Pros
10 year old kids say "wow" when they find out. If you look you'll find knowledge beyond what you can anywhere else. If you're into games, aside from all the EA haters who are, much like mac fanboys, very useless, it's a great place to build things that made our childhoods great ... granted that time is gone. It's a big company, full time job, security for people with families, mortgagees etc.
Cons
50 hour weeks are quite common, 80+ when finaling. EA is a machine that makes games ... not meant for people. People how have no business making some decisions are in charge of making those decisions, and some people with knowledge to make the decision have no real say in anything. Entire projects can fail because of a few select individuals. Projects are guided by the select few and no other opinion is valued ... Valve would be the exact opposite. Without naming specific game, one of the recent big titles failed but could've been saved if people in charge where only to listen to people who where making the title ... it wasn't fun to play from the getgo and didn't improve one bit. There is no easy way to relate problems with management. In all, it's overstressed enthronement with few compensations ... if you're fine writing something less fun then games, like DB2 code, go work for IBM, you'll work less, be less stressed and get payed more. There's also many smaller game companies around where you'll have much more say in what's actually being built. ... I wouldn't consider leaving because of most of the above, the only thing that makes me think twice about staying longer is the finaling (a month or two before title ships), it's brutal every time, every darn time, and wouldn't people learn by now? schedule better, give more time for the tasks that actually need to happen ... well, they would, people (in charge) are smart ... so that leads me to think that it's actually planned and pulling 80+ hours for two month is exactly what studio wants and thinks can get away with ... and then act all surprised that great people leave and next project is suddenly without a lead or such.
