Video-game workers seek OT pay
By Dean Takahashi
Knight Ridder News Service
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Working in the video-game industry is a dream job for thousands of programmers and artists who have flocked to companies such as Electronic Arts for the chance to create popular games like "James Bond" or "Madden NFL 2005."
Living the Silicon Valley, Calif., stereotype, they subsist on pizza and soft drinks, working six-day weeks for months on end to make deadlines so there will be plenty of games under Christmas trees.
But Jamie Kirschenbaum, a 26-year-old lead animator at EA's Redwood City, Calif., studio, is not a happy elf. In July, he filed a class-action lawsuit against the world's largest video-game company, alleging EA drives workers to exhaustion without paying overtime.
Around the same time, game programmer Neil Aitken filed a similar suit against Vivendi Universal Games in Los Angeles. Aitken claims he and his co-workers regularly worked 12-hour-plus days without being paid overtime and then were asked to falsify time sheets.
The lawsuits have opened a window into a long-smoldering controversy in the $10 billion U.S. video-game industry over the widespread practice of "crunch time," or working long hours to finish a project as its deadline nears.
The debate also is part of a larger battle in the technology industry: Who qualifies as a creative professional and who should receive the protections of labor laws designed for work habits of a different era?
"I thought it was awesome to get a job here, because I started playing EA games when I was young," Kirschenbaum said. "But it's a job. I never felt I should devote my life to it."
Electronic Arts is now considering making some jobs eligible for overtime, according to an internal company memo. EA also has begun a project to make its production process more efficient to reduce the number of last-minute changes that wreak havoc with employee schedules.
In response to the suit, the company, which has $3 billion in revenues and 5,100 employees, issued a statement that it offers workers competitive wages and benefits.
Vivendi declined comment on Aitken's case.
Where once game developers toiled alone in garages, they are now part of a global multibillion-dollar industry in which games often cost $5 million to $10 million to develop and take two or three years to complete.
As the costs go up, the temptations to cut corners — and overtime pay — are plentiful, said Jason Della Rocca, director of programming for the International Game Developers Association.
To be sure, the work environment at EA is hardly Dickensian. The company offers such amenities as a gymnasium, game rooms, and a theater where it shows movies and hosts concerts. In 2003, the company made Fortune magazine's list of "100 Best Companies to Work For," which is based in part on employee surveys.
Nor do video-game workers earn sweatshop wages. For instance, an animator with eight years' experience like Kirschenbaum typically makes $65,000 to $74,000, according to Game Developer magazine.
But Kirschenbaum's complaints about crunch time are common in the industry, according to a recent survey of video-game workers. His portrayal of EA's work culture was corroborated by several current and former co-workers, who requested their names not be used so as not to jeopardize their job prospects.
Companies like EA have drop-dead deadlines for finishing games because they often have to ship products for the holiday selling season or the beginning of a sports season.
Crunch time has become a way of doing business even on multi-million-dollar projects with 200-person teams. Even with good planning, games go off schedule because of programming bugs, or design changes prompted by player feedback.
In contrast to other Silicon Valley workers who traditionally receive stock options and other rewards for working around the clock, game developers are expected to put up with the unpaid overtime for their love of video games.
"The growing pains some of these companies are going through have already been experienced by Disney and others in the film industry," which now pay for overtime, says Daniel Pyne, an employment attorney at Hopkins & Carley in San Jose.
