Electronic Arts

You can work on many video games you can name, and moving from studio to studio is of moderate difficulty.

Vacation policy is above average.

Stock options are a nice perk.

Amazingly passionate and brilliant talent.

Learn domain knowledge that is rarely found in other industries.

Good parties when your game succeeds.

• Bottom-line driven development: EA senior leadership cares only about appeasing shareholders at any expense, including overruling the experts they employ on creative/technical/morale impactful decisions. This often results in an overall long-term loss for short-term gains.

• Crunch time is unhealthy; 100-hour weeks are common for six months at a time during gold-master/crunch.

• Review process is a dog-and-pony show: promotions with no merit increases, RIFs (reduction in force) during executive bonuses, and a consistent but tiny annual bonus are commonplace, save upper-middle management or higher.

You attract some of the most talented and passionate people in the world, and have the ability to acquire/develop virtually any IP. Leverage these tools to RETAIN and better manage your talent. Lessen middle-management and employ fewer, higher-quality managers.

Listen to the people whom you pay for input when you ask them for input more often than you do currently. I can name a few large projects that failed due to smart people being overruled by executives, who years later were proven correct, and said executives were removed for ineptitude.

Reward the little/front-line people more and the management less. Managers don't create video games; they enable the creation of video games.