Easy to follow your advice. The first TLOU is a good rental IMO and easily the most overrated game by the community.
IMO because people get upset if I don't mention it.
IMO because people get upset if I don't mention it.
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#CrunchNoMore I will not buy Last of Us 2. Join me
- Thread starter RexNovis
- Start date
You may want to check some of my other posts in the thread before making assumptions about my intentions.
At no point do I encourage anyone to purchase this product or any other product for that matter. Only that your purchasing habits, whether you decide to get the game or not - or any other game - has effectively zero impact on this issue.
I worked in the AAA industry for almost a decade. I have personally championed unionization in multiple industry organizations against the expressed wishes of my superiors - both in my employers and in said organizations. And this particular issue is the primary reason I no longer work in games. I am intimately familiar with the details of crunch in the industry and what needs to happen to fix it.
This cannot be solved by consumer activism. It must be solved by some form of legal changes - be it legislation improving employment laws, legislation closing the loopholes publishers abuse to enact these types of working conditions, or unionization of part(s) of the industry itself. All of which need to be pushed by developers themselves and developer organizations. Because it's not just one company that can be bullied into submission. It's not just one group who need to be brought in line. It's an industry-wide toxic culture problem, that unfortunately many developers themselves support, defend, and reinforce.
And instead of listening to developers and developer organizations expressly telling you what you are doing isn't effective, telling you to put your efforts into the very limited areas you can help, telling you what you are doing may actually be harmful to the very people you want to help - you ignore that advice, you dismiss that experience, and you lash out at the very people you claim to care about.
I'm glad you find the response insulting. Because I do too.
I would never tell anyone not to voice their opinions, be an activist, etc. But IMO gamers at large do not have the resolve to boycott. Would be more effective to call for people to buy used or borrow, and abstain from buying DLC.
Unfortunately, in the digital age, even that is too much for a lot of people to bother with.
Unfortunately, in the digital age, even that is too much for a lot of people to bother with.
Double esasy as apparently you don't have a PS4, as you were gloating that you will play Ghost of Tsushima at a friend's, and then port begging for it on Steam.
Just one shining example among many of how these threads tend to be just a repository for shit posting from people who didn't give a shit in the first place, and wouldn't play the game anyway.
I was suspecting this thread might be a productive conversation but posts like these and others I have read have really made this thread a shit show...
I'd suggest another approach would be for California-Era to start a ballot initiative campaign to push for better legislation on working hours, which would also have the benefit of helping others who are made to work long hours.
As ScatheZombie says, this won't be fixed by consumer activism.
As ScatheZombie says, this won't be fixed by consumer activism.
There are stuff that developers can do to eliminate/ reduce crunching. Making sure there's clarity in direction, vision and expected deliverables are key to that and in general it would greatly improve the staff morale too.
However, coming from an industry where crunch is expected every now and then, I cant help but think that its also a product of 1) cutthroat competition and 2) meeting customer/ user/ client expectations.
When Credit Suisse competing with JPMorgan or Goldman to be an advisor for an M&A project you can bet your ass they will promise the world to the potential client. Whats that? major assumption changes for the valuation sent on a Sat evening to be ready by Mon AM? consider it done.
Tech company can also be very prone to crunching in my experience, the leaked email below should give you more sense on how demanding it is more than any personal examples I can share w/ you:
From: Oliver Samwer
Subject: when is it time for blitzkrieg
To: [redacted]
Cc: [redacted]
Date: October, 2011
[Name], [Name] and the other founders globally in furniture, i need to know from you, when it is time to do the same in furniture, that means when it is time to take 100% of the market, full scale investment attack etc – as see below.
there are only 3 areas in ecommerce to build billion dollar business: amazon, zappos and furniture. the only thing is that the time for the blitzkrieg must be chosen wisely, so each country tells me with blood when it is time. i am ready – anytime!
Team in India, Turkey, Australia, South Africa, South East Asia,
I want you to change strategy and become the fastes, most aggressive and most succcessful company we ever built. You both face the same situation of coming late into market but sitting in the most interesting markets of the world and therefore I want you both to follow the same strategy. And do not tell me that you are following the strategy already, today from india to turkey, you have implemented 20% of this. Now it is time to either decide we will die to win or to give up.
So here is the important stuff for our strategy
Must:
1. We must be number one latest in the last month of next season. Full month, not a discount sales month.
Why ? Because only number one can raise unbelievable money at unbelievable valuations. I cannot raise money for number 2 etc and I have seen it how easy it is for me in Brazil and how difficult in Russia, because our team fucked up.
So to be clear, I will provide you with the money for the most aggressive plan of history. You must provide a plan and assume the following:
1. You achieve number 1. And you must achieve number in the categories that your competitors are active. So if your comeptitors are only in shoes, you must be number one in shoes. And then have clothes etc on top. But it will not that by not being number one in shoes you make up by selling in clothes. Leader in EVERY country that you have.
