I have a love/hate relationship with Electronic Arts (EA).
I’m an avid gamer. Have been so since my teenage years, over 20 years ago. I especially enjoy sports games.
I used to own a Sega Genesis – or Sega Megadrive as it was called in Europe – when it was the height of video gaming universe. It’s around that time when EA started their long running sports game franchises based on the professional sports in the United States. Their hockey games on the Sega Genesis were especially good. I bought almost every version they published, and they published one every year. Allowance money was gone very quickly on those games.
Fast forward to XBox and XBox Live! times. Well, EA decided not to grace us mere mortals with games that would play on XBox Live! That didn’t sit too well with most of us, and by this time Sega’s ESPN sport franchise games had caught up or in some cases surpassed the quality of the EA games. I was happy to flip the finger at EA, and put my money on Sega’s games. This decision was made even easier when Sega decided to drop the price on all of their 2K5 games to $19.99, online play and all.
Now someone married to an EA employee posted a long article about the despicable working conditions EA is forcing on their employees. Read the story, it’s quite amazing, although familiar to most of us who at some point have worked for a publicly traded mega corp, how EA, which is by far the most successful and profitable game publisher out there, can treat their employees so badly.
You would think EA could afford to spend some of the roughly $1.85B they make in gross profit for the benefit of their hard working employees.
-TPP
