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

[RexNovis]

Hey rex, just thought this would be a perfect thread to include a poll to measure interest. What do you think?

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A poll? I guess I could see that but I think that also tends to lead to more inflammatory threads. I'd like to just have this thread be focused on the actual issue than the poll results ya know.

if someone wants to create a straw poll or something feel free though

 

[Weltall Zero]

Nobody likes whataboutism

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Well, if this thread has taught us anything, it's that a lot of people love whataboutism.

 

[Zen Hero]

Is this what the employees actually want? Is this what Jason Shreier recommends? I don't recall any action items from him in his article, but it would be nice to hear his opinion since he has spent so long investigating this.

 

[Absolute]

A poll? I guess I could see that but I think that also tends to lead to more inflammatory threads. I'd like to just have this thread be focused on the actual issue than the poll results ya know.

if someone wants to create a straw poll or something feel free though

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I honestly wouldn't bother replying to that user. Just look at the post history, known troll. Wants his side to "win" in the poll.

 

[Hawkster]

So, ex-AAA dev here with some feedback for those that actually want to change crunch practices.

*Beautiful insight*

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To think I once wanted to make video games.

How fucking delusional I was.

Thanks for your insight. I never once believed that boycotting games made by devs who crunch will make a difference.

Its the solidarity, bringing awareness to the issues at hand, and keep talking about it that makes the most difference.

As far as I'm concerned, boycotting games made through crunch is only for moral vindication and not to show solidarity to the developers who are going through it

 

[Bruceleeroy]

Is this a known thing or are you just assuming?

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Sakurai worked while attached to an IV drip to finish Smash Brothers Ultimate. Thats a bit nutty. If the game director is employing that kind of push on a game you have to assume its trickling down to the other employees.

 

[McFly]

Not interested in arguing with someone who is putting words in my mouth. Crunch is inevitable. I don't agree with it but I might as well just sell my console and not play any games ever again.

If it gets to the point where people are hospitalised then yeah thats where I draw the line.

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Edit: Don't even worry about it, apologies for carrying on this conversation. Everyone has a right to feel how they feel about every situation. We all have our biases and preferences.

 

[Datajoy]

You're lying. You weren't buying it anyway...so you just decided to jump in on the negativity because you can. Gotcha.

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He's not lying, he directly said in his post waht you are accusing him of lol.

 

[RexNovis]

It's worth discussing China though, because it tests the political limits of consumer boycotts. As such, it's absolutely relevant to the question of whether or not to boycott ND.

You can't possibly guarantee that everything you buy is free from Chinese supply chains - most of what you buy will have something made in China. In fact, the only way to be reasonably sure that anything you buy is free from China is to audit every product that you buy and be sure that no manufacturing or natural resources come from China. That's obviously unrealistic.

Bringing this back to the issue more generally: you can't actually be an ethical consumer under capitalism. There are some products that it makes sense to boycott where you're able to such as fossil fuels. In that case the harm to the environment is clearly greater than the harm to workers by you avoiding their consumption where you are able to. In nearly every other case though, you're just suppressing demand for a particular good. That harms workers who need income, while owners of capital just have lower profits but are otherwise fine.

So, boycotting harms workers, you can't be certain you're being morally consistent (in fact you're probably not), and it does nothing to fundamentally resolve the issue. The only real solution is for workers to organise and agree through collective action to withdraw their labour. In that case they might call for a boycott, in which case a boycott would be an act of solidarity. Otherwise you're just engaging in a kind of performative politics that gives the appearance of action, but does nothing to change the material reality of workers.

There's the problem of workers not being free to organise in countries like China. I would support only permitting free trade with countries that have freedom of labour to organise. That raises the political level of action from a simple individual responsibility to boycott to a collective responsibility to show solidarity with other workers when they call for it.

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I don't disagree with any of what you said but I fail to see how that relates to what I posted. Nobody is saying people shouldn't talk about the conditions in China or the ways in which it might be most or least effective to combat that but that is not wat this thread is about. Especially since as you've pointed out here it's not really feasible to take most direct forms action to fight against these kinds of oppression in China or otherwise. This is one of the very few situations where we can and, as I said, to me that makes it all that much more important to do so.

 

[Hellshy]

I'm pretty sure I should be boycotting a lot more things before I decide to not purchase a game I want to play Badly that most of the workers would want to be played by as many people possible.

OP should watch Rotten on Netflix. I should start boycotting foods that use slave labor before companies that have crunch culture.

 

[Fredrik]

Curious if someone in the industry can answer this question.

