EA Spouse
Encyclopedia
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
post originally made on November 11, 2004 to LiveJournal
LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....
that sharply criticized the labor practices of Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
. The term may also refer to the author of the blog, who was initially anonymous.
The author
The author behind the blog was revealed, in 2006, to be Erin Hoffman, then fiancee of Leander Hasty, who was employed at the time by Electronic Arts. She gave the reasons for writing the blog as follows: "We had received so many excuses, and they had done so much overtime and everyone was so tired." Hoffman said before telling her fiance, "I need to write something about this. It's not right."Hoffman's actions have resulted in three class action lawsuits against Electronic Arts and some changes throughout the industry at large, such as reclassification of entry-level artists as hourly employees, thus making them eligible for overtime under California law.
Moreover, Leander Hasty was the main plaintiff in the successful class action suit on behalf of software engineers at Electronic Arts, which awarded the plaintiffs USD
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
$14.9 million for unpaid overtime.
Aftermath
After the entire affair and the court action, Hoffman and Hasty founded GameWatch, a watchdog organization meant to facilitate discussions between employees at different companies.In 2010, she was appointed to the Board of Directors of the International Game Developers Association
International Game Developers Association
International Game Developers Association is the professional society for over 10,000 video and computer game developers worldwide.It is incorporated in the United States as a non-profit organization....
. In June 2011 she published her first novel, Sword of Fire and Sea, ISBN 9781616143732.
From September 2010 until October 2011, Hoffman was a Lead Systems Designer at Zynga
Zynga
Zynga is a social network game developer located in San Francisco, United States. The company develops browser-based games that work both stand-alone and as application widgets on social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace....
.