Ultimately (unless I’m mistaken) EA was forced to pay back pay plus overtime and stopped all crunch for some time. There was a lot of talk of congressional regulation at that time if I remember correctly, too.
From Wikipedia:
“Hoffman's actions, in part, led to the filing of three class action lawsuits against EA and some changes throughout the industry at large, such as the reclassification of entry-level artists as hourly employees, thus making them eligible for overtime under California law.[8] Her fiancé, EA employee Leander Hasty, was the main plaintiff in the successful class-action suit on behalf of software engineers at EA, which in 2007 awarded the plaintiffs $14.9 million for unpaid overtime.[9]”
Her story is part of an ongoing labor movement. People dismissed it back in 2004, but it's led to change. The practices she describes used to be more common, especially in gaming companies.
The change happened because of the labor movement. If you aren't ownership, then you are a worker and you should have solidarity with all the other workers.
So since Riccitiello left?
Edit: there was definitely plenty of overtime though. Just wanted add this to make sure I didn't paint an overly idealistic picture despite my overall positive experience.
tl;dr: Central Team experience at EA is VASTLY different than being on a game team. It's great if you're on a central team at EA, but I'd never work on a game team if I enjoy seeing my family (plus EA pays at least 50% less than similar roles with skills that would still be needed outside of gaming)
I've been at EA for about 1.5 years now and have never enjoyed working somewhere as much as this. Their devotion to D&I, their culture around management (and the thorough training each manager gets), career progression, and feedback, their flexibility for each individual (even given their size), how frequently we actually get to speak with SVP-level leadership to ask questions/voice opinions, their flexibility around WFH, and how everyone is pleasant to work with make it very easy to talk about how nice it is to work at EA. On top of all of that, benefits and pay are competitive (especially benefits).
EA's a big company, and I'm in EADP, which is an org that builds the back-end services for the games, rather than the games. But I've never been asked to work more than 8 hours in a day. Whenever I have chosen to work more, I've been specifically told by my manager or his that it's not required and that I can pick it up again tomorrow. They meant it.
I read this post before joining EA and was somewhat concerned, but was told by people I trust that it no longer applies. From my perspective, they're absolutely right.
As others mentioned, EA has undergone new leadership since this post was written. It was also nearly two decades ago. At this point, it's likely more of a good cautionary tale of how things can get than an accurate rendering of how things are.