Perhaps it's just a language barrier thing, but it seems most horror stories about crunch in the games industry come from America. I know CD Projekt suffers from crunch too, but is this is prevalent in other European and Asian countries? I know that work/life in Japan is already terrible but I am wondering if devs like Square Enix have this same issue.

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Software developers work overtime in Sweden as well but I think what is described in OP would be illegal here. It definitely sounds like an extremely unhealthy workplace. And what do people do if they have a family? Or if they get sick? I don't understand how it works in a real life scenario.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

He's not lying, he directly said in his post waht you are accusing him of lol.

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You can say everything about this game: "It's not for me", "Didn't like the first's gameplay and this doesn't look much better" you can even say that you don't enjoy the game's aesthetics. But saying that "The Last of Us Part 2 looks like shit" is a lie.



Not when this right here is a step above what we see in the industry. Graphic wise, animation wise, sound wise.
Say all you want about the crunching periods they have. I agree, it sucks, and shouldn't happen to any development team. But "looks like shit"? I mean...really?

 

[TaySan]

Curious if someone in the industry can answer this question.

Perhaps it's just a language barrier thing, but it seems most horror stories about crunch in the games industry come from America. I know CD Projekt suffers from crunch too, but is this is prevalent in other European and Asian countries? I know that work/life in Japan is already terrible but I am wondering if devs like Square Enix have this same issue.

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You don't hear about it much from Japanese developers, but i'm sure crunch is pretty prevalant there too given the toxic work culture over in general over there.

 

[Kittens McMittens]

I don't disagree with any of what you said but I fail to see how that relates to what I posted. Nobody is saying people shouldn't talk about the conditions in China or the ways in which it might be most or least effective to combat that but that is not wat this thread is about. Especially since as you've pointed out here it's not really feasible to take most direct forms action to fight against these kinds of oppression in China or otherwise. This is one of the very few situations where we can and, as I said, to me that makes it all that much more important to do so.

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The point I'm making isn't specific to China though. I'm making a broader political point about consumer boycotts and using China and Naughty Dog as examples to discuss the politics of consumer boycotts.

The point I'm making is that consumer boycotts aren't effective, and in fact harm workers. They are not an act of solidarity unless the workers involved are actually calling for them.

 

[Doctor Avatar]

U N I O N I S E

Seriously. That is the answer here. Boycotting is only going to hurt developers, as already discussed.

 

[RexNovis]

OP I think Bungie can be added the that list:

Bungie's 13-year battle with crunch culture

Destiny 2 will mark the end of Bungie's struggle to eliminate enforced crunch, according to head of engineering Luke Ti…

www.gamesindustry.biz

Bungie delays Destiny 2 patch to avoid crunch

Bungie is delaying a patch for an overpowered weapon in Destiny 2 to preserve the "work-life balance" of its team.Among…

www.gamesindustry.biz

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thanks! I will add them to the op albeit it looks like it's an ongoing battle for them going by what you posted. It's clear though that they've made strides.

 

[TorianElecdra]

Yeah I will buy this second-hand from facebook market or a friend.

 

[dragonbane]

Yeah I won't buy it at launch. Was considering renting a PS4 for it, but I can safely delay that now

 

[DerpHause]

The devs already got paid.

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But their future pay is probably not entirely divorced from how their current products perform.

 

[staedtler]

still picking it up regardless of how much overtime people worked...it's really not my problem *shrug*..when i worked and had lots of overtime, i had to and didn't have people on a forum champion for my "rights", i had to get shit done

 

[RoninZ]

I don't get it, trying to impact their sales enough so they would have to let said dev go from their positions seems counterproductive to me. Not buying the game doesn't do any beside telling ND the game sucked. That's my opinion though.

 

[HebrewHammer]

 

[gothmog]

I only buy ethically sourced games.

 

[Swift_Gamer]

To the angry posters saying the OP can't be concerned about or engaged in activism against crunch unless they're also engaged in activism on every single issue in existence: WTF?

People are allowed to do their part in trying to make the world a better place. It's not practical for someone to put in a 110% effort for every cause.

If every activist, voter, and consumer followed the advice given out on this forum we'd be nothing but a plant of selfish assholes unconcerned with improvement in society.

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This is not how this works. People are just sharing their thoughts about double standards and platform warring which is 100% justified in views of the time frame this is happening.

 

[¡ B 0 0 P !]

This is not how this works. People are just sharing their thoughts about double standards and platform warring which is 100% justified in views of the time frame this is happening.

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How is the OP platform warring? They're just using recent news about Naughty Dog as a springboard for the issue they care about: anti-crunch.

My god this forum can be ridiculous.

