

This is being posted because people have their knives out for Unity at the moment, and this occurred while Riccitiello (current Unity CEO) was the CEO at EA.

Yeah, I'm aware that Riccitiello was the CEO of EA; he was also the CEO of EA from 2007 until 2013, when a lot of the behavior that was called out in the EA Spouse essay was fixed.

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#126

Post by dang »

dijit wrote: post #80

> Their devotion to D&I I worked for a competitor and this is single-handedly the most frustrating thing I had to deal with honestly. Not because it’s not a noble objective, but because it was weaponised by a minority of people to control the studio in various ways, it was bullying in its purest form and extremely toxic - the environment felt really hostile, like saying something even moderately wrong would lead to a…

(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32109896.)

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#127

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

This is fairly old. I have no idea whether or not it still applies.

I have also found that discrete teams, within a company, can have radically different cultures.

That said, game development has long been known as a "labor of love," with emphasis on "labor."

In the 1980s(!). I was recruited by Sierra Online. Even though I thought it would be cool, I consulted enough game developers to get talked out of it.

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#128

Post by IntelMiner »

system16 wrote: post #66
hvs wrote: post #12

This blog post is from 18 years ago so I'd be curious if any game developers can speak to the current state of affairs in the industry. It's always been notorious for overworking employees, but I'm not sure if it's to the same scale described here.

In the years following this, a lot of the big game developers (especially mobile) opened offshore studios in SE Asia and Eastern Europe where endless crunch like is described in the legendary ea_spouse post is still very alive and well. Basically orders come down from "HQ" which is typically the home office in Western Europe or US/Canada, and the overseas studios follow their marching orders. Added bonus for the comp…

The last EA game I picked up was the Command & Conquer remastered collection. I even went as far as to buy the physical box set from LimitedRunGames

Hearing how they treated LemonSky absolutely soured me on playing it in the end however

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm7KUE1Kwts

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#129

Post by dleslie »

whatshisface wrote: post #113
dleslie wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government of Canada funds the development of a fair amount of video games through the Canadian media fund.

Are the results of that fund designed for compulsion to a lesser degree than most games made with similar sized budgets?

It mostly funds indie titles, afaict, so I'll hazard to say they have less focus on compulsion.

Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)

#130

Post by jmcgough »

highwaylights wrote: post #104
Jeaye wrote: post #41

(opinions are my own and not EA's) I've been at EA for about 1.5 years now and have never enjoyed working somewhere as much as this. Their devotion to D&I, their culture around management (and the thorough training each manager gets), career progression, and feedback, their flexibility for each individual (even given their size), how frequently we actually get to speak with SVP-level leadership to ask questions/voice…

To clarify, EA changed solely because of this post. It was a very dirty open secret that suddenly became incredibly public, and the backlash at that time was vociferous. Ultimately (unless I’m mistaken) EA was forced to pay back pay plus overtime and stopped all crunch for some time. There was a lot of talk of congressional regulation at that time if I remember correctly, too. From Wikipedia: “Hoffman's actions, in p…

When I was a kid, around 2002, I was lucky enough to tour EA's campus. They joked about how they called it "the dorm" and I saw sleeping bags in offices. Didn't really put two and two together until the livejournal post dropped.
Post reply on HN