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#CrunchNoMore I will not buy Last of Us 2. Join me
- Thread starter RexNovis
- Start date
That's the thing isn't it? Like people want change to happen, which is good and justified, but as we've all seen over and over again... boycotts never work. And in the few cases they have the studio will likely justify the loss of sales not as: "Customers value how we treat our workers and we will strive to do better" and simply go: "Oh, I guess we didn't try hard enough."
Everyone has heard the line: "Vote with your wallet" and after hearing that over and over, people would naturally begin to assume it's that easy. Just don't buy something and they will listen. But that couldn't be further from the truth because for every person who legit wants to boycott (and not someone just taking advantage of the situation), there is 10 who don't care.
So the best thing people (those on the outside) is to keep the conversation going. Don't let up. Having Gaming journalist signal boosting stories about Crunch. Ask the developer and the publisher the hard questions. Support the few Gaming Unions that exist to expand their reach/influence.
It's good that some people care but this isn't an issue that consumers can help with, if developers want better pay/working conditions then that's something they either have to fight for themselves or hope that legislation is passed. Boycotting their games is the worst thing you could do, if a developer creates games that sell alot of copies then they have more leverage in negotiations than a developer who's games fail.
The best thing you can do for game developers is vote for politicians who promise better workers rights.
The best thing you can do for game developers is vote for politicians who promise better workers rights.
Yeah, did I troll? Saying I wanna buy the game is trolling? I'm interested in this game because I loved the first one and I'm looking forward to see what direction take the second episode, what became the relationship between Joel and Ellie.
About the part saying it's hypocrit, it's not "trolling", it's being factual, I don't mean it about the op directly (I don't know him/her) but I can see plenty of people boycoting the game and being hypocrits for the reasons I gave.
Referring to iPhone and Nike was absolutely whataboutism.
I'm pretty sure everyone who genuinely want to boycott know that in the AAA market with games which sold over 10 millions copy is not gonna change anything really, I think people just feel the need to do something for the matter which is totally fine.
Oh I'm sure all ND needs is another hit to have better leverage during negotiations.
Can you add a vote to your first post : will you buy TLOU2 ? :)
Yeah, doesn't make sense to me. This idea comes off as a punishment rather then support. Even with hard work environments they still have passion to make the best game possible. To say we're going to shit on their hard work in support of their well being is ridiculous. They don't crunch to punish their employees. They crunch to make the best game as possible and release it ASAP for us. Just seems odd to punish them for that.
Well i guess you're right about one thing, if everyone boycotts their games then ND won't be working as much, they can have the same hours as Sony Cambridge and London Studios, and all the other countless developers that have been shut down because their games didn't sell.
OR, they can hear the concerns, and start moving toward a much better company culture.
So your first argument doesn't hold water and you go right to close them down and all those jobs gone?
I get it, you like your entertainment. I like my entertainment too. But there has to be a happy median for work for these people. Clearly selling multiple giant hits in a row has done shit for their negotiating power. TLOU2 is going to be a hit no matter what. If selling less gets a point across to Sony or whoever runs ND, then I'm all for it.
I would like to address those who are saying "what about other working issues in other places", it is not a very strong argument. Think of it like a vegetarian, you can't exactly go after every bad industry/company, however the answer is not to just consume every product made by exploitative practices, but doing small bits in places you feel you can.
I don't boycott games much personally, but lately I have been thinking I should with stories like this. There are a lot of games I just don't need to pick up, and it won't hurt the company any, TLOU 2 will be very successful, but that doesn't mean it's not a good thing to personally try to be anti-crunch in pretty much the only way a consumer can be.
I don't boycott games much personally, but lately I have been thinking I should with stories like this. There are a lot of games I just don't need to pick up, and it won't hurt the company any, TLOU 2 will be very successful, but that doesn't mean it's not a good thing to personally try to be anti-crunch in pretty much the only way a consumer can be.
This boycott might not help how things are done in ND studios but i may help some get rid of their FOMO impulse, hopefully (but i am not optimistic) it might do both.
You can help making working conditions better and the game will be always out there for you to experience.
You can help making working conditions better and the game will be always out there for you to experience.
What are you basing this off of? Do you think all of Sony's studios have the same pay, benefits, hours, creative freedom, deadlines, etc? You're literally arguing that success isn't useful in negotiations, you're arguing against a factual statement.
