Just as I was starting to work in Xbox at the end of 2004, a blog post by someone calling herself “EA Spouse” sent off a firestorm around EA’s practice of unrelenting death marches. Looks like this led to several lawsuits that have now been settled.
I didn’t stay long enough at Xbox to go through a death march but I did plenty of them in other groups at Microsoft. From what I heard, Xbox launch and Vista have been traditional MS death marches. My experience was different from EA Spouse because I made way more money than the people in the EA lawsuits. I went through a brutal death march early in my career in SQL Server. I spent 7 days a week coming home for a few hours of sleep at a time. My wife had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into. Unlike EA though, I got very good financial reward for it. In the end, I felt it was worth it. But it does raise the question of what is acceptable. I feel that projects that get into this state are managed poorly. I don’t mean slipping - I mean the case where the company is backed in the corner and the only way to get out is to kill your workers.
It is ironic that I read this article today. I’m currently taking a break because I’ve been feeling burnt out for awhile. This practice takes its toll. I know at Microsoft, people became less and less willing to do it as the stock money dried up. I suffered through 10 years of it to be able to do what I’m doing at this moment.
Is this fair? I think it probably is. I always had the choice to leave. I may not have had the opportunity to make money or advance like I did had I not done it. But it was my choice. Is it good company policy? Probably not. In my case, my loyalty waned over time and I left taking my 10+ years of experience and knowledge. The more you exploit people with excessive hours, the less people believe you are looking out for them. It’s even worse if the company makes massive amounts of money like Microsoft or EA.
I don’t fault EA Spouse and her husband from taking action. I’m not surprised a lawsuit happened. But I hope it doesn’t come to unionization. I don’t see that as a good thing for the industry. I would never want to be part of a union. It should serve as notice to those people considering a career in game development or even software in general. Hopefully, companies will want to avoid this kind of publicity and re-evaluate their policies. Most of the companies I’ve talked to in the past few months all highlight how they are balanced in working hours. In the old days, I remember companies bragging about how much you will work. That probably won’t happen again.
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