NO SUBS!!!!

[gobulls]

^^ see ya

[Matt]

^I believe you have to switch control, since I have never tried to sub for the cpu

Looks like i'm staying with 06 then, unless EA offers a fix, which i highly doubt.

[Rodman ™]

Oh no No sub and no sideline No no no....

[SHEED36]

Try 12 minutes in Superstar
They might sub more with this time

[spreeul8r]

funk99, pretty agreed with u!

U think i should make a topic called "EA Canada, Becoming a Joke?" No offense to canadians just to the people who work in EA Canada on Nba Live

I hear people at EA in Canada work 90hrs a week. It was a hot topic a few years back. I have a friend who almost got a co-op job at EA, but now he's glab he didn't get the job.

maybe that's why there are so many bugs, the guys at EA are pissed and need sleep.

I saw this story over on the fight night boards:

-------------

this is old news but it shed alot of light onto what it is like working for EA sports and why there games are suffering lately. make sure to read both articles and you will get the whole picture. if EA was not wrong then why did they settle for so much and those lawsuits. its there past actions that are catching up to there games now.


wow this cleared alot of things up for me when it comes to this years madden and EA sports. job. defend this.


EA: The Human Story
My significant other works for Electronic Arts, and I'm what you might call a disgruntled spouse.

EA's bright and shiny new corporate trademark is "Challenge Everything." Where this applies is not exactly clear. Churning out one licensed football game after another doesn't sound like challenging much of anything to me; it sounds like a money farm. To any EA executive that happens to read this, I have a good challenge for you: how about safe and sane labor practices for the people on whose backs you walk for your millions?

I am retaining some anonymity here because I have no illusions about what the consequences would be for my family if I was explicit. However, I also feel no impetus to shy away from sharing our story, because I know that it is too common to stick out among those of the thousands of engineers, artists, and designers that EA employs.

Our adventures with Electronic Arts began less than a year ago. The small game studio that my partner worked for collapsed as a result of foul play on the part of a big publisher -- another common story. Electronic Arts offered a job, the salary was right and the benefits were good, so my SO took it. I remember that they asked him in one of the interviews: "how do you feel about working long hours?" It's just a part of the game industry -- few studios can avoid a crunch as deadlines loom, so we thought nothing of it. When asked for specifics about what "working long hours" meant, the interviewers coughed and glossed on to the next question; now we know why.

Within weeks production had accelerated into a 'mild' crunch: eight hours six days a week. Not bad. Months remained until any real crunch would start, and the team was told that this "pre-crunch" was to prevent a big crunch toward the end; at this point any other need for a crunch seemed unlikely, as the project was dead on schedule. I don't know how many of the developers bought EA's explanation for the extended hours; we were new and naive so we did. The producers even set a deadline; they gave a specific date for the end of the crunch, which was still months away from the title's shipping date, so it seemed safe. That date came and went. And went, and went. When the next news came it was not about a reprieve; it was another acceleration: twelve hours six days a week, 9am to 10pm.

Weeks passed. Again the producers had given a termination date on this crunch that again they failed. Throughout this period the project remained on schedule. The long hours started to take its toll on the team; people grew irritable and some started to get ill. People dropped out in droves for a couple of days at a time, but then the team seemed to reach equilibrium again and they plowed ahead. The managers stopped even talking about a day when the hours would go back to normal.

Now, it seems, is the "real" crunch, the one that the producers of this title so wisely prepared their team for by running them into the ground ahead of time. The current mandatory hours are 9am to 10pm -- seven days a week -- with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30pm). This averages out to an eighty-five hour work week. Complaints that these once more extended hours combined with the team's existing fatigue would result in a greater number of mistakes made and an even greater amount of wasted energy were ignored.

The stress is taking its toll. After a certain number of hours spent working the eyes start to lose focus; after a certain number of weeks with only one day off fatigue starts to accrue and accumulate exponentially. There is a reason why there are two days in a weekend -- bad things happen to one's physical, emotional, and mental health if these days are cut short. The team is rapidly beginning to introduce as many flaws as they are removing.

And the kicker: for the honor of this treatment EA salaried employees receive:

no overtime;
no compensation time! ('comp' time is the equalization of time off for overtime -- any hours spent during a crunch accrue into days off after the product has shipped);
no additional sick or vacation leave. The time just goes away.
Additionally, EA recently announced that, although in the past they have offered essentially a type of comp time in the form of a few weeks off at the end of a project, they no longer wish to do this, and employees shouldn't expect it. Further, since the production of various games is scattered, there was a concern on the part of the employees that developers would leave one crunch only to join another. EA's response was that they would attempt to minimize this, but would make no guarantees. This is unthinkable; they are pushing the team to individual physical health limits, and literally giving them nothing for it.