2. You must be in 2 seasons from now have at least 50% marketshare of the total online market in all your categories. A scenario where you have 35%, next 25%, next 20% will not give you the valuation that we need. we need an amazon valuation: seen as the 80% leader in the market.
3. You must assume that your competitors will raise huge amounts of money and will have revenues of 3x compared to this season.
4. i want all competitors with forecasts in your plan, so that it is clear what our position is.
5. i only care for net revenues, after returns and number of orders to prove that you are number one and have the required market share. no other currency. pls provide a business plan for 2012, not longer, not less.
6. in the last season month you need to be 100% bigger than biggest competitor in net revnues and order (both metrics)
7. assume that your competition will do crazy things: tv, groupons, selling below cogs, … you must assume eveything in your plan so that there are no surprises. i do not accept surprises. i want this planned confirmed by all three of you: you must sign it with your blood.
What you need and do not have (this is not criticism, this is oberservation):
1. You have not enough top buyers: you need to be number one in shoes, apparel, sports, jewelerey, whatever category makes sense. we can only get to 80% marketshare if we beat our competitors by aggressiveneess in each category, it must be a blitz-krieg-invasion. i think you should have 25 top buyers, top in each category, start looking now. you must OWN each category. australia mistake, not enough focus on shoes, instead apparel
and so they are losing out in shoes. the strategy is: own every country and if you have to sacrifice, focus on shoes as priority. best is if you can master all.
2. you need more top people. more mckinseys, goldman. find young talent, aggressive talent, smart detailed.
3. you need to ask much more brazil, russia and germany for their lessons, mistakes, improvements. russia did not do reports like germany and so they screwed up.
4. spend your money wisely. grow buying now, but it makes no sense to have 200 logistics people for 10 orders a day. so grow early, but wiseley.
5. control marketing, the key is in measurement. there is tons of lessons in russia mistakes and brazil there.
6. 2 of you should come some time for 2 days over one weekday and one weekend day to germany to get complete download.
7. find a top cto wizzard, build up a 30 people it team of top talent. amazon is it company, zalando 30% of value in it. it is always bottleneck.
Summary: i give you all the money to win, i give all the trust, but you come back with unmatched success. If i see that you are wasting my money, that you are not german detail oriented, that you are not fast, that you are not aggressive, that you are not data driven, that you are not doing logistics well, upload inventory fast, buying wrong inventory, then i get angry and do like in russia, where no people leading the company now and i lost a ton of money and the founders lost 50% of their equity and no salary for 6 months. we are in the same boat, everyone has to do his mission.
We are coming late, so we need to be the most aggressive, so aggressive that every competitor is surprised because he cannot imagine that we are SOO aggressive. to give you an example in brazil in groupon my competitor did 3m a month and had 80 sales people. i assumed in 4 months he would go to 300 salespeople and 6m so i told the team to have 500 salespeople in 4 months and 10m monthly revenues. we won. yes, there was some collateral damaage (it could have been done cheaper wiht more time), but i won and this it was matters so i could raise money and optimise all the missing parts.
Provide a plan over this weekend that includes all your recommendations, thinking because i can give you the money, the knowhow, the strategy, but i will only do a plan that you 100% believe in and that is signed with blood. this is not olis plan, this must be your plan, our plan.
Never forget there are only 2 big areas in ecommerce: amazon and zappos. this is the last chance in your life! the chance for another billion dollar ecommerce company will never come again. This is over, after amazon there came only zappos, so we cannot lose this, because your grand children will ask why you why you did not become it.
Surprise me with your aggressiveness, but smart and thought through aggressiveness – learn from the russian and japanese mistakes and the german and brazilian successes !
This is our last chance in ecommerce to build an Amazon company. After us, you can build an online games company, but no more in ecommerce. this is the LAST frontier in your life for ecommerce and I want you to rule this frontier. not 20%, not 30%, but 80% marketshare which is still possible in your countries.
I am the most aggressive guy on internet on the planet. I will die to win and i expect the same from you!
However, coming from an industry where crunch is expected every now and then, I cant help but think that its also a product of 1) cutthroat competition and 2) meeting customer/ user/ client expectations.
When Credit Suisse competing with JPMorgan or Goldman to be an advisor for an M&A project you can bet your ass they will promise the world to the potential client. Whats that? major assumption changes for the valuation sent on a Sat evening to be ready by Mon AM? consider it done.
