Report: California Law Strips Overtime from Game Developers

 There is a company where I live that builds Flight Simulators and the only way they can actually get people to come on board is the fact that they pay overtime. (of course it doesnt help that their offer for pay is low as hell and the only way you can make a decent wage is by working over time)

In the AB 10 Assembly Bill ( info.sen.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_0001-0050/ab_10_bill_20080930_chaptered.html ) there are a lot of qualifications one must meet to not receive overtime pay. One of these qualifications is that you make more than $36/hr base hourly wage or $75,000 per year base salary.

This means if you make less than $36 per hour or are on a salary of less than $75k per year you are still eligible for overtime pay.

I remember the original report on this. For those of you wondering what the big deal is, I suggest you look into EA's business practices. It really is a worst case scenario of exploitation.

When a dev has the occasional crunch time, you'll hear little complaining. In EA's case, the crunch was non stop. I believe the problem was a) their need to release a sports title every year from the same franchise, and b) they had a floating pool of manpower that they would throw into teams to help ship the game. This floating pool went from one crunch to another.

There are laws that protect workers from constant 80 hr work weeks. However, their are exemptions, specifically to creative industries. EA settled the case I believe. However, if companies like EA continue to treat their employees like shit, game developers will have to unionize and that's the last thing a big corporation wants.

I'm confused as to what the problem is. As someone in development in a non-gaming environment, no one on salary gets overtime. In fact, not a single one of my friends from college make overtime. That's the nature of development. There's crunch times, and there's also lax times. If you really expect to get paid extra hours in those few crunch dates, are you also willing to relinquish all the hours spent at work that don't amount to a useable product? You work a salary to avoid having your income based on the success or failure of your assigned project. Even within successful companies, most projects get scrapped in the R&D phase. The number of games you see cancled once they've reached PR stages is only a snippet of projects that are shelved indefinitely. This isn't a factory where more time equals more product which equals more money for the company. Plus, with the knowledge that the salary being paid is the guarenteed amount for that employee, you have more confidence to hire more employees without risking going over budget.

Is this legal?  Could have sworn there were federal laws protecting workers.  Its not like the State of California (may their souls burn) is paying the OT. 

EA must be smiling. Although, the article states that the bill went into effect last year.