Crunch is no longer a unknown term in the video game industry. Ultimately, it means for developers massive overtime overtime over several weeks or even months, often shortly before the release of a game. To bring about Read Dead Redemption 2 on time on the market, some Rockstar employees had to work on up to 100 hours a week. For CD project Red Meanwhile, in recent months before Release of Cybepunk 2077 Crunch was prescribed - which contrary to an earlier statement by CEO Marcin Iwinski is that you want to make crunch not mandatory.
Naughty Dog, the studio behind the Uncharted \ and the Last of US series, is well known for Crunch. Although the studio gives himself to work on the problem, but at the same time speaks, however, to prohibit crunch.
Help from the outside should bring improvement
After 2020 became clear by a Kotaku report, how hard the crunch conditions are at Naughty Dog, it looked as if something could improve at the studio. In a podcast, Neil Stuckmann spoke with synchronizer Troy Baker that he had failed in the past to ensure the right work-life balance for his team.
Although he tried to stop employers, stuck even more hours in certain areas (such as the accessibility features), which, however, resist. In the end, he assumed that the employees were right, but also stressed that the studio wants to get help from the outside to improve the crunch situation:
It's about finding the right balance: how do we allow people to live out their passion, which gives you so much determination while creating guards at the same time, to protect them sometimes in front of themselves. [...] And in that I failed in this project.
Naughty Dog still holds on Crunch
What has become of this project can now be guessed from an interview of the Naughty Dog Co-Presidents Evan Wells and Neil Printant with the magazine Game Informer. In it, they indicate that crunch would prohibit on resistance of employees to come:
If we had a restriction. At which the servers shut down as soon as the clock shows 40 hours and you can no longer work, that would endlessly frustrate people. There are people who want to bring the extra polishing of their own drive, and they would be Feel compromised.
Accordingly, it is probably the will of some employees themselves to keep crunch as part of the corporate culture. Although this coincides with the report of Kotaku, but this statement at the same time ignores the pressure that lasts on the employee. Crunch does not just mean the compulsion to work more, often the pressure resulting from the corporate culture also ensures that employees feel committed to work more than they want or can.
People come to Naughty Dog to achieve excellence and we killed ourselves the pressure to meet the games, the people expect from us., Explains Neil Printant elsewhere.
So instead of looking for a solution to avoid crunch, you want to work on Quality of Life improvements to avoid burnout. Workgroups were founded within the studio to discuss what areas of the studio could be improved and the management wanted to have a look at the well-being of employees. A comprehensive solution can not give it according to Neil Printman:
We believe that there is no comprehensive solution that suits everyone. Everyone has a unique situation we need to go. [...] If you try to have a silver ball, so a solution, you always leave someone back. That's why we believe that we need several solutions.
When asked what the studio holds the studio of a union for the employees, they explained that they do not hold this for a solution for crunch. They would rather make sure they could create a environment in which everyone could work as hard or as little as he wants. Restrictions (like a ban on overtime) would probably only stand in the way. Why a union that focuses on the rights of employees who should not be conducive to the rights of employees.
A history of Crunches
The above-mentioned Kotaku report shows how necessary changes within the studio are and how stressful the working conditions in the developing team during the Last of US 2 were. Of course, the (anonymous) voices of developers are not consistently negative. Some just want to create the best possible game and are ready to push overtime.
However, there are also reports of developers suffering from burnout and social pressure - because though there is no overtime force at Naughty Dog, in time to make work on time for many developers, to make the colleag in more work. Even to leave the studio was therefore associated with this pressure - after all, this would have to be set up and incorporated, which would lead to the fact that long-established employees would suffer themselves under additional expenses.
This pressure even led so far that some employees hoped that The Last of US 2 would fail to show the studio that this way of working is not durable.
Unfortunately, this thought is no new in the industry. Already in 2014, there were probably very similar words by Bioware developers * inside during the production of Dragon Age: Inquisition: [Dragon Age: Inquisition] would have to have floppen, so people realize that this is not the right way to make games. , explained a former developer. How little has happened to the studio since then shows that this quote comes from a Kotaku report from 2019 on the negative working conditions to Anthem.
Carrie Patel, Game Designer at Obsidian Entertainment also stated on Twitter that even if only certain people voluntarily crunch, this work can affect parts of the (or even the entire) team. Since Game Design does not arise in vacuo, each change also means multi-work for other departments.
Studios show that it works differently
The view that Crunch is simply necessary for the development of games, not only at Naughty Dog still prevails. But it is also different how some studios already prove. Insomniacs Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart For example, according to statements of two developers, it was created inside without having to crunch. Studios like Supergiant Games, who are responsible for the surprise HADES (via Kotaku), or Obsidian Entertainment, which the Outer's Worlds have created without crunch (via pcgamesn) show that it can go differently even with large productions.
Although Naughty Dog makes the impression that you want to learn from the mistakes of the past, the planned procedure raises the question of whether the management really understood what the proportion of pressure within the studio has a crunch. Basically, an individually tailored solution for the various employees is not a bad idea, as it leaves the opportunity to respond to individual life situations. How exactly these solutions look like, of course, remains to be seen.
At the same time, Naughty Dog still creates a strong focus on how many employees want to push overtime from themselves - and neglect seemingly too much, which has the impact on those employees who may not want that.
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