#CrunchNoMore I will not buy Last of Us 2. Join me

[Muffin]

Sounds like op wants game to flop and people to lose their jobs. Fuck that.

Click to shrink...

So everyone who doesnt buy the game for whatever reason is at fault when management decides to fire devs? Yeah, sure, sounds logical.

And ND seems to be making sure people abandon their jobs on their own already by burning them out in record time, no need to fire anyone.

 

[RexNovis]

Boycotting could end up resulting in those devs losing their job and/or part of their salary because they didn't meet expectations, so I'm not sure how helpful it would be. I think it's much better to put pressure on social media, let people know what they're doing wrong and see if they can improve their conditions.

If you don't buy the product, the message you're sending is "I'm not interested in this product", not "I want better work conditions for the people involved in this product".

I probably won't get the game when it launches and wait for a sale anyway. Hopefully someone will say something regarding the disgusting conditions in the studio by then.

Click to shrink...

the only reason social media pressure would work is because the companies behind the game believes it will impact their bottom line. People espousing that spending your money on the game doesn't matter are completely missing the entire point of spreading awareness. The two go hand in hand.

 

[E.T.]

Wonder how many people here will take a stand and "boycott" this game while also buying next gen consoles that are being made with the helping hand of slave labour. Crunch, bad. Slavery, acceptable. Apparently.

Click to shrink...

The hypocrisy never ceases to amaze me, not only on this topic but so many other too.

 

[Jonneh]

So, you're buying it. In which way will you be sending your message?

Click to shrink...

Verbally, I'll do what I can rather than be proud of my lack of compassion like many seem to be in this thread

Responses like this are simply gross:

"I'm sure that will show them!

Day 1, sorry. "

Click to shrink...

(this is an actual reply)

Will my actions make a difference? Maybe not but it's better than just lying down and accepting it

 

[Ghost Slayer]

Imagine doing something for a reason only to get the completely opposite effect.

Click to shrink...

Some people isnt interested buying it in the first place also boycott (???) so it wont effect anything...maybe

 

[IOTS]

I cannot in good conscience give my money to any studio that I know has relied on overworking their employees to produce a game. Spreading awareness is absolutely also important but choosing where I spend my money and expressing the importance of this issue to me with that choice is also important.

Click to shrink...

I support you, man. I hope the people feeling like you do, do not only not buy ND games anymore, but dont rent them, dont buy them used and even stopped discussing their games. Cut ND off completly out of their concioussness.

 

[Shopolic]

[BBC] In China, Uighurs 'moved into factory forced labour' for foreign brands Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony

It was recommended that I cross post this from EtcetEra for awareness, particularly as we move towards a new generation of consoles. Letting people make informed decisions about where they're willing to put their money is the best thing anyone can do here. Here's the latest on the various...

www.resetera.com

I hope you extend it to consoles too.

Click to shrink...

Exactly.
It's funny that we use consoles and then want to boycott games. Or use smartphones to post here, a smartphone that workers made in bad conditions.
Crunch is one of the worst things in this industry without a doubt, but sadly we're using lots of things that poor workers are making in the worst conditions, much much worse than people in studios like ND.
You can't just boycott a game because it's an easy thing to do, but continue to use other things. It's like a person who says "I'm vegetarian, so I don't go McDonald's" but eats other burgers.

 

[Kalentan]

I'm merely insulting the creative directors.

Click to shrink...

..........Right. You basically did the same as other posts and went: "I already hated this thing, so it's easy for me to boycott something I wasn't interested in anyway."

Like wow, so brave.

 

[Mantrox]

This sort of logic is exactly why exploitative companies and industries are allowed to thrive in the modern world. If people not giving exploitative studios their money leads to those studios closing then so be it. That opens the door for more studios that don't rely on those sorts of exploitative practices to pop up.

Click to shrink...

This just seems like wishful thinking OP.

