EA working it's people long hours in a crunch
As an employee of a software company, I've seen this happen countless times. It never fails. I'm not exactly sure how people who build bridges or buildings or refinish kitchens do not have this trouble, but they do not. Maybe they slip, or maybe they have 2000 years of doing work to fall back on knowing exactly what will take how long. To the author, let me assure you that no company WANTS to work its people this way and software managers around the world work at getting the schedule right so that this does not have to happen. But software development of this scale is unfortunately still very new and when we get to the point in software development that we no longer have to reinvent the rivet every time we start a new project, we'll be better. But we're not there now and I'm not sure how soon we will be.