Electronic Arts Criticism Goes Mainstream

Click here for the New York Times article about the recent criticisms of Electronic Arts as an unfair employer. The chain of events that lead to this story began by the combination of a web log written by a disgruntled spouse about the life of an Electronic Arts employee, and the class action lawsuit currently underway in the United States brought by a current Electronic Arts employee seeking back pay for unpaid overtime. It will be interesting to see how Electronic Arts responds as it will no doubt set a huge precedent in the still very immature games development industry. Personally, I am shading kind of positive, and I believe that EA (in California anyway) will eventually choose to conform to the feature film post production model. Which, for most folks, is: a 50 hour work week, 10 hours of which are paid at 1.5X rate. Anything above that - 2X rate. Here's why.

First, paying for talent. At the moment, the high-end of talent (as a gross generalisation, of course) remains in the film industry today. Principally, this has to do with the fact that film production typically pays more as a result of requiring a higher level of visual sophistication. Although this is changing, it is still true for the most part. EA continually has trouble recruiting out of the film industry (and continues to try to!!!) as a result of your average 3D operator putting 2 and 2 together and saying "why should I open myself up to potentially unlimited hours, when I currently have the fall back that the longer I work, the more costly I am, and therefore there is a natural drag on the hours I work." Doesn't make much sense. When EA decides to make the "payment method" mirror what is already the status quo, the operators will no longer see the kinds of distinctions they currently see. It is all about parity.

Second, if they don't choose to, they will be litigated into it. The labour laws are quite clear, and they are not obeying them. The only potential hick-up is... how many of your colleagues have kept accurate, provable logs of their hours worked? Uh, yeah... oh, and you'd better not vote for Campbell if you want EA to be compelled to obey the law in British Columbia! Most conservative governments will just roll over in the face of an industry giant like EA.

Third, avoiding unionisation. The quickest way for EA to avoid a painful unionisation process is to do what most film studios do - pay the higher rates. As long as rates remain high, and there is relative parity of hours worked and pay for those hours (including benefits) there really is very little incentive to unionise. Personally, I think unions are totally necessary for those employees deserving of protection - nurses, police, teachers, miners - those individuals who are obviously providing services that we "can not live without." I don't think "Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas" counts as that, so unionisation is really just about pay (and a bit about treatment). In fact, at places like ILM, the union has often been a drag on increasing wages industry-wide rather than a catalyst!

In terms of the situation in Vancouver. Canada will always represent a cost advantage to EA. Principally in the exchange, but also in the fact that Canadian salaries are typically lower as a dollar figure (as a result of this, when I have worked in CA, I have made roughly 2X what I was making in Vancouver in "real dollars" though I didn't ever work for EA). In reality, if you compare say an annual percent growth curve charting revenue in games, versus average annual salary increase, I am willing to bet my next royalty bonus (I don't actually have one!) that revenues have out performed salaries by percent growth. What does this mean? The work force is cheaper than ever. That's why they will continue to expand the Burnaby campus. Games are getting more expensive to produce, but when compared to the increase in revenue, they are cheaper in real terms. Take a look at Halo2 just out. It is pretty clear. What is also clear is that the games production model of "generating block busters" and nothing else, is also conforming to the film model. Independent game studios are going the way of the Dodo!