As anyone who has done a serious IT job will tell you, it can constitute a great amount of work. Developers often have to work to extremely tight deadlines, and support staff have to often make themselves available on-call during anti-social and difficult hours. But sometimes an employer can go too far.
Working for a games company always looked like a cool job to me, especially in games development. For some reason, the job conjures up a picture of sloppy young people turning up to work in jeans and t-shirts, drinking coke and eating pizza, and having fun coding and testing games. A relaxed, fun atmosphere is what one would probably expect to find at a modern games development shop. Well, if you thought that then apparently you were dead wrong.
"To Joe Straitiff, it was clear that video game giant Electronic Arts expected its employees to more or less live at the office... His manager hung a neon sign that said 'Open 7 days' and constantly sent out e-mails to his whole team, saying that he'd see them over the weekend."
Speaking out on his experiences working for EA, Joe Straitiff says he was terminated from his role partly due to his refusal to put in 80-hour weeks for months on end. Apparently these hours were worked without overtime wages (it has been claimed) and the company are currently being sued on that matter. EA declined to comment.