developing a game after it goes gold

[drone]

They get put 'on the bench'. That is where developers go after the disc is sent to the pressing factory. 'On the bench' is the industry term for 'inbetween projects or project phases'. Also known as holiday/vacation to normal people.

Developers normally continue to get paid while on the bench, albeit a reduced rate. For this reason they dont hang around for long playing with their finished toy.

The stay on the bench until they get a new SPA from their publisher, or they tout around new ideas/concepts to publishers in the hope of getting an SPA signed.

Surprised they don't call it "at the pub", because that's where I would be if I finished working long hours on a game title. Especially after hearing the horror stories of EA employees.

[fret]

Especially after hearing the horror stories of EA employees.

Are they directly employed by EA, or part of studio hired by EA to develop a title?

If they are part of a studio, there will be good reason for the horror stories: once the release date is agreed, the studio will be bound by the terms of the SPA and if they fail to deliver before deadline, the fines will start racking up, they are not small either, $6-figures plus probably.

..and EA have good reason for fining them, they cant just send a disc to the pressing factory and say 'run of 1,000,000 copies of this please", factory time must be booked - to coincide with the printing of manuals and boxes, warehousing and distribution. To this end, if the studio fail to meet deadline, EA will lose a fortune.

On top of losing a fortune, their marketing engine will be completely mis-timed - once they have sent the advertising Copy to the magazine publishers (maybe 3 months before it hits the shelf), they cant just cancel the contract. So they have magazines all over the world full of $10000 back-page ads...and no product on the shelf to sell. So if the Studio is late, the marketing climax is mis-timed, and revenues drop further.

This begs the question...

If you are the CEO of a game Studio, with 2 months to go before deadline, but 4 months of work left to do, do you...

A) deliver the finsihed product 2 months late and get penalized with $100,000's fines

or B) make all your company work 16 hours a day for two months to get the finished product to the publisher within terms of the SPA

In order to get 1 million cardboard boxes full of bits of plastic and printed paper, to several countires accross 3 or 4 continents, all within a time-fram of say, 1 month, takes an awful lot, and everything is dependant on the Studio delivering the Gold product before deadline.

That's probably the root cause of the horrer stories