A video game programmer has sued the games arm of French media and telecoms company Vivendi Universal (V.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , claiming he and his colleagues were regularly forced to work extra hours and denied overtime pay.
The suit, filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, is one of many filed against companies in the state in recent months, as employees seek to be classified as overtime-eligible to obtain compensation for working more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week.
The games industry is well known for its periods of "crunch time," where programmers are called on to work long hours for weeks on end to finish games on time.