You're also misunderstanding what side im on here, i think crunch is not only morally wrong, but impractical as well. As Jason noted in the article, there's a bunch of devs getting burned out and not only leaving Naughty Dog, but leaving the entire games industry as well. Why would i want that as a consumer of video games? It's short term gain at the cost of long term sustainability.
There's not always going to be young talented devs for studios to take advantage of, and when that supply runs out the entire AAA market is going to be in serious trouble. We've seen AAA developers make extremely profitable games without crunch, we know it can be done. All i'm saying is that there's nothing that we can do about it (other than voting). This is something the developers will have to fight for themselves.
I hope the boycott has some sort of effect on it no matter how small.
I was never planning on buying the game, so I don't know if I count as part of the boycott, but I just wanted to express support for people wanting to end crunch. It won't be easy, it won't be instantaneous, and it won't automatically happen because of this boycott, but any small step helps. Don't have much more to add aside from that.
I was never planning on buying the game, so I don't know if I count as part of the boycott, but I just wanted to express support for people wanting to end crunch. It won't be easy, it won't be instantaneous, and it won't automatically happen because of this boycott, but any small step helps. Don't have much more to add aside from that.
I work in a totally different industry where crunch is daily routine.
I would be even more depressed if consumers wouldn't buy the products after all my efforts.
so for this reason, i will not join your boycott or any other from the past or future. Day 1 for me!
I would be even more depressed if consumers wouldn't buy the products after all my efforts.
so for this reason, i will not join your boycott or any other from the past or future. Day 1 for me!
I like the thought that a movement like this could gain traction, especially in the twilight hours of the current generation. It reminds me of #PS4noDRM, I think the vacuum between generations, companies ambition to shape their image for the coming generation means that they're more susceptible than ever to a good campaign.
Crunch is not good, but as others have pointed out, it's a matter of where you draw lines. Do I pay the extra 20% for sustainable and fairly produced clothing, in the name of reducing sweat shops (a FAR more inhumane working practice)? No I don't. And I don't want to commit to this movement either, I would like to have the end product.
In that sense, and on many issues globally, that is why political and governmental involvement is required. Always. These things need to change on a legislative level.
Good for anyone who does boycott it, it's a worthy concept!
Crunch is not good, but as others have pointed out, it's a matter of where you draw lines. Do I pay the extra 20% for sustainable and fairly produced clothing, in the name of reducing sweat shops (a FAR more inhumane working practice)? No I don't. And I don't want to commit to this movement either, I would like to have the end product.
In that sense, and on many issues globally, that is why political and governmental involvement is required. Always. These things need to change on a legislative level.
Good for anyone who does boycott it, it's a worthy concept!
Exactly. Those who have gaming as their main hobby will surely see their time spent gaming drop significantly if they decide to go that route. I hate that crunch is a thing, but to just not support the end product after devs have given their all to it just sounds like the wrong approach to me. Just my opinion tho.
Waypoint had an article about crunch back during RDR2'S thing where they spoke with numerous devs about this stuff. The majority consensus was to buy and enjoy the projects. The "don't boycott, it's not effective" thing was said.
Game Developers Give Advice On How To Make Their Industry a Better Place
Between news about Telltale and Rockstar Games, there's reason to have some pause about buying some games, so we asked some developers what they think.
www.vice.com
Just peep this article when most of the industry was on this late 2018. They, as they always do, did their research and actually spoke with devs.
Not buying games based on crunch based culture is a good policy and also one I'd like to support. I buy mostly Japanese made games though and would like to know if there's any resources to get more insight on the culture or specific companies there? The only thing I can think of was that recent article on Animal Crossing being delayed to (in part) avoid crunch.
So...
That was just an example for easy processing. I have never made $120k a year, even as a senior designer and team lead with a dozen developers underneath me.
On top of that, the entire point of that example is that a developer would only make that much if all the stars aligned to maximize your launch bonuses (if you even get a launch bonus). The base salary on that developer in the example is $60k a year. That's how much you'll actually make under most circumstances. The point was to highlight that even if you manage to have a successful campaign at 'punishing' a publisher for their business practices with boycotts or bad reviews, you can actually significantly impact the earning potential of the actual developers.
I honestly don't understand why this sort of "suffering but paid" bullshit isn't bannable. As if it's somehow OK to have ethically, morally and legally questionable working conditions as long as you make above some arbitrary amount of money. That's not a valid justification.
So let's talk about this concept: "You get paid for crunch."
