To the Editor: You've done a great job so far building a magazine that captures the interest of mature gamers. Perhaps I speak only for myself (but I doubt it), but I do believe that those who are interested in the content and focus of The Escapist can handle a four letter word uttered by someone you're interviewing. It just feels like you're plugging my ears with kid gloves when you [deleted] with quotations. I promise you that at least one of your readers isn't going to be offended if you let quotes stand.
-Jerrod Hansen
To the Editor: I read "Code Union, Code Better" first with amusement, then with alarm, and then with rage and fury.
First, your comparison of the coal strike of 1902 to the plight of software developers today is ludicrous. Those men were facing death and grievous injury on the job every day; carpal tunnel, indigestion and sleepless nights just don't measure up. The mining of coal was in the national interest; producing the next version of Madden is frivolous.
You blithely refer to tenure as a "comfortable assurance;" what it does is remove any incentive for the employee to perform at anything above the absolute minimum. Short of opening fire in the workplace with a fully-automatic weapon, there's almost no way to fire a tenured employee. I don't know about you, but I don't want an industry that rewards the least effort.
Software developers are not the sort of uneducated, can't-get-another-job types that unions were originally intended to protect. A developer who was good enough to get a job at Electronic Arts in the first place should not have difficulty landing a gig with another development shop. People work at Electronic Arts because they choose to.
Unionization is the single most dangerous idea to ever be proposed in our industry. What do you think will happen when a union comes in and everyone's salary suddenly goes up? I'll tell you - layoffs. The very people your union is supposed to protect - the people at the bottom of the ladder - will be fired. The people who remain, having received tenure, will have no incentive to excel. I can't think of a better way to hand over our dominance of the software industry to another country.
This is a very bad idea.
-Duane Roelands
To the Editor: I only found your magazine a couple of months ago, and I must say I'm generally of the opinion that it is excellent. Your recent series of articles on the games industry and independent game developers by Greg Costikyan was extremely helpful to me, since I've recently entered the realm of independent games developer.
By entered I don't mean I've released software. I, and a couple of fellow programmers, have begun the arduous process of building a game with no money. Oddly enough, I find the articles in The Escapist to be rather useful in helping me get my head around the current state of play in the games industry. The overall extremely high quality of the writing also goes some way to ensuring my appreciation of your work.
-Carey
