Tommy took it upon himself to work 13 to 14-hour days and gradually wore himself down. He says: “At one point I was about six stone. I still have OCD and anxiety, I had clinical psychosis and all these conditions which I developed as a result of secondary and tertiary problems from neglecting my health. “The ironic thing is that you end up working less because you’re overworked.” The extra work resulted in Tommy fainting several times in his bedsit and not making it into work. The same “grim reaper” from HR visited Tommy’s house and found him looking “deathly ill” with yellow skin. “It turns out I had liver and heart failure,” he says. “I probably would be dead if they hadn’t come round and I hate to think that there are other people with a similar level of susceptibility. “When you’re quite single-minded and you only have one goal in your life, then anyone can get caught in that loop.” Although Tommy admits he must accept a bit of “mea culpa”, he would never recommend working for a big publisher under current working practices. “I have family that say, ‘your uncle Tommy works with games’ and I hear them say they want to get into it someday. “I want to tell them ‘I don’t want you to just about die from working there’. I had liver failure because I was malnourished. “I don’t want my nephew to go anywhere near the industry if that’s going to be the case but you want to think of better times ahead and you want to think the industry will eventually change.” Another former employee of a leading UK game studio faced similar working conditions. When helping to complete a game development in the run-up to Christmas last year, he received an email from the CEO of the company saying how “displeased” they were about the lack of attendance over the weekend. It prompted him to take his working week from 9-5, five days a week, to a six-day week at 7am to 9pm. “I would always come in one of the two days on the weekend, normally Saturday, so I could have Sundays with my wife,” he recalls. “It continued like this for two and a half months, even though my health was deteriorating.” According to the source, who wishes to remain anonymous, the employer created “incredibly stressful conditions” and “a climate that left workers constantly looking behind their back”. He was later diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel condition where symptoms can be triggered by stress, and adds: “Obviously I have no proof that I got sick because of work but I strongly believe that I started getting symptoms because of the amount of hours and pressure I was put under.”

My experience of the gaming industry has been particularly bad,” he says. “The studio had us on very long hours, but we were always promised that if we do the long hours, we would rise quickly through the ranks. “I started to doubt myself at this point. I was working incredibly long hours and rarely going home but the idea harbours and festers that you could do better if you stayed a little bit longer. “At the time, I didn’t have a wife or any kind of dependency, so I was just staying longer and your team leaders would say, ‘great you’re doing fantastic, you’re the kind of person we want in this studio, you’re the kind of person that we need here’. “In the same vein, the people there who have families to go to and try to have social lives outside work would be getting death stares as they’re leaving.

More than 85% of employees in the industry attested to being asked to work beyond their contracted hours,

Thank you and good night.

My fellow citizens: let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we haveset out. No one can see precisely what course it will take or what costs or casualties will be incurred.Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead--months in which our patience and our will will betested--months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers. But thegreatest danger of all would be to do nothing.The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are--but it is the one mostconsistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost offreedom is always high--and Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and thatis the path of surrender or submission.Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right- -not peace at the expense offreedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world. Godwilling, that goal will be achieved.

Finally, I want to say a few words to the captive people of Cuba, to whom this speech is beingdirectly carried by special radio facilities. I speak to you as a friend, as one who knows of your deepattachment to your fatherland, as one who shares your aspirations for liberty and justice for all. And Ihave watched and the American people have watched with deep sorrow how your nationalist revolutionwas betrayed-- and how your fatherland fell under foreign domination. Now your leaders are no longer

This Nation is prepared to present its case against the Soviet threat to peace, and our ownproposals for a peaceful world, at any time and in any forum--in the OAS, in the United Nations, or in anyother meeting that could be useful--without limiting our freedom of action. We have in the past madestrenuous efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. We have proposed the elimination of all arms andmilitary bases in a fair and effective disarmament treaty. We are prepared to discuss new proposals for theremoval of tensions on both sides--including the possibility of a genuinely independent Cuba, free todetermine its own destiny. We have no wish to war with the Soviet Union--for we are a peaceful peoplewho desire to live in peace with all other peoples

