Talk:Electronic Arts

Employment policy

"Electronic Arts has from time to time been criticised for its employment policy of requiring employees to work extraordinarily long hours—up to 85 hours per week—as a general rule and not at just "crunch" times leading up to the scheduled releases of products. "The current mandatory hours are 9am to 10pm—seven days a week—with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30pm"

As far as I know, this isn't official "employment policy". The "general rule" is asserted by the EA_Spouse site who certainly isn't NPOV. If this entry is kept, it should perhaps also imply that most gaming companies have difficult crunch times. Something like: "Electronic Arts, along with most other game companies, has from time to time been criticized..."

Some analysts, however, view this as industry (rather than company) practice. Anonymous User

EA Spouse is completely false information. Full stop. New sources or delete all things referencing that site. I'm an EA employee and I'm doing 37.5 hours a week with optional paid overtime (including free meal vouchers at their gourmet cafeteria if you're staying late), 5 days a week. They're about the most lenient country I've ever worked for and they need some sticking up for. Zeekthegeek

EA is a complete country? When did that happen??

My friend worked for EA and he pretty much confirmed everything that the EA spouse blog said. He got burned out in under six months of 60-80 hour weeks and left the game industry completely. I've heard different things from other studios, however. He worked at the main LA studio. Things may be different in some other locations, such as FL and Canada. — Frecklefoot | Talk 18:33, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

POV edit

An anon user added this section:

The Boycott Movement

Recent events regarding EA's purchases, have spurned the ardent gaming community into disgust. These actions combined with the recent "ea_spouse" [1] accusations of overtime and "crunch" time without compensation and overtime as well as EA's acqusition of Westwood studioes, the 15-year NFL and ESPN deal, the hostile bid of Ubisoft France, and the recent investment into the DICE (Battlefield 2) group, have lead to gamers forming an alliance that would like make EA see the error of the ways. This they hope to achieve in the capitalist USA buy refusing to buy all EA products regardless of system, in hopes of EA backing of and seeing the lack of ethics in their recent actions.

---

While it has useful content, it is hopelessly POV and has some duplicated content, so I moved it here. I don't have the bandwidth to NPOV it, but if someone else wants to, be my guest. Afterwards you can put it back in the article. — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:15, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

I have added some more items to the criticism section, including the shutdown of some studios and the Ubisoft deal and mentioned that some people are boycotting EA in a single sentence. I think that that should cover the essence of what was in the edit. TerokNor 16:33, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

EA acquisitions

Can we get a list of developing companies that were bought out by EA?

I think we have it, check the Studios section. If anything is missing, feel free to add it. TerokNor 18:36, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Notable games published by EA

I disagree with the idea of listing in this section games that were not originally published by EA (at this point, Populous, SimCity, and C&C). As they were originally published by other publishers later acquired by EA, while their rights are owned by EA they are not actual EA games. (Rather, they are, respectively, Bullfrog, Maxis, and Westwood games.)

I'm not going to delist them, but I felt that Something Needed To Be Said. --coldacid 01:58, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

Populous was published by EA. And to be pedantic, C&C would be a Virgin Interactive game (going by publisher). Otherwise, I agree with you. TerokNor 10:17, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, that's enough, in my opinion, to delist C&C, certainly. I'm pretty certain that Maxis self-published during its indie days... Not completely sure, though. What say ye? --coldacid 18:53, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

It's important to understand the difference between developer and publisher. EA published some of those games, but they were developed by the developers you mention. — Frecklefoot | Talk 18:41, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

Seems that one of them was published by EA. And trust me, I understand the difference between developer and publisher all too well. --coldacid 18:53, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

I've changed the list to mention when EA took over C&C and SimCity and that other publishers released the earlier titles. TerokNor 16:19, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

   Wouldn't the correct solution be to list all the games they've published *and* who developed them?

thats not the point that is trying to be made, which is, that C&C, SimCity, ect, we orginally published by companies other than EA, who later bought out those compainys, or the developer.