 

[ParanormalFupa]

Yeah I generally think it's a good idea to make these considerations about things you consume. Sure you could end up making the consideration and still consume it, but idk where all this cynicism is coming from. I'm assuming it's young people with little to no labor experience who just like consuming whatever. I remember being totally naive about the effect Walmart and Amazon had on other businesses when I was younger, I was just concerned about the ease of consumption, thought people whining about closing bookstores were hysterical, hypocritical, approaching things from the angle, ect. I wish I was more considerate then.

 

[chrisypoo]

I wasn't gonna be buying it anyway, so sure yeah, I'm in.

 

[Zukuu]

I wasn't gonna be buying it anyway, so sure yeah, I'm in.

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#Hashtivism in its purest form.

Opposing crunch has to start at the top or on a workforce level. Abstaining on a consumer level changes nothing.

 

[eso76]

Thanks, but I'm not joining ;)

I've been crunching and working 12 hours or worse 7 days a week myself, it sucks but I never expected or wanted support in the shape of boycotting.
Good old strike worked.

That said more transparency regarding working conditions (not just game development, I am pretty sure that's very tame compared to other industries) is always welcome.

 

[Araujo]

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Came here to see if this image had been posted already.


Yeah, this ain't the way to do it.

Crunch has got to go, but it's gonna take more than protesting with your second hand copy of the game you're protesting about to do it...

"So, did you like TLOU2?"
"Yeah dude i just platinum the game, it's awesome!"
"Cool, guess i'll buy a copy too"
"Nah dud i bought this second hand, i ain't supporting that death-crunching terrible developer!"

yeah... that don't work.


Guess what? If you wanna do anything that cause change, you guys gonna have to do a bit of actual work... shockers right?
Join the fight to help Developers Unionize and to raise awareness that Crunch culture is not okay BEFORE the damn game you want to protest goes GOLD, y'know...

 

[Jayembi]

No culpe a las empresas, culpe al Estado por no regular y proteger adecuadamente al trabajador.

 

[BackLogJoe]

If only it were legal for workers to unionize in the United States.

 

[Datajoy]

You can say everything about this game: "It's not for me", "Didn't like the first's gameplay and this doesn't look much better" you can even say that you don't enjoy the game's aesthetics. But saying that "The Last of Us Part 2 looks like shit" is a lie.



Not when this right here is a step above what we see in the industry. Graphic wise, animation wise, sound wise.
Say all you want about the crunching periods they have. I agree, it sucks, and shouldn't happen to any development team. But "looks like shit"? I mean...really?

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Saying 'looks like shit' doesn't necessarily mean saying the graphics are bad. It means the game just looks unfun or 'bad'.
Please don't say you are one of those posters who says people aren't allowed to think that TLOU II doesn't look good or fun.

 

[Swift_Gamer]

This strikes me as more of a fanboy hate campaign than a candid one. Don't blame the companies, blame the State for not regulating and properly protecting the worker.

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What? Don't blame the companies? They're the main source of the problems we as a society face nowadays and they're usually paying the state for things to remain the way they are. So, yeah, companies are the ones at fault here and the only way to make things change is to stand up against this in legitimate and effective ways (boycott won't work).

 

[s0l0kill]

It's a weird thing to say that the game looks like shit and at the same time try to "support" the devs that made the said game, even when they didn't ask for it.

Working in gaming isn't the easiest thing in the world but some people really exaggerate how difficult it is, anything worth doing isn't easy, and as someone that works in one of the largest gaming companies today, worked on some of the biggest films before that and also worked a factory job making plastic tubing for plumbing, you guys need to chill.

You don't like LOU2, that's fair, don't mask it with this false "cause", I'm going to play it day 0 if I could and enjoy every second of what those people crunched for, and if you want them to have a job on their next game, I suggest you do the same.

 

[smocaine]

Don't see the point in boycotts... it's probably near the bottom of the list of things that actually help. Lazy and ineffective, probably even detrimental.

 

[The Wraith]

I didnt buy MK11 because of their anti union and horrible crunch culture. I guess ill have to pass on this and buy it second hand from someone.

 

[Avada Kedavra]

Where were the boycott outcries when Sakurai was literally hospitalized from working too hard.

 

[Aswitch]

So you are going to reward all their efforts by not buying the game? So it's all for nothing? Fair enough.

There are better ways to combat crunch culture - constant pressure from SoMe and media outlets. Governments around the world also have a responsibility too however, to enforce better working culture through directives and legal measures for all industries.

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How about we just keep this in the fucking news so the awareness is raised and actually might bring some change?

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Good luck I guess.

Pretty sure there are better ways to combat crunch culture.

