It seems so long ago that a humble Livejournal post riled up a storm of controversy over EA's labor practices. Deception, exploitation, families rent asunder—EA was painted as the whip-cracking, slave-driving villain, and apparently justifiably so. Today it was reported that EA has settled a lawsuit with one group of its irate employees. EA will grant a sum of $15.6M, plus a one-time stock payout, to approximately 200 of its California employees working as entry level "animators, modelers, texture artists, lighters, background effects artists, and environmental artists." The plaintiffs will then be reclassified as hourly employees, eligible for overtime pay. However, this leaves a few threads dangling: for one, this only addresses artists. What about junior designers and coders? A lawsuit is still in progress regarding the programmers at EA, but will they fare as well? Also, this settlement only addresses California operations: what about EA's strongholds in Canada, or their new Tiburon location in Florida? Finally, analysts predict that this could in fact worsen the actual work conditions of the newly-hourly artists at EA, upping the likelihood of their being axed if productivity drops and opening them up to more demanding quota-based expectations. "Think of it more like a factory worker," said financial analyst Michael Pachter. "The assembly line just sped up." "EA Games! Quicker! Shoddier! More profit-focused!" You guys can just replace your "Challenge Everything" line with that if you want. Free of charge. Take a look at EA's new logo: :shock: