Software engineers have won a $14.9 million settlement from Electronic Arts, in a settlement of a California class-action lawsuit over unpaid overtime, following a similar $15.6 million settlement reached in October with graphic artists.
As far as I'm aware, this is the end of the class action lawsuits against EA for unpaid overtime. Which leaves me wondering who are protecting the designers in all of this? Unpaid overtime is nothing new to the industry - more of a standard than I really wish it was. I worked 50 some days straight on a project before with no compensation what so ever besides keeping my job. And companies wonder why people leave so much and the lifespan of a designer is so short (5 years i think?). I've yet to figure out where designers go to die aside from being producers. As I get older I think more about job security than ever before, leaving on time (8 hour day) is looked down upon and there are 3 or 4 kids fresh out of school lining up to take my job who will work more hours, work for less and complain less. The industry needs to change and hopefully I'll still be in it to see it happen.
On another note, Nintendo changed the name from Revolution to Wii. My knee jerk reaction is that everything Nintendo has been trying to accomplish with the DS Lite and the Revo controller - making games more massmarket and appealing has been completely eradicated with this name. Only time will tell and maybe it will be like the Palm Pilot - which is no longer called that, has been just Palm for over 10 years now but people still know it as that name.
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