We've been playing EA Games practically forever - they're one of the biggest makers of both PC and console games on the market. But it seems all is not well in Redwood City -- and one concerned significant other has had enough. The following went up quietly on LiveJournal, only to be Slashdotted (there's now 533 comments and counting):

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.

It's not working in mines, but between repititive stress, sleep deprivation and isolation from your loved ones, doing anything for twelve hours a day, six days a week can be a form of torture. Because of the fanaticism of gamers, though, companies can simply replace the disgruntled with fresh-faced kids, churning through programmers with no end in sight. The post has been brought to the attention of the International Game Developers Association, and the rules about exemption from overtime pay can be found online.

Money commenters on the post have suggested unionizing or executing a class-action lawsuit, neither of which would make investors or CEO Lawrence Probst, III particularly happy. SFist just wants you game developers, artists and testers out there to know that we support your struggle for humane hours - there's is absolutely nothing cool about working 80-hour weeks for some mega-corp that pays its CEO nearly $1.5 million a year.