Idiot(s) of the Day/Week/Month

Actors Weigh Strike Over Video Game Voices

Yet another in a long series of pointless strikes. I think this one would be even lamer than striking over having to pay for healthcare.

I agree with Fargo. On the one hand, you have a group that contributes 99% of the product, works 90 hours a week (no exageration) for years to finish said product, gets paid sub-standard wages for their skill set, and are treated like sweatshop workers, and on the other hand, you have a group that contributes 1% of the product, works just a couple days, and is paid $273 an hour. So who's thinking of striking, demanding a share of the profits? The latter group! That makes perfect sense.

Y'know, I think my purpose in life is to form the first-ever white-collar software programmer's union. Then we can make the same demands as other unions, like free health insurance, yearly increases to the already-high minimum wage, and double overtime for working more than 8 hours.

As examples of the poor conditions video game makers work under, a group of former EA employees are suing EA for not paying overtime, even if their hours doubled a normal working week. EA claims that they don't have to pay overtime, under a California law that exempts businesses from paying overtime to certain "specialty" employees. However, that same law states that the entertainment industry, specifically mentioning film, theater, and television, does not fall under that "specialty" category.

In other news, Ubisoft sued a group of its former employees for leaving Ubisoft's Canadian division to work for EA Montreal. This violates the non-competition clause of their contract, which forbids employees from working at any video game developer within a year after working for Ubisoft.

So essentially the publishers can force you to work obscene hours for little pay, but you can't quit to work for another game developer. Sounds fair. For them.

Oh yeah, my sources:
http://goty.gamespy.com/2004/news/
http://www.gamespot.com/gamecube/action/splintercell/news_6076727.html

This is also an interesting discussion:
http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.php?postid=70676