PlayStation Intern sues Sony, wins $

Chris Jarvis, 25, thought he would be shadowing a staff developer as an unpaid intern last year at Sony Computer Entertainment's Cambridge studio in the U.K. When he showed up, he says he was ordered to test games instead.

Forgive me for finding that kind of servitude, well, Dickensian. Jarvis didn't think it was funny, either, and "politely informed" his employers that this role entitled him to the U.K.'s national minimum wage, reports The Independent. When he still wasn't paid—and Jarvis said he worked a 9:30 to 6 pm shift for three months—he reported the company to U.K. authorities and sued for his unpaid wages. Jarvis reasoned that the testing job he did would pay someone £100 a day and SCE Cambridge (now Guerilla Cambridge) took advantage of his intern status to save itself some cash.

Not only did Sony settle the case for £4,600 (£1,000 more than Jarvis demanded) they asked that he sign a gag order—and he flatly refused. And still got his money. So keep that in mind if you're ever in a situation where some corporation is paying you money to go away.

Jarvis' lawyer reminds that, in the U.K. a voluntary worker may only be employed for no pay by "a charity, a voluntary organization, an associated fund-raising body, or a statutory body." Even voluntary workers at a commercial company are entitled to minimum wage.

Kotaku: PlayStation Intern, Ordered to Test Games for Free, Sues and Wins

So well, it sounds to me like they worked Killzone: Mercenary employees not to the bone. Plus interns. Every year, I hear this type of practices unfortunately from phone manufacturers. And Red Dead: Redemption, last I remember. Anyway, it sucks. But well, we sure like dem games. :/

Happens every where ask that MS employee who got fired cause he didnt say "Bing" Loud enough for Steve Ballmer. http://techdusts.com/2009/12/21/microsoft-ceo-steve-ballmer-fires-employee-video-bing/

@jimmyfenix: That's actually not a true story. The video was a joke I guess.

It happens in every line of work anywhere. There's always people looking to take advantage of others because nine times out of ten they get away with it. Even when one guy like in the OP does something about it it's such a minor case that they have no reason to stop. They will just keep doing it. That kind of money is so small to a company as big as Sony they wouldn't even notice it. Now if you added a few more zero's to that number then they might take notice.

@hunter5024: Strange. Ballmer is crazy though!

Yeah, no joke. Speaking as someone who's worked in the corporate world for over a decade, this is just about the least shocking story I've ever seen. This is dog bites man.

Honestly I thought the whole fun of interns was to have someone around you could take advantage of. I mean hell, what's the point of having them around otherwise? We get free work outta you, you get college credit and a great reference when you enter the job market, what part did this kid not understand?

I wonder how much this is going to affect this kid's future employment opportunities in the industry?

I can't tell if that image is from Killzone or Watch Dogs.

@mb: I would assume it will have huge negative affect. I am sure most companies will not want to hire him.

@mb said:

If he carried this thing as far as he did, he seems like he wasn't going to be very interested in working in a corporate workplace to begin with. So he either strikes out on his own, or perhaps he could find an employer that is actually impressed by the initiative it took to get what he was owed. I really doubt this Jarvis guy is going to get blacklisted from the games industry as a result of this lawsuit.

Unpaid internships are a racket, so I'm all for what he did.

"Unpaid internships" are a problem in a lot of industries because these are supposed to be "teaching on at job" not "do work for cheap".

In particular this seems to get abused in QA and testing because companies don't necessarily need skilled, trained professional labor as much as they need warm bodies trying the software. If this was just "play the game for free, tell us what you see" then there wouldn't be much to complain about. If it is more involved like researching and auditing or other "bug management" aspects then they need to be paid for their time and work.

I think it might be a little dramatic to call an eight hour a day office job being worked "to the bone".

@outside_potty_machine: it's certainly going to come up again at some point.

The point of having them around is to create a more educated, experienced workforce when they come out of college. Is every corporate environment filled with the kind of frat boy, idiotic logic on display in this post?

The part he didn't understand is where he did not sign up for the work he was given, he signed up to get EXPERIENCE shadowing someone doing ANOTHER JOB. This isn't a case of someone signing up for an unpaid internship and complaining. This is a case of someone signing up for an internship shadowing some other position and being told he is instead going to test games (a non-internship position that gets paid) and not get paid for it.

Did you even read the story?

He did not win, they settled out of court. Very big difference. You should probably change the misleading thread title.

Its Sony's new IP Kill Dogs...or maybe Watch Zone.

and, then did that work he did not sign up for for 3 months? Seriously. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me nine hours a day for three months, I'm a fucking moron.

Good on the kid though I guess for somehow guilting money from an ignorant company, but the right thing to do when your position isn't what you signed up for... is leave.

Good question. If I was responsible for hiring people, I certainly wouldn't choose someone who filed a lawsuit against a company they worked for. It's easy to be happy for him after winning, but I have to wonder if he shot himself in the foot over this.

Pretty much. I was being slightly tongue-in-cheek but make no mistake, that's the reality of it. I don't know why anyone would ever believe anything differently, these are massive bureaucratic organizations with the sole goal of maximizing their profits down to a fraction of a percent. Expecting a corporation the size of Sony to do the right thing is like expecting to win the lottery. Sure, it could happen, but only a fool would expect it.

Again, I've worked in the corporate world for over a decade, and I know firsthand that this is how it is. No amount of message board sanctimony will change reality. I've worked at three Fortune 100 companies and I've seen dozens of interns come and go, every single one of them was put to work within a couple of days. I've seen department heads get into shouting matches over who will be given access to one of the newest batch of interns, and lemme tell you, they sure as hell wouldn't be putting up a fight if they weren't getting some tangible benefit from it.

Just this summer I had an intern of my own for about a week, before he was stolen away by another department. Do you know why? Because they "needed him more". That right there should tell you that corporations don't give a good god damn about these kids' educations. They're grist for the mill, and the ones who go on to find jobs in the corporate world are the ones who understand that, and embrace it as a chance to network while they pay some dues. Because in the end, what's more valuable? The £4,600 this kid recovered as compensation for the three months of work he did? Or the lucrative career he could've been on track for, if he'd simply played the game that everyone else is playing? You can call it exploitation if you want, but fifteen years down the line when one of the interns who didn't complain is earning six figures and managing that department, I doubt that kid will think of himself as having been exploited.

I'm sorry you don't care for the message, but please don't shoot the messenger my friend. Corporations are like little feudal fiefdoms, and that's the truth of it. It's Game of Thrones for the 21st Century. So I hope this kid enjoys the pouch of golden dragons he's just acquired, because he's going to find himself banished from the realm of corporate employment forever.

I've turned down internships and unpaid 'experience based' jobs because of this very thing. It's just a mask for wanting some free slave labour. (most of the time)