Most companies won't stop doing this until they are strong armed by a heavy penalty, either a lawsuit or direct demands from a workers union.
More than anything, these workers need help from a legal standpoint, to assess how to go about this.

 

[Fisty]

Wonder how many people here will take a stand and "boycott" this game while also buying next gen consoles that are being made with the helping hand of slave labour. Crunch, bad. Slavery, acceptable. Apparently.

Click to shrink...

Normally I would say this is just a whataboutism, but I do agree that there is a huge difference in college educated tech workers in the USA and kids/laborers/slaves in China that people seem to forget here. Theres a massive gap in opportunity there, game devs in Los Angeles have exponentially more opportunities to earn a living wage

 

[NHarmonic.]

People coming into this topic to proudly say they are buying the game are such jackasses.

Click to shrink...

Why? We had the same kind of posts for the Sword and Shield shitfest.

 

[Bonejack]

Boy, the whataboutism and takes in this thread are downright ugly.

 

[Wonkertonk]

Verbally, I'll do what I can rather than be proud of my lack of compassion like many seem to be in this thread

Responses like this are simply gross:
(this is an actual reply)

Will my actions make a difference? Maybe not but it's better than just lying down and accepting it

Click to shrink...

Verbally? Will you use your platform as a YouTuber/influencer to perhaps make a video on it condemning Naughty Dog's Crunch culture?

 

[HPSauce]

Buy it preowned?

 

[Deleted member 135]

Boycotts don't work and aren't the right way to go about affecting change. The only power the end users have is to support pro-labor politicians and support devs when they take direct action (walkouts, strikes, etc).

Consumer boycotts have never been effective at affecting institutional change in the industry.

 

[zMiiChy-]

#First World Boycotts

 

[WhovianGamer]

I won't deprive myself of the art so many have worked hard to produce.

If we were to not buy products produced by questionable practice then we'd buy next to nothing at all.

I'm not saying crunch is a good thing by the way, but 'cancelling' brands for it isn't the way to go.

 

[lunanto]

I really admire you for not buying the game to support this. I am not going to resist.

 

[Zampano]

I will not buy The Last of Us 2.

Spoiler

I will be given a promo code for free. Does that make me better? Or worse?

 

[DrDeckard]

Yes, after they work their asses off, let's make this game a flop and possibly close the studio. That's gonna send a message. No.

That Kotaku article is already going to cause some pressure and there's a lot more we can do instead of boycotting other people's work.
I don't remember this energy to boycott Red Dead Redemption 2 and so many other games...

Click to shrink...

We have news that over 70% of the design team have seen turn over, constant news that they hire very young developers and then kill the seasoned devs off because they are stuck trying to work as well as train all the new staff. This is a constantly rotating mess.

Go read the tweets from the ex dev on twitter. It's absolutely Damning, and I do not believe you get a reputation like Naughty Dog has among developers if "every company" is working like this.

I genuinely believe responses like this from the OP will help massively. If people do not buy the game it will force the studio to change. Sony isn't going to allow ND to just die off, they would rotate the decent staff into a new studio in the absolute extreme circumstance.

I commend the OP for making this thread, because there will absolutely be eyes on Resetera by some important people, and the more we do to highlight this, the higher chance we have of seeing a quicker turn around on some of these terrible practices.

Hat's off OP, well put and brave to do on here.

 

[Deleted member 24021]

Boy, the whataboutism and takes in this thread are downright ugly.

Click to shrink...

Crunch bad. Slave labor ok.

 

[Jonneh]

Verbally? Will you use your platform as a YouTuber/influencer to perhaps make a video on it condemning Naughty Dog's Crunch culture?

Click to shrink...

May I ask why you're grilling me on this? I'm genuinely curious what you want out of this and what your position is

 

[Deleted member 2791]

You can't just boycott a game because it's an easy thing to do, but continue to use other things.

Click to shrink...

Actually, you can.