any eventualities; and I trust that in the interest of both the Cuban people and the Soviet technicians at thesites, the hazards to all concerned in continuing this threat will be recognized.Third: It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cubaagainst any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States,requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.Fourth: As a necessary military precaution, I have reinforced our base at Guantanamo, evacuatedtoday the dependents of our personnel there, and ordered additional military units to be on a standby alertbasis.Fifth: We are calling tonight for an immediate meeting of the Organ of Consultation under theOrganization of American States, to consider this threat to hemispheric security and to invoke articles 6and 8 of the Rio Treaty in support of all necessary action. The United Nations Charter allows for regionalsecurity arrangements--and the nations of this hemisphere decided long ago against the military presenceof outside powers. Our other allies around the world have also been alerted.Sixth: Under the Charter of the United Nations, we are asking tonight that an emergency meetingof the Security Council be convoked without delay to take action against this latest Soviet threat to worldpeace. Our resolution will call for the prompt dismantling and withdrawal of all offensive weapons inCuba, under the supervision of U.N. observers, before the quarantine can be lifted.Seventh and finally: I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine,reckless and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations. I call uponhim further to abandon this course of world domination, and to join in an historic effort to end theperilous arms race and to transform the history of man. He has an opportunity now to move the worldback from the abyss of destruction--by returning to his government's own words that it had no need tostation missiles outside its own territory, and withdrawing these weapons from Cuba--by refraining fromany action which will widen or deepen the present crisis--and then by participating in a search forpeaceful and permanent solutions

Acting, therefore, in the defense of our own security and of the entire Western Hemisphere, andunder the authority entrusted to me by the Constitution as endorsed by the resolution of the Congress, Ihave directed that the following initial steps be taken immediately:First: To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment undershipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or portwill, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended,if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities oflife as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948.Second: I have directed the continued and increased close surveillance of Cuba and its militarybuildup. The foreign ministers of the OAS, in their communique of October 6, rejected secrecy in suchmatters in this hemisphere. Should these offensive military preparations continue, thus increasing thethreat to the hemisphere, further action will be justified. I have directed the Armed

But now further action is required--and it is under way; and these actions mayonly be the beginning. We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear warin which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth--but neither will we shrink from that riskat any time it must be faced.

Our policy has been one of patience and restraint, as befits a peaceful and powerful nation, whichleads a worldwide alliance. We have been determined not to be diverted from our central concerns bymere irritants and fanatics.

The 1930's taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked andunchallenged ultimately leads to war.

But this secret, swift, and extraordinary buildup of Communist missiles--in an area well known tohave a special and historical relationship to the United States and the nations of the Western Hemisphere,in violation of Soviet assurances, and in defiance of American and hemispheric policy--this sudden,clandestine decision to station strategic weapons for the first time outside of Soviet soil--is a deliberatelyprovocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country, if ourcourage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again by either friend or foe

For many years both the Soviet Union and the United States, recognizing this fact, have deployedstrategic nuclear weapons with great care, never upsetting the precarious status quo which ensured thatthese weapons would not be used in the absence of some vital challenge. Our own strategic missiles havenever been transferred to the territory of any other nation under a cloak of secrecy and deception; and ourhistory--unlike that of the Soviets since the end of World War II--demonstrates that we have no desire todominate or conquer any other nation or impose our system upon its people. Nevertheless, Americancitizens have become adjusted to living daily on the Bull's-eye of Soviet missiles located inside theU.S.S.R. or in submarines

Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that anysubstantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well beregarded as a definite threat to peace.

Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberatedeception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small.

at statement also was false

Only last Thursday, as evidence of this rapid offensive buildup was already in my hand, SovietForeign Minister Gromyko told me in my office that he was instructed to make it clear once again, as hesaid his government had already done, that Soviet assistance to Cuba, and I quote, "pursued solely thepurpose of contributing to the the defense capabilities of Cuba," that, and I quote him, "training by Sovietspecialists of Cuban nationals in handling defensive armaments was by no means offensive, and if it wereotherwise," Mr. Gromyko went on, "the Soviet Government would never become involved in renderingsuch assistance."

That statement was false.

"the armaments and military equipment sent to Cuba are designed exclusively for defensivepurposes," that, and I quote the Soviet Government, "there is no need for the Soviet Government to shiftits weapons . . . for a retaliatory blow to any other country, for instance Cuba," and that, and I quote theirgovernment, "the Soviet Union has so powerful rockets to carry these nuclear warheads that there is noneed to search for sites for them beyond the boundaries of the Soviet Union."

September 11

September 4 and 13.

my own public warnings

efiance of the Rio Pact of 1947

constitutes an explicit threatto the peace and security of all the Americas

clearly

Hudson Bay, Canada, and as far south as Lima, Peru

intermediate range ballisticmissiles--capable of traveling more than twice as far--and thus capable of striking most of the major citiesin the Western Hemisphere, ranging as far north as Hudson Bay, Canada, and as far south as Lima, Peru.In addition, jet bombers, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, are now being uncrated and assembled inCuba, while the necessary air bases are being prepared.

1,000 nautical miles.

capable of striking Washington, D.C.,the Panama Canal, Cape Canaveral, Mexico City, or any other city in the southeastern part of the UnitedStates, in Central America, or in the Caribbean area

this Government feels obliged to reportthis new crisis to you in fullest detail

now confirmed and completed ourevaluation of the evidence

last Tuesday morning at 9a.m.

preliminary hard information

The purpose of thesebases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere

unmistakable evidence

citizens

fellow citizens