News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Zynga: the whole "they treat their employees badly" thing... by jmspring on Thursday August 23, 2012 @12:50AM (#4420951)
Sorry to go against some of those who've already answered, but this account is fairly superficial. An intern is not going to get the full experience of employees at different levels. Further, Zynga has multiple studios, so I suspect one studio may differ from another. Also the "I spoke with a friend @ Facebook and they work more", one subjective data point.

I don't work at Zynga, I've heard stories like others, but you know what, I wouldn't assume anything about them until (if I did) I interviewed with them and inquired about a position I was interested in. In general, gaming studios work more than comparably sized non-gaming businesses.

This particular article/blog has no more merit than the stories of ZOMG ZYNGA IS EVIL AND WORKS THEIR EMPLOYEES TO THE BONE.

My experience in the tech industry is, an employee will have expectations, a company will have expectations. As the employee, it is your job to look out for yourself and make sure that what you are getting into matches what you want. You can easily get sucked into the day to day and forget or not realize what you are giving up, you need to be aware enough to take stock from time to time and ask "is this working for me?"

Just a minor (well major) nit... Quoting someone who says "my job is my social life" -- if most of those hours are in the office working, you need to get out and live a little. Especially if you are an employee and not a founder.

Re:Zynga: the whole "they treat their employees badly" thing... by ccyeh on Thursday August 23, 2012 @01:05AM (#4420999)
Thanks for your opinions, and you're right. If you don't mindlessly absorb news articles, then great! You shouldn't absorb this one either.

Unfortunately lots of people do, so I thought it appropriate to address the other side for very assuming people who absorb one-sided information.

Re:Zynga: the whole "they treat their employees badly" thing... by famousactress on Thursday August 23, 2012 @01:15AM (#4421023)
It's weird to me that "the other side" that anyone might care about is how employees are treated. Frankly, I don't really give a fuck how a bunch of incredibly smart and talented people in an awesome job market are treated. I figure that's their (pretty easy) problem to solve.

If someone wants to write an article about "the other side" then write something about the users for whom Zynga's products are actually providing value as opposed to serving as artless black-holes of attention and creativity.

Re:Zynga: the whole "they treat their employees badly" thing... by ccyeh on Thursday August 23, 2012 @01:22AM (#4421039)
I'm guessing you don't believe in games at all...? I think this would be more of a discussion about whether games are a good thing at all, but that would probably be mostly opinions.
Re:Zynga: the whole "they treat their employees badly" thing... by famousactress on Thursday August 23, 2012 @01:47AM (#4421098)
FUCK NO! Games are amazing. I think play is one of the most fundamentally beautiful ideas in human society, and an art form really ripe and ready for disruption, innovation, and well... play.

I think games have incredible (and untapped!) value, but I don't think Zynga makes games. I think Zynga exploits game mechanics to make products out of people.

Re:Zynga: the whole "they treat their employees badly" thing... by tmurray on Thursday August 23, 2012 @01:28AM (#4421055)
I don't think most people would dispute that games in general are worthwhile, but I think there are also arguments to be made about the quality of what Zynga does.

Obvious example: http://www.bogost.com/blog/cow_clicker_1.shtml

Re:Zynga: the whole "they treat their employees badly" thing... by jmspring on Thursday August 23, 2012 @01:12AM (#4421012)
This is definitely the "other side". Unfortunately the extremes are what make the news. The posting you ref'd felt pretty shallow. So maybe it is good to ref the "otherside" here, but...ug. That was a painful read. :)

Positive or not, this industry can lead one to feeling like they have to give every waking hour to the company. At the end of the day, though, one really should ask "what am I getting in return?"

Balance is key.