Wrong. In the dozen or so times I have crunched for a project, I have never been properly compensated for said crunch. Developers are strung along with empty promises of huge bonuses, full time positions, future projects, promotions, or other benefits without getting anything in contractual writing. My contracts have never guaranteed anything beyond my salary, everything is based on hypotheticals and shifting variables - that companies will often push further based on the success of the project. If they promise the team will get X bonus if we sell Y units, and the game does amazingly well and sells gangbusters, suddenly you'll look at the documentation and magically Y is now Yx2. Or X is now X/2. And because this isn't a part of your actual contract, you can't really argue against it. The company gives you whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want, on their discretion.
And they usually fuck you over.
So, first off, your potential compensation is often denied entirely, dramatically reduced, or held until AFTER layoffs/'workforce reduction at the end of the project so they don't have to pay anything out to the majority of the team.
On top of that, the few times I have actually received the promised bonus for a successful launch - it was not 'proper' compensation. If I add up all the hours of overtime I worked and divided that by the amount my bonus ended up being I was working for .... about $3 an hour.
Cool.
Overall, developers are often not compensated - at all - for crunch. And even when they are, it's often at laughably low compensation for the actual amount of work. Yeah, that $10k bonus sounds nice... but when you realize you worked 80 hour weeks for a year and a half... you were actually making like $3.20 an hour for your overtime.
That said, I'd rather have something than nothing. So please don't boycott a game on my behalf when there's a slim, but potential, chance I might get a few schmeckles in compensation if you just buy whatever you want.
After all the bans from the page where you wrote this I can say with confidence that most people aren't trying to say what you wrote.
Boycott isn't the answer. The only people you're hurting are the little guys who are already down on the ground.
What really needs to be done is writing better worker rights laws - in a sense that would protect everyone being exploited, not just a subset of workers in an industry we all focus on. A boycott like this is attempting to control out comes by 'voting with your wallet,' In most cases it almost never works - and fact it's almost always based in the fantasy that the market is a good solution to all our ills in society. What we need to do - that isn't a temporary solution -is support political movements and candidates that support workers rights that prevent exploitation. Right now the bosses have all the power and that's what leads to work abuses like this.
Game does well: only big guys benefit
Game does badly: only little guys hurt
How's that work?
That won't help, there are better ways to go about it. I will still buy the game to support their hard work (and enjoy it of course).
Crunch is incredibly bad, however let's say this works and no one buys the game, we then end up in a situation where layoffs become a real possibility (espcially if Sony do just throw money at Naughty Dog).
Unions would help with this, but developers seem to be dead against that too...
Unions would help with this, but developers seem to be dead against that too...
Welcome to capitalism.
I can admire the intention behind wanting to boycott the game.
As someone who works in the gaming industry, and has for a very long time, I can say that crunch mentality is a top down problem. It's upper management and producers that push those types of initiatives and mentalities.
While a boycott is super noble, the upper management isn't going to be affected like the lower level employees, who often rely on performance bonuses and other incentives for various reasons. I'll say that bonuses have definitely bailed me out of difficult financial times, and my fear is that low sales/scores for the game will do more harm to the lower level employees, as upper management decides that the low performance means they need to re-evaluate and restructure the financial side of the business, not the people side.
And believe me, this isn't just a Naughty Dog issue. Many, many companies are slaves to crunch mentality, so a large part of the problem is that laid off or displaced workers will be forced to look for work at other companies, and I can say that here in LA, many of the big companies still adhere to some level of crunch time, so their situation will remain the same at their new home, if they're lucky to find employment at another company (some companies have initiated hiring and traveling freezes until this corona virus situation is under control).
By no means am I saying don't boycott the game, because I think it's good for people to stand by their principles, I just urge exploring as many alternative ways to spread our disapproval of crunch time. The hashtag is great, and I hope that other publications run with this story, as well as the stories of other companies that suffer from this mentality. Even then, that's just one avenue of combating crunch time.
I have a personal stake in seeing this practice eradicated, even though I find myself at a company that doesn't have a crunch time mentality. But the reason why we don't is because our higher ups (the CEOs and producers), actively enforce a no crunch time policy. They've lived it, hate it, and don't want to perpetuate it. If it was just us employees raising a ruckus about it, I doubt it'd have been any different from the other companies I've worked at that would threaten our employment and livelihoods if we didn't participate in crunch time.