 

[Angie]

Exactly.
It's funny that we use consoles and then want to boycott games. Or use smartphones to post here, a smartphone that workers made in bad conditions.
Crunch is one of the worst things in this industry without a doubt, but sadly we're using lots of things that poor workers are making in the worst conditions, much much worse than people in studios like ND. You can't just boycott a game because it's an easy thing to do, but continue to use other things.

Click to shrink...

Weird how some people think that devs working crunch was too much for them.
But children and adults in China working in almost slavery conditions to make their consoles, on that they don't take a stand.

 

[Ghost Slayer]

Boy, the whataboutism and takes in this thread are downright ugly.

Click to shrink...

One is slavery. Another is crunch.

 

[RexNovis]

It would be really great to have some sort of default tag for game discussion on this site that identified or indicated any studios that relied heavily on crunch to better spread awareness for folks reading this forum.

perhaps we could get a mod to chime in about this?

 

[Odeko]

Boycotts don't work and aren't the right way to go about affecting change. The only power the end users have is to support pro-labor politicians and support devs when they take direct action (walkouts, strikes, etc).

Consumer boycotts have never been effective at affecting institutional change in the industry.

Click to shrink...

Battlefront 2

 

[TheGummyBear]

I thought it was generally accepted around here that crunch is bad and shouldn't be supported.

Guess things change when it's blessed Naughty Dog that's caught committing it.

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

Then stop buying almost 80% of AAA Games.

Click to shrink...

Yeah this is very true. I've already put this in motion unconsciously. I don't buy games day one anymore (exception is animal crossing 😭) . However as with more news about this stuff happens, making a blanket statement to dismiss this actual thing, regardless if it is VERY OBVIOUS that AAA development leads to this, doesn't make it right. But I mean, on a forum....we are talking into the wind. The GP won't care and aren't as invested in gaming news as the rest of us here.

I thought it was generally accepted around here that crunch is bad and shouldn't be supported.

Guess things change when it's blessed Naughty Dog that's caught committing it.

Click to shrink...

And can we not do this? When it was blessed Rockstar the same thing happened...and if it was blessed CD Project Red, it would happen too and blessed Nintendo or whomever. Let's stop making it seem like it's a ND exclusive feature.

There's this weird affixation of people more concerned about how fanboys are letting this slide rather than how people in general will make this slide no matter who it is. The exception to this has always been if you are the least favorite by pretty much everyone (A la EA)

 

[Cordy]

Nah. I'm getting day one.

Back during RDR2's release there were numerous reports of crunch related to that game and other games. Waypoint spoke to multiple game devs about whether to boycott and the devs said to not boycott, support the creators by buying the product and instead be vocal about the issues. You're basically not getting what they put their hard earned work into. Since then I've been buying products and been vocal. In turn we've seen progress in some games such as P5:5 and we've seen that being vocal can work.

So I'm listening to devs and buying day one. I'll just be against crunch and will speak up. Also screw anyone trying to make people feel bad for wanting the game just because they themselves want to boycott. Go tell that to those devs who said to get the product.

 

[Ricky_R]

What does ND have to do with Nestle?

 

[Tyaren]

Nah, not joining this. First of all there's crunch happening in the vast majority of game studios. You'd have very few games to play if you would boycott every game that had some form of crunch happening. In the last couple of months before going gold almost all studios do crunch.
Secondly, boycotting this game also punishes the people that have already been suffering to get this game out the door in a timely and polished fashion.

The game, to me, looked like shit from the beginning and I had no interest in buying. Guess I can sprinkle in some light boycott as well at this point.

Click to shrink...

I have the feeling there's also some other deep-seated antipathy against the game/developer going on, lol.

 

[Scarlet Spider]

Just like Pokemon Sword and Shield, this boycott won't make a dent in sales. You can let your voices be known, sure, but the game is going to sell a ton. Good luck though.

 

[unicornKnight]

Not buying either.

"What do you mean it doesn't count since I don't own a PS4?"

 

[E.T.]