Rewrite

I have several comments and questions on the rewrite:

• First off, why is it being rewritten? Was the previous version really that bad? Wouldn't a touch-up be more appropriate if there were little things wrong?
• Second, the first edit of the "rewrite" just omitted several entries in the standardized infobox. How in the world is that an improvement?
• Third, the first sentence of the rewrite totally goes against wikipedia style. Articles, if at all possible, should start with A is a B. The previous version did that, the new version doesn't. It says what EA does instead of what it is.
• Fourth, the rewite re-wikilinks terms over and over, terms that have already been wikilinked before. E.g. USD is re-wikilinked several times. Once is enough (and it's in the wrong place—USD$1000 is the correct way). After the monetary units are established, you don't need to keep repeating it (e.g. "I started with USD$1000 and ended up with $5000.").

I'll refrain from reverting the edit in order to give you time to fix the errors and answer the above questions. While some of the edits added to the quality of the article, many didn't. Some of the previous entry were better (IMHO). Do you or anyone else disagree? Let's discuss! :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 00:18, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

1. The article's desperate cries for a rewrite are quite loud. The article is barely organized and much content is redundant. The History paragraph I rewrote was not fluid.
2. Your second point is nonsensical.
3. Your third point is false, although debatable. Define "is".
4. "USD" and like-acronyms can be wikilinked as many times as necessary. In addition, your so-called "correct way" is improper and not widely accepted on Wikipedia.

Adraeus 00:29, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I'll admit I came across as a bit hot-headed. I apologize. I originated most of this article and sometimes I take a "rewrite" as a personal attack. Let me respond in a civil fashion. :-)

• "The article's desperate cries for a rewrite are quite loud." I haven't seen any discussion on this page stating a rewrite is necessary. The additional information you added is great, however. My opinion:
  • The whole "Upcoming games published by EA" can either be deleted or moved down. Pretty useless section--wait until games are actually released, I say.
  • There probably is redundant information in the History section. Trimming would be appreciated, as long as it makes the section clearer. It could also probably use sub-sections to break up the long narrative.
• "Your second point is nonsensical." I don't know why you didn't understand my comment here. The company infobox has a "products" entry. You omitted all the entries for the parameter. It could've been trimmed, I agree, but all the entries didn't need to be removed.
• Third, I guess this is personal bias, but I take it from the guide to writing better. It suggests using the A is a B style (e.g. Electronic Arts is a video game developer and publisher). I personally find it clearer. But I agree that there may be several legitimate articles that don't use that format. But this point is moot since I see you've modified the wording to this format...
• When I was a newbie on Wikipedia, I had a penchant for wikifying terms over and over and got yelled at for it. I came to see the error of my ways and try to discourage others from making the same mistakes I did. The re-wikifying you did wasn't that bad, but, really, once a term has been wikilinked, it doesn't need to be re-wikilinked, especially in the same paragraph. Further down in the article, it would be perfectly fine. As for where the "USD" goes, I've seen it both ways (e.g. USD$100 and $100 USD). I guess it comes down to personal taste and who's to say my taste is preferable to yours? If Wikipedia has a style guideline for this, I'd like to see it.

Anyway, that's my $.02. I hope I was clearer this time. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 02:40, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

• I agree that the Upcoming games published by EA can be deleted. Games not yet published, and certainly games without substantial history, are not valid subjects for encyclopedic inclusion. Over time, many editors on Wikipedia have apparently forgotten what an encyclopedia actually documents.
• The History section does necessitate trimming. I've started doing so. The long list of early employees was mostly unencyclopedic. Those early employees with an existing history documented on Wikipedia retained mention.
• Since I am the original designer of the Template:Infobox Company, I do think I have some say regarding the direction in which the infobox is to lead. For companies with an extensive portfolio of products, only the most prominent products should be listed in the infobox. A link to the section of the article, as demonstrated in the syntax at Template_talk:Infobox Company, is then suggested to provide readers a complete overview of a company's offering. Yes, I removed the products listed, but this is wiki, and so, such removals are nonpermanent.
• I changed the wording simply to appease your preference. I didn't feel like indexing all the company articles that do not follow this so-called standard format. I also don't like the A is B format because it's unimaginative. If the decisions we make in our lives, define us, then the behavior of a company also defines the organization.
• I requested a bot to perform duplicate link removal several days ago. I also requested the feature from several developers of other wiki applications for their software which they implemented. I know what's you're talking about, and I appreciate the single-link-once approach, but I don't think that approach should apply to acronyms that are used as part of a syntax (e.g., USD). In regards to the position of "USD", the Company Infobox Template uses that format that I have used, and since the template is used on more than 1,000 company articles, I think the template has established the standard.