As someone who works in the gaming industry, and has for a very long time, I can say that crunch mentality is a top down problem. It's upper management and producers that push those types of initiatives and mentalities.
While a boycott is super noble, the upper management isn't going to be affected like the lower level employees, who often rely on performance bonuses and other incentives for various reasons. I'll say that bonuses have definitely bailed me out of difficult financial times, and my fear is that low sales/scores for the game will do more harm to the lower level employees, as upper management decides that the low performance means they need to re-evaluate and restructure the financial side of the business, not the people side.
And believe me, this isn't just a Naughty Dog issue. Many, many companies are slaves to crunch mentality, so a large part of the problem is that laid off or displaced workers will be forced to look for work at other companies, and I can say that here in LA, many of the big companies still adhere to some level of crunch time, so their situation will remain the same at their new home, if they're lucky to find employment at another company (some companies have initiated hiring and traveling freezes until this corona virus situation is under control).
By no means am I saying don't boycott the game, because I think it's good for people to stand by their principles, I just urge exploring as many alternative ways to spread our disapproval of crunch time. The hashtag is great, and I hope that other publications run with this story, as well as the stories of other companies that suffer from this mentality. Even then, that's just one avenue of combating crunch time.
I have a personal stake in seeing this practice eradicated, even though I find myself at a company that doesn't have a crunch time mentality. But the reason why we don't is because our higher ups (the CEOs and producers), actively enforce a no crunch time policy. They've lived it, hate it, and don't want to perpetuate it. If it was just us employees raising a ruckus about it, I doubt it'd have been any different from the other companies I've worked at that would threaten our employment and livelihoods if we didn't participate in crunch time.
Welcome to corporate America. The little guys always suffer first.
User Banned (3 days): Ignoring the staff post
The main problem with this thread is that is poiting directly to a single game/developer.
That's not the way to present this problem or to try something to maybe fix it in any way.
This happens in every industry we know and must be changed in the near future but you should say this and talk about all companies.. when you just call out a single game/developer you sound like some kind of fanboy in my opinion.
We see all kind of people in this forums so if you are not a fanboy you should ask this thinking about all the people around the world suffering from this.. not just pointing at one single game.
PS: I'm buying the game 100%
That's not the way to present this problem or to try something to maybe fix it in any way.
This happens in every industry we know and must be changed in the near future but you should say this and talk about all companies.. when you just call out a single game/developer you sound like some kind of fanboy in my opinion.
We see all kind of people in this forums so if you are not a fanboy you should ask this thinking about all the people around the world suffering from this.. not just pointing at one single game.
PS: I'm buying the game 100%
It's an oversimplification but the reality is the little guys are being hurt regardless, while the big guys will indeed suffer if their game bombs.
It is the most recent case and the reason OP is doing that for future games as well. Did you read the OP where he lists other companies that don't do crunch? If anything, your buthurt text shows who the fanboy is.
My text is pretty clear.. this is a worldwide problem and is not right to just focus on one game/developer.
Say whatever you want but I'm really sure about my opinion and this thread is not going to fix the real problem here.
PS: I'm buying the game like I said before day 1
As it was mentioned before, boycotting ends up hurting the devs that made so much sacrifices and if the game bombs they risk getting laid off or dont get a bonus from good sales.
Crunch culture need to end but boycotting is not the solution.
From my outside view of the events, i think the fight needs to start from the inside (devs reporting these cases openly) plus the help of the gaming media to report more about it.
Crunch culture need to end but boycotting is not the solution.
From my outside view of the events, i think the fight needs to start from the inside (devs reporting these cases openly) plus the help of the gaming media to report more about it.
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More power to those who feel this is the appropriate action to take on behalf of over-worked developers.
I was gonna type up something more snarky and antagonistic but I feel like that's just me being annoyed (unfairly or not) at how some users can at times be pro-labor in the game industry and other times be impatient inconsiderate consumers (like whatever service/product their complaining about doesn't equally take a ton of effort, planning, and man hours to execute - complaining on behalf of X streaming service lol)
I was gonna type up something more snarky and antagonistic but I feel like that's just me being annoyed (unfairly or not) at how some users can at times be pro-labor in the game industry and other times be impatient inconsiderate consumers (like whatever service/product their complaining about doesn't equally take a ton of effort, planning, and man hours to execute - complaining on behalf of X streaming service lol)
Devs have bonuses when the game sells and score well, but nothing compared to big guys of course