Comp time is a staple in this industry, but EA as a corporation wishes to "minimize" this reprieve. One would think that the proper way to minimize comp time is to avoid crunch, but this brutal crunch has been on for months, and nary a whisper about any compensation leave, nor indeed of any end of this treatment.

This crunch also differs from crunch time in a smaller studio in that it was not an emergency effort to save a project from failure. Every step of the way, the project remained on schedule. Crunching neither accelerated this nor slowed it down; its effect on the actual product was not measurable. The extended hours were deliberate and planned; the management knew what they were doing as they did it. The love of my life comes home late at night complaining of a headache that will not go away and a chronically upset stomach, and my happy supportive smile is running out.

No one works in the game industry unless they love what they do. No one on that team is interested in producing an inferior product. My heart bleeds for this team precisely BECAUSE they are brilliant, talented individuals out to create something great. They are and were more than willing to work hard for the success of the title. But that good will has only been met with abuse. Amazingly, Electronic Arts was listed #91 on Fortune Magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For" in 2003.

EA's attitude toward this -- which is actually a part of company policy, it now appears -- has been (in an anonymous quotation that I've heard repeated by multiple managers), "If they don't like it, they can work someplace else."

Put up or shut up and leave: this is the core of EA's Human Resources policy. The concept of ethics or compassion or even intelligence with regard to getting the most out of one's workforce never enters the equation: if they don't want to sacrifice their lives and their health and their talent so that a multibillion dollar corporation can continue its Godzilla- stomp through the game industry, they can work someplace else.

But can they?

The EA Mambo, paired with other giants such as Vivendi, Sony, and Microsoft, is rapidly either crushing or absorbing the vast majority of the business in game development. A few standalone studios that made their fortunes in previous eras -- Blizzard, Bioware, and Id come to mind -- manage to still survive, but 2004 saw the collapse of dozens of small game studios, no longer able to acquire contracts in the face of rapid and massive consolidation of game publishing companies. This is an epidemic hardly unfamiliar to anyone working in the industry. Though, of course, it is always the option of talent to go outside the industry, perhaps venturing into the booming commercial software development arena. (Read my tired attempt at sarcasm.)

To put some of this in perspective, I myself consider some figures. If EA truly believes that it needs to push its employees this hard -- I actually believe that they don't, and that it is a skewed operations perspective alone that results in the severity of their crunching, coupled with a certain expected amount of the inefficiency involved in running an enterprise as large as theirs -- the solution therefore should be to hire more engineers, or artists, or designers, as the case may be. Never should it be an option to punish one's workforce with ninety hour weeks; in any other industry the company in question would find itself sued out of business so fast its stock wouldn't even have time to tank. In its first weekend, Madden 2005 grossed $65 million. EA's annual revenue is approximately $2.5 billion. This company is not strapped for cash; their labor practices are inexcusable.

The interesting thing about this is an assumption that most of the employees seem to be operating under. Whenever the subject of hours come up, inevitably, it seems, someone mentions 'exemption'. They refer to a California law that supposedly exempts businesses from having to pay overtime to certain 'specialty' employees, including software programmers. This is Senate Bill 88. However, Senate Bill 88 specifically does not apply to the entertainment industry -- television, motion picture, and theater industries are specifically mentioned.

Further, even in software, there is a pay minimum on the exemption: those exempt must be paid at least $90,000 annually. I can assure you that the majority of EA employees are in fact not in this pay bracket; ergo, these practices are not only unethical, they are illegal.

I look at our situation and I ask 'us': why do you stay? And the answer is that in all likelihood we won't; and in all likelihood if we had known that this would be the result of working for EA, we would have stayed far away in the first place.

But all along the way there were deceptions, there were promises, there were assurances -- there was a big fancy office building with an expensive fish tank -- all of which in the end look like an elaborate scheme to keep a crop of employees on the project just long enough to get it shipped. And then if they need to, they hire in a new batch, fresh and ready to hear more promises that will not be kept; EA's turnover rate in engineering is approximately 50%.

This is how EA works.

So now we know, now we can move on, right? That seems to be what happens to everyone else. But it's not enough. Because in the end, regardless of what happens with our particular situation, this kind of "business" isn't right, and people need to know about it, which is why I write this today.

If I could get EA CEO Larry Probst on the phone, there are a few things I would ask him. "What's your salary?" would be merely a point of curiosity.