Adraeus 03:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

My two cents: Just saw this, and I agree that the history section had become a "begat" list that was not encyclopedic, but in making the cuts we lost the names of several people who played a big role in EA getting established. So I'd recommend a little research and middle ground. Coll7 03:34, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

industry

Adraeus mentioned that "interactive entertainment" is a designation used to describe EA's industry, but the link in the data box currently points to the main article Computer and video game industry instead. Should "Computer and video game industry" be renamed "interactive entertainment", or should there be a new page on "interactive entertainment"? Some observations: Activision and THQ use the term "interactive entertainment software", while EA uses "interactive software games" in their annual report. Shawnc 21:52, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm a contributing member of the International Game Developers Association and an industry insider. Interactive entertainment is the formal phrase for the games industry, which is generally used to reference the computer and video game industry. The latter phrase appears to be a dumbed down "popular" creation by those not-in-the-know here in Wikipedia. Since Wikipedia does provide formal encyclopedic content, the formal name should be used. I support renaming computer and video game industry to interactive entertainment. Adraeus 21:36, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia should use standard terminology and not silly euphemisms invented by PR types. Mirror Vax 22:41, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

"Interactive entertainment" is standard terminology. And please cut the pseudo-intellectual remarks from your future replies. You have no idea what you're babbling about. Adraeus 06:30, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

"Interactive entertainment" is an industry PR flack term. It's not a term used by real people. "I'm off to play some interactive entertainments" is not a sentence that has ever been uttered in the history of video games. Mirror Vax 08:32, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

History of EA?

I'd like to see more of the history of EA - in particular, what happened in the 1990-1994 time span when Trip Hawkins left, EA reincorporated in Delaware, and started to change into what many consider to be an evil nasty corporation. --moof 06:25, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Also, I don't understand from the article how EA went from being a game publisher to a game developer. The way I understand it, EA used to publish games for developers, now it seems that games they develope are made in-house by "mindless drones" of the EA corporation. Is this correct? If so, when did the company switch models?

Non-game titles?

There is no sign of Deluxe Paint which was published by EA for Amiga in 1994. I cannot think of anymore... anyone?

Notable games, Eras

What exactly do "early" and "contemporary" refer to? Shawnc 18:15, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

"First half" and "second half", respectively? I don't know, I'll remove them and see if anyone objects... --Tifego 08:31, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

PS2 Online Gameplay

I am correct in thinking that EA have a charge for playing games online on PS2? I'm taking this from the article which gives this impression but isn't entirely clear as it says: "could not charge a monthly fee for every game as they could on the PS2". Just because they could doesn't mean they do. Do they? - ^Red_Hot 13:43, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

No this is not true. There is sponsorship from ESPN which you can opt out of by paying a small fee of a few $, but you do not have to pay to go online. --VanBot 18:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

antoher criticism section?(sp?)

I am of the opinion that the criticism area should have a section for EA fairly common tactice of forcing their developers to rush they're products out to meet harsh deadlines, i don't have figures, but it is widely accepted that games like battlefield 2 among others are realesed relatively incomplete, very buggy, and poorly streamlined( e.i. resorce hogs)

Pure Evil

EA Tiburon is pure evil to work for. Ridiculous hours, a culture that says weekends and home life are for losers, and sick workaholic supervisors who can't stand to see anyone leave work until it's dark outside, whether there's a deadline or not.

If you do get a job offer, read that letter very carefully, and have it reviewed by an honest-to-god attorney. It's a lot harder to do anything about their 'employment agreement' after EA has shafted you, and they will stick it to you for every inch that they feel they can get away with. When in doubt, just say "no" to employment with EA. They are inhumane.

