Making video games is a cool job. Making enterprise CRUD software isn't. Video game studios can therefore treat workers worse and get away with it because for at least some subset of the workforce, they'll put up with it.
You really cannot understand why someone would want to be part of a team creating something they love (or used to love) as kids + all the joys of programming times 100?
I personally don't understand people who work for blockchain, or as cashiers, waiters, customer support, etc.
I tried those jobs as there is no deep-rooted love of anything around those, just a job, and still a ton of people do it.
On the other hand, working on video games, despite being often underpaid, often full of crunching and sometimes monotonous, is something I do understand. It's literally as close as "follow your dreams" go but for programmers who are into games.
I wasn't specifically speaking of EA but I guess many people don't necessarily know it for the bad stuff they pull off but rather for Fifa and such? Even though I would never touch them with a 2m stick, I still fondly remember them for "EA sports, it's in the game" era.
Worked at many game development studios, only one truly bad experience. Granted I probably got extremely lucky but there are good studios/jobs out there.
My current company is a 4 day work week, fully remote and good pay. I feel I get more work done in a 32 hour week than I did at another company where I had hit ~90 hour weeks a few times. I'm not going back and fixing code I wrote while sleep deprived.
Also worked outside games in STEM, education and a couple startups. I wouldn't say they were particularly better.
For some skill sets the non-games options to work in are comparatively 'soulless' or 'soul-crushing' (not my words, but ways I've heard people describe it). For example:
If you're a literature expert, do you really want to do copy-editing for doordash when you could be writing interactive narratives?
If you're a UI designer, are wireframes for the latest AI chat app even 25% as exciting as designing the HUD for a new video game?
And then some skill sets are just not really transferable at all. Game design leans on skills that are transferable but 'game designer' doesn't really map to other fields at all, and it is a real specialization that some people have decades of time spent honing.
It is hellish because there are a lot of people who want to work in video games. Workers having to compete lead to bad working conditions, as employers push the boundaries of what they can get away with while still finding enough workers to fill their positions.
For sure. Which is why it's weird that someone would stay and expect things to improve. As we've made abundantly clear, the willingness to stay is precisely why the conditions are bad.
That applies to AAA games, where you make awful games for awful companies. Being an indie dev is great, and you can make millions by yourself if your game gets popular.
Recent example: "Megabonk" was made by a solo indie dev in a few months. It has reportedly sold around 2 million copies at $10 in 1 month.
This. Working at EA punching out the next version of Madden, featuring roster updates, UI changes, and tinkering with a few settings isn't exactly work designing the new Unreal engine.
Your average Java CRUDster could probably do a lot of that work. Gamedev isn't the black art it used to be.
It's one thing to stay despite the tough conditions because you love games. It's another thing to stay and expect things to change. The act of staying is precisely the thing that is enforcing the bad conditions.
the industry is vast and there are many experiences. It's certainly not hellish for the 3 guys + contractors who made Silksong, or for Lucas Pope, or for many of the people working at huge mobile game studios.
EA makes games with numbers in their names. They do not take on a lot of risk, which means "anyone" could do it. So they have to work very, very hard. This is NOT a complicated idea.