The main thing I want to know is, Larry: you do realize what you're doing to your people, right? And you do realize that they ARE people, with physical limits, emotional lives, and families, right? Voices and talents and senses of humor and all that? That when you keep our husbands and wives and children in the office for ninety hours a week, sending them home exhausted and numb and frustrated with their lives, it's not just them you're hurting, but everyone around them, everyone who loves them? When you make your profit calculations and your cost analyses, you know that a great measure of that cost is being paid in raw human dignity, right?



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majesty95
collection | wishlist
Posts: 96
Registered: Jul '05
Date Posted: 9/17 6:12pm Subject: RE: Why EA is struggling...
this is the followup taken from a gamespot article. how can anyone support this company after reading these articles. i used to love EA but i cant support them after reading about this. it once and for all shows us EA is more corporate then other gaming companies and dont care for there gamers or workers.


EA settles OT dispute, disgruntled "spouse" outed
Publisher will pay $14.9 million to programmers for overdue overtime; identity of blogging "EA spouse" that brought matter to attention revealed.By Tim

Surette, GameSpot
Posted Apr 26, 2006 10:57 am PT

In late 2004, Electronic Arts was tainted by the public revelation of a class- action lawsuit that asked for unpaid overtime to "a good number" of EA employees. The suit contended that several EA employees were not paid properly for long work hours--EA claimed they were exempt.

Jaime Kirschenbaum vs. Electronic Arts was filed earlier that year on behalf of many of the company's graphic artists. Kirschenbaum was, at the time, a member of The Sims 2 team. The suit was settled last year for $15.6 million.

The matter really came to the forefront of the media when a blog post by someone who claimed to be the spouse of an EA employee ripped into EA for unfairly treating its workers. The blogger compared working at EA to being incarcerated, making note of time "off for good behavior" and describing a typical workweek as stretching from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m, Monday through Saturday.

Though the blog post had no legal firepower behind it, its description of an EA widow hit the heartstrings of fellow "EA spouses" and employees. The words were simply a personal account of what one person was going through, but they rallied a movement among employees against EA, which the blogger described as a "money factory."

A few months later, a second lawsuit against EA came to light representing EA's engineers and programmers, also seeking unpaid overtime wages. The lawsuit was brought on by Leander Hasty, an engineer from EALA who claimed that he and fellow workers "do not perform work that is original or creative and have no management responsibilities and are seldom allowed to use their own judgment." In short, Hasty claimed he and others were simply part of an assembly line.

Today, EA is settling Hasty's suit to the tune of $14.9 million, which will be divided among "former and current [EA] computer programmers." In addition, EA is reclassifying nearly 200 positions as eligible for overtime pay-- however, they will no longer be given stock options.

The proximity in timing of the suit's filing and the blog post are more than simple coincidence. In the wake of the settlement of the EA engineers' class-action lawsuit, the San Jose Mercury News today revealed the identity of the "EA spouse" that helped EA employees bring their matter to the courts. Mercury reporter Nicole Wong posted an interview with Erin Hoffman, who, until today, had remained anonymous. Hoffman is the formerly disgruntled and current spouse of Hasty, the first plaintiff in the EA engineers' class-action lawsuit.

Hasty resigned shortly after his contract with EA expired, and he and Hoffman moved to Troy, New York, where they both work at independent developer 1st Playable Productions. Hoffman has since started the Web site GameWatch.org, a forum where game-industry workers can openly discuss their employers' operations.

Though Hoffman and Hasty had their differences with EA's policies, one company edict wasn't ignored-- EA's old motto of "Challenge Everything."

[Fenix]

They should obviously work even longer. They're bloody incompetent.

[D_up]

Can anyone confirm whether or not the substitution problem is present in the console versions of the game?

If it's truly as bad as it sounds I might have to give LIVE 07 a quick rent before deciding if I should toss out the money to buy it...

[-Young Buck-]

i just started a dynasty, even set my players playing time. Played 1 quarter and the only person to sub out was bogut, who had 2 fouls. Dale Davis of the pistons had no energy when Rip was shooting a couple free throws, had a chance to be subbed out and nope. Looks like it effects dynasty too.

FINALLY SOMEBODY THAT ANSWERS THE QUESTION THAT HAS BEEN ASKED REPEATEDLY.

1. Ok heres another question.....is this problem fixable via a patch?
2. What kind of effect does no-subs have on the game.