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These. I feel like there's a better way to combat this than to in turn compromise the employees' work and effort that has already been invested with the company as is. Not buying the game just seems counter-intuitive to me. I think awareness and bringing this issue to attention is the better route for this type of scenario.

Let's say we all somehow managed to agree to protest this by not buying the game and then what? Now we have the already existent crunch issue, and now the team would have to be laid off due to low sales of the game. It would affect the folks who are already affected to an even worse extent potentially leaving them without a job due to poor sales of the game they're already crunching on regardless of reception. The managers and higher staff (who this should be aimed at more so) would more than likely be the last on the chopping block and to be affected by this. Sure it would of course bring attention to the issue, but more than likely at the cost of the employees and not the intended target anyway.

In any other scenario, I'd say it's totally understandable to vote with your wallet here, but for something that involves the employees themselves defeats the purpose and intent and does the opposite if not more so than helping make a change.

 

[Sage Anahata]

I'm in. I've been doing my best to make choices based on the type of world I want to encourage and live in (examples: vegan, organic, eco friendly clothing and products where applicable).

I want to live in a world where people's careers don't take away from their ability to experience and enjoy every aspect of life.

 

[iCodec]

Then stop buying almost 80% of AAA Games.

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Okay, I can do that.

 

[Sanka]

Huh, you mean I should actually inconvenience myself to help further a valuable cause? Sorry can't do that.

 

[Herey]

Sakurai worked while attached to an IV drip to finish Smash Brothers Ultimate. Thats a bit nutty. If the game director is employing that kind of push on a game you have to assume its trickling down to the other employees.

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Ah ok, yeah that was super shitty and you're probably correct.

 

[Spacecowboy]

Didn't plan on buying it anyway

I guess I'm in the minority who find ND games really boring

 

[Dr. Doom]

I too agree nothing is worse than sacrificing your health and wellbeing for.

The industry really needs to start taking care of its employees.

I am not sure if I'll end up boycotting TLOU2 - I'll just end up buying it months later when it's cheap.

 

[TheDanger]

I actually do think that people who are working crunch time might not be happy about it, but I'm pretty sure they still want people to buy the game.

 

[Raonak]

I understand the sentiment, but crunch isn't something exclusive to ND.
for me, id feel weird boycotting a single game, when theres so many other games made from crunch.

and even other things in life like anime, manga, mobile phones and other electronics, that are made using overworking.

Plus... I really do enjoy the product they're developing. It's on a class of its own, and it sucks that people are crunching to make it, but im still glad theyre making it.

I guess i can sorta understand the desire to make an amazing product. Im a software developer by day, and a hobbyist game developer by night, so i can be on the computer, coding for an additional a 6 hours after I get home from work (total of 14 hours) . I do legitimatly get why some of the developers would put themselves through it.

 

[Jayembi]

What? Don't blame the companies? They're the main source of the problems we as a society face nowadays and they're usually paying the state for things to remain the way they are. So, yeah, companies are the ones at fault here and the only way to make things change is to stand up against this in legitimate and effective ways (boycott won't work).

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Maybe I didn't express myself well. What I mean is that the State has to regulate a framework in which companies cannot subjugate the worker. I don't know where you live, but in my country and in many others, work is properly regulated, so a company cannot harass you to work more hours than are regulated by law. The problem with the US is that most of the companies settle there precisely because they have a labor flexibility that is favorable for the companies where they can do these things without being legally punished.

PS: With this I am not defending companies, what I defend is that the State has to be the one that protects its citizens from this type of situation.

 

[Deleted member 6539]

Saying 'looks like shit' doesn't necessarily mean saying the graphics are bad. It means the game just looks unfun or 'bad'.
Please don't say you are one of those posters who says people aren't allowed to think that TLOU II doesn't look good or fun.

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There's no cleaning up that statement. Looks like shit is trolling and nothing more. It's not anywhere near the realm of "it's not for me."

 

[The Riot Inside]

Maybe I didn't express myself well. What I mean is that the State has to regulate a framework in which companies cannot subjugate the worker. I don't know where you live, but in my country and in many others, work is properly regulated, so a company cannot harass you to work more hours than are regulated by law. The problem with the US is that most of the companies settle there precisely because they have a labor flexibility that is favorable for the companies where they can do these things without being legally punished.

PS: With this I am not defending companies, what I defend is that the State has to be the one that protects its citizens from this type of situation.

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I agree with you but said companies lobby politicians to ensure protection laws are not passed and contribute campaign financing to politicians that oppose said laws. They do everything in their power to keep the status quo or to have even less regulation in the name of profit. That is why the poster is arguing that we need to hold companies accountable because all they care about is the bottom line.