Well, I'd like to temper that. I can't speak for EA Tiburon or other studios, but I've been working at EA Montreal for a year and a half, and to me, life just doesn't get any better than that. We do have long hours at times - although many people do manage to go home at 5 every day to see their family, and to have all their week ends off, by playing less games on the job and getting things done faster. Except maybe in the 2 or so weeks leading to E3 or major releases. The people are fantastic and I've been learning MASSIVE amounts of stuff in so little time, the pay is good, the technology is great, and we're excited by what we're working on. So I'm sorry if life is that bad at EA Tiburon, but I guess every EA studio isn't the same. Please don't generalize. 24.201.195.200 05:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Correction regarding Special Forces Unlocks

The statement, "These weapons are only available to players who have played Special Forces, generally meaning that players have to buy the Special Forces add-on to access them." is incorrect. The same unlocks are available to any player that installs the free patch. The difference is that players who have logged at least one second in a Special Forces ranked game receive two unlock credits per promotion instead of one.

Criticisms

As much as I agree with and am aware of everything mentioned in the criticisms section, none of it cites sources. If there are documented criticisms out there, please put them in, but for now, the criticisms section can easily be refuted on grouds of lack of research. --Thaddius 13:26, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. And I think it smacks of non-neutral POV. I'll tag it maybe... Romansanders 21:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

agree criticisms needs some work. I know for a fact they don't require overtime except in crunch times and the regular hours are a mere 9-5:30, seeing as how I'm typing this from an EA thin client in the quality assurance department :) And all overtime that I know of is paid...if it ever was true, the criticism about these things is now historical, and should be stated as such in the article 159.153.138.70

I believe this is an important criticism, pretty recent also- sorry but I'm not very good with editing and citing sources. EA's actions with microtransactions in XBOX Live. They have begun charging for Tutorials (which they call "Video Strategy Guides") in Madden 07' and NCAA 07', a feature which used to be included in previous iterations of the game.- http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/ea/ea-starts-selling-tutorials-210018.php

Also, in The GodFather, you can buy- using real money- hundreds of thousands of dollars- of in game money in order to purchase better weapons faster. The problem with this is that for the XBOX 360 version of the game, EA removed the cheat code that allowed you to attain this money in the PS2 and XBOX versions.- http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/godfather/exhange-real-money-for-fake-money-in-godfather-360-209718.php

The criticisms are non-neutral POV and should be removed or reworked. if they are to stay they should be included in as a referance and should be counter balanced. --VanBot 18:15, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Dreamcast

Under criticisms shoulden't you state the fact that EA went back on their word and decided not to develop games for it despite saying they would once a million units were sold? --Elven6 00:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but they were only a sidepoint to the death of Sega's consoles... Others were poor marketing, Sony, being too ahead of its time for the idiots to realize Sony was lying, and Sony... - 68.228.33.74 05:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Category to top?

Why did WikiCats move the [[Category:Electronic Arts|*]] to the top of the page? All categories belong at the bottom of the page. I was going to revert it, but thought there might be some wiki-weirdness I'm not familiar with. Anyone? — Frecklefoot | Talk 14:32, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Notable games

This has happened on more articles than I can keep track of. When a list is included for notable programmers, games, etc., people start spamming it by adding their favorite games, people, etc. Now it's happened for the "Notable games published" list. It is meant to be for games that were important in the history of video and/or computer games. Most of the games on the list fit that description. However, Clive Barker's Undying does not, but Havok insists that it is notable enough to be included in the list. Please, let's discuss it here before getting into an edit war. Please address these questions: How did it contribute to game design? How did it alter the face of computer gaming? How many sells did it generate? As far as I know, it was just another EA title. It may have been pretty successful, but that alone does not merit inclusion in the list. Thanks. — Frecklefoot | Talk 23:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Merge?

It has been suggested that Electronic Arts logo be merged with this one. Um, wasn't it originally broken out from this one? — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Why is there a stock quote?

I don't see stock quotes for any other company in Wikipedia, and this isn't a quote site. Is this really necessary, or is it an attempt by EA to flaunt their sadistic marketing schemes?--Katana314 02:04, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Added POV tags 28 December 2006

I agree that some of EA's actions have been dishonourable, but that is no excuse for having a heavily biased article, especially one for an "encyclopedia". The whole article carries a tone of disgust towards EA throughout; on top of that, some of it seems to be the writer's own uncited, unsupported opinions. For example, this quote:

"EA puts up a front of offering support for games. The official company website does have a page in which players can email technical support, but this is like sending a message into a Black Hole."

Pretty catchy simile but has no place in a serious article that's supposed to be neutral.

I hope the writer fixes these things up to maintain the professional feel of Wikipedia. Windows2142 07:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)