Normally I would say this is just a whataboutism, but I do agree that there is a huge difference in college educated tech workers in the USA and kids/laborers/slaves in China that people seem to forget here. Theres a massive gap in opportunity there, game devs in Los Angeles have exponentially more opportunities to earn a living wage

Click to shrink...

This is a really good point too. Always strange to read all of the sad posts about developers losing their jobs when they work in an industry that is thriving with opportunities galore and who have high earning power. Other people losing their jobs in other industries is usually never met with such a reaction.

Priorities are weird.

 

[Suicide King]

Worker's rights are not more important than my trivial entertainment. Also, they already got paid and worked hard, so boycotting the game would only damage the publisher that forced them to crunch in the first place. I must respect big corporations.

 

[noyram23]

I like how strong you people are, personally i'm a shitty person so I probably won't cancel my preorder and I really need something to get off my mind to during these times.

I'm a hypocrite too since i'm calling out their toxing crunch culture :( feelsbadman

 

[SonicFighterV]

The devs already got paid.

Click to shrink...

And will get laid off if it doesn't meet the expectations. I don't know what the right response to stopping this culture is. But just saying.

 

[DionardoLicaprio]

99% of people joining this would never buy the game.
Also, you would have to stop buying almost every AAA game in existence.

Crunch sucks but I'll definitely be buying the game they spent countless hours working on.

 

[Bunga]

Sorry, I agree the practice is not good but it won't stop me getting the game. I can't think of anything worse for someone who has gone through hell to make a game for people to not actually buy it and play it in the end lol.

 

[Deleted member 17990]

So I'm not allowed to buy the game and support the devs who worked on the game?

 

[Mobyduck]

Why? We had the same kind of posts for the Sword and Shield shitfest.

Click to shrink...

If the devs were going through long periods of extreme crunch, then the same thing could be said. Dunno how that is relevant to my post, though.

 

[Fisty]

Battlefront 2

Click to shrink...

That wasnt an effective boycott, that was multiple governments stepping in and asking questions

 

[Pat002]

Battlefront 2

Click to shrink...

I think you know that the situations are completely different.
We're talking about human lifes here, not Vader and Luke costing 10 bucks to unlock.

 

[Bonejack]

Crunch bad. Slave labor ok.

Click to shrink...

One is slavery. Another is crunch.

Click to shrink...

What is more likely:

A change in the working processes in "1st world" country companies where people actually have a chance to do that, unionize and what not?

Or

Solving one of the biggest problems in this world: The iron-tight grip that China has over EVERYONE, companies and other countries a like, to the point where they can freely do fucked up shit like slavery?

 

[Odeko]

That wasnt an effective boycott, that was multiple governments stepping in and asking questions

Click to shrink...

Why do you think any politician took notice?

I think you know that the situations are completely different.
We're talking about human lifes here, not Vader and Luke costing 10 bucks to unlock.

Click to shrink...

It was still an effective boycott

 

[E.T.]

May I ask why you're grilling me on this? I'm genuinely curious what you want out of this and what your position is

Click to shrink...

You are on the right path.
Buying the game and making your concerns public about its development is perfectly fine.

 

[Deleted member 135]

Battlefront 2

Click to shrink...

1. That wasn't an institutional change.
2. It was the result of the threat of government action and Disney's anger.

Production pipelines are insulated from consumer outrage. Boycotts will never be effective because for every 1 Era user that refuses to buy the game there are 10,000 other people who don't know or don't care who will. It's pointless to punish yourself.

Keep talking about it, call your representatives, support unionization movements, but this industry isn't small enough for boycotts to have any meaningful effect institutionally.

 

[Deleted member 437]

No sorry.

At the end of the day, these are grown adults, not children. It's not my job to hold their hands.

If they want to unionize, strike, whatever, then be my guest. More power to you.

 

[Deleted member 15227]

Hardly anyone cared when Blizzard supported the fascist, murderous, and oppressive Chinese Party, so what makes you think anyone is going to give a shit about Naughty Dog's crunching shitfuckery? Op, I commend you for your stance.