C|Net is reporting that Electronic Arts has settled a lawsuit with its game content creators (I suspect it’s more than “graphic artists”; probably includes 3D modelers, skinners, animators, aso – the programmers have their own lawsuit pending). From the C|Net article:

Under the settlement, about 200 entry-level artists will become hourly workers eligible for overtime pay and a one-time grant of restricted EA stock. Those employees would be excluded from bonuses and stock option grants, said Jose Martin, head of human resources for EA’s global studios.

For anyone unfamiliar with this situation, it all started when the wife of an employee blogged about the sweatshop conditions at EA; how her husband was working non-stop and missing family functions, aso. And all this in the wonderful U.S. of A where “sweatshops” don’t exist – let alone in the glamorous tech industry around Silicon Valley. That spark ignited a chain reaction across the net with more and more people chiming in about conditions both at EA and other developers. Salaried workers who are exempt from overtime laws were getting royally screwed and seeing little or no return for their efforts (besides having a job).

So they’re gonna give up those big stock option grants? Like any of that would have paid them for all the time they put in. And I love the last quote in that article:

Think of it more like a factory worker,” he said. “The assembly line just sped up.

Yo, Michael, get it through your skull that they were already “factory” workers in every reasonable sense of the word. Only now they’re being treated commensurate to how they’re being used by the company.