1. I dont know.
2. Well this makes the game unrealistic. And if one of your stars happen to come out of the game, he may never come back. I had my backup PG come in early 2nd quarter. Then after halftime my backup pg was still in, not until the 4th did my starting pg come back. In another game Gasol went out and when his energy was full, he never came back in.

[SHEED36]

Did you try 12 minutes?
Maybe there're some field in team.dbt whose set this subs time

[Matt]

They should obviously work even longer. They're bloody incompetent.

time constraints & a budget.

[cyanide]

I don't think everyone likes to play on 12 minute quarters. I know I don't because I don't have the time and 12 minutes produces unrealistic numbers. Regardless, it's a bug if it doesn't work properly in shorter quarters when it did in previous years.

[SHEED36]

I don't think everyone likes to play on 12 minute quarters. I know I don't because I don't have the time and 12 minutes produces unrealistic numbers. Regardless, it's a bug if it doesn't work properly in shorter quarters when it did in previous years.

12 min is too much for everyone but if cpu's subs system is set up in team.dbf or other database it's would be easy to fix.
did you understand me?

[cyanide]

^ I think I understand you now. Hopefully someone can check that and try it out.

[lyk13]

I had substitution set to 50. I play 12min games. The most recent game that I played have my center being subbed out once my starter is in foul trouble. The game subs him out whenever he is in foul trouble and at the very end, I only activated 6 players. The rest never made it out. I only manually sub the foul trouble center in the 3rd quarter but went out soon again...

[ignatu]

If people are working those types of hours, it isn't hard to understand why simple bugs like no subs get into the game and get through testing. When people push too long and too hard, they make mistakes.

[mp3]

Yeah I dont usually like to get worked up about stuff I read until I actually try the game, but the CPU not making Subs is a pathetic bug that should never happen, I would like to know what the testers were doing while they were meant to be testing the game.

Looks like ill only be doing 4th quarter sim intervenes then.

But surely a bug of this magnitued will warrant a quick fix patch to be released....

Then thats the ps2/xbox users fucked then, sorry if somebody has already posted this but are all these problem on the ps2 version? most of the threads ive read today have been about the pc game.

[Jugs]

EA sounds like a dictatorship.

[dedoem]

i just hope that this no subs thing is in fact just a little mistake made by programmers. maybe there's just a one line in code stated 0 instead of 1 that turned off the substitutions caused by fatigue because it just looks like that. And if that's the case, making the patch isn't a problem.

[mp3]

If that is the case then what would ps2 and xbox users do?

Id have no problem if the release date here in the uk got put back a couple of weeks if it ment that the bugs were fixed.

[D_up]

You know what just occured to me... Maybe the reason why the PS2 version seems to have been delayed is that EA is taking the time to fix these problems for the PS2/Xbox/Current Gen version...

[joejam999]

i just hope that this no subs thing is in fact just a little mistake made by programmers. maybe there's just a one line in code stated 0 instead of 1 that turned off the substitutions caused by fatigue because it just looks like that. And if that's the case, making the patch isn't a problem.

Good point. Some people might brush it off but remember in Live 2003 Arcade mode was really Simulation? So you had to select Arcade then just set all the rules. I might be wrong I just thought I heard that when the Live 2003 patch was released.

If that is the case then what would ps2 and xbox users do?

They are screwed because you cant mod them.

[GP20]

Guys pls answer this question : If you simulate the game, (playing only the 4th quarter, for example), you will see some stats for the players in the bench? i mean, simulating they get to play?

[The Hitman]

If anyone out there has an Xbox 360, purchase 2K7. I got 2K7 on 360 because the last two years I got EA Live 05 and 06 on PS2 and then traded it in for the 2K series both years. This year I bought the 2K first and I don't see any problems yet, except for the fact that the pg holds on to the ball or continues to dribble if you don't guard him. Once you begin to guard him he'll pass, dribble, or penetrate. Another problem is that you'll get miss-matches sometimes as you pf will be stuck guarding the pg, but in a real life game your not going to leave the player with the ball to go and guard the man your supposed to be guarding, so I don't have a problem with this. If your loyal to EA, get it on PC. Andrew is great, and he will most likely find a way to fix the bugs Live has.

[Stonecold]

why wold anyone let canadian make the NBA live game? Why not some damn american company. I hope Canadian know how to play basketball not just hockey.

[Voxel]

don't make it a canada vs usa debate, it's pointless and beeing ignorant.

the best soccer game (WE series) is made in japan and although in real life it's a somewhat popular sport over there, they are hardly a powerhouse whatsoever. that doesn't keep capable programmers from releasing a top-notch game.