Tech company can also be very prone to crunching in my experience, the leaked email below should give you more sense on how demanding it is more than any personal examples I can share w/ you:
From: Oliver Samwer
Subject: when is it time for blitzkrieg
To: [redacted]
Cc: [redacted]
Date: October, 2011
[Name], [Name] and the other founders globally in furniture, i need to know from you, when it is time to do the same in furniture, that means when it is time to take 100% of the market, full scale investment attack etc – as see below.
there are only 3 areas in ecommerce to build billion dollar business: amazon, zappos and furniture. the only thing is that the time for the blitzkrieg must be chosen wisely, so each country tells me with blood when it is time. i am ready – anytime!
Team in India, Turkey, Australia, South Africa, South East Asia,
I want you to change strategy and become the fastes, most aggressive and most succcessful company we ever built. You both face the same situation of coming late into market but sitting in the most interesting markets of the world and therefore I want you both to follow the same strategy. And do not tell me that you are following the strategy already, today from india to turkey, you have implemented 20% of this. Now it is time to either decide we will die to win or to give up.
So here is the important stuff for our strategy
Must:
1. We must be number one latest in the last month of next season. Full month, not a discount sales month.
Why ? Because only number one can raise unbelievable money at unbelievable valuations. I cannot raise money for number 2 etc and I have seen it how easy it is for me in Brazil and how difficult in Russia, because our team fucked up.
So to be clear, I will provide you with the money for the most aggressive plan of history. You must provide a plan and assume the following:
1. You achieve number 1. And you must achieve number in the categories that your competitors are active. So if your comeptitors are only in shoes, you must be number one in shoes. And then have clothes etc on top. But it will not that by not being number one in shoes you make up by selling in clothes. Leader in EVERY country that you have.
2. You must be in 2 seasons from now have at least 50% marketshare of the total online market in all your categories. A scenario where you have 35%, next 25%, next 20% will not give you the valuation that we need. we need an amazon valuation: seen as the 80% leader in the market.
3. You must assume that your competitors will raise huge amounts of money and will have revenues of 3x compared to this season.
4. i want all competitors with forecasts in your plan, so that it is clear what our position is.
5. i only care for net revenues, after returns and number of orders to prove that you are number one and have the required market share. no other currency. pls provide a business plan for 2012, not longer, not less.
6. in the last season month you need to be 100% bigger than biggest competitor in net revnues and order (both metrics)
7. assume that your competition will do crazy things: tv, groupons, selling below cogs, … you must assume eveything in your plan so that there are no surprises. i do not accept surprises. i want this planned confirmed by all three of you: you must sign it with your blood.
What you need and do not have (this is not criticism, this is oberservation):
1. You have not enough top buyers: you need to be number one in shoes, apparel, sports, jewelerey, whatever category makes sense. we can only get to 80% marketshare if we beat our competitors by aggressiveneess in each category, it must be a blitz-krieg-invasion. i think you should have 25 top buyers, top in each category, start looking now. you must OWN each category. australia mistake, not enough focus on shoes, instead apparel
and so they are losing out in shoes. the strategy is: own every country and if you have to sacrifice, focus on shoes as priority. best is if you can master all.
2. you need more top people. more mckinseys, goldman. find young talent, aggressive talent, smart detailed.
3. you need to ask much more brazil, russia and germany for their lessons, mistakes, improvements. russia did not do reports like germany and so they screwed up.
4. spend your money wisely. grow buying now, but it makes no sense to have 200 logistics people for 10 orders a day. so grow early, but wiseley.
5. control marketing, the key is in measurement. there is tons of lessons in russia mistakes and brazil there.
6. 2 of you should come some time for 2 days over one weekday and one weekend day to germany to get complete download.
7. find a top cto wizzard, build up a 30 people it team of top talent. amazon is it company, zalando 30% of value in it. it is always bottleneck.
Summary: i give you all the money to win, i give all the trust, but you come back with unmatched success. If i see that you are wasting my money, that you are not german detail oriented, that you are not fast, that you are not aggressive, that you are not data driven, that you are not doing logistics well, upload inventory fast, buying wrong inventory, then i get angry and do like in russia, where no people leading the company now and i lost a ton of money and the founders lost 50% of their equity and no salary for 6 months. we are in the same boat, everyone has to do his mission.
We are coming late, so we need to be the most aggressive, so aggressive that every competitor is surprised because he cannot imagine that we are SOO aggressive. to give you an example in brazil in groupon my competitor did 3m a month and had 80 sales people. i assumed in 4 months he would go to 300 salespeople and 6m so i told the team to have 500 salespeople in 4 months and 10m monthly revenues. we won. yes, there was some collateral damaage (it could have been done cheaper wiht more time), but i won and this it was matters so i could raise money and optimise all the missing parts.
Provide a plan over this weekend that includes all your recommendations, thinking because i can give you the money, the knowhow, the strategy, but i will only do a plan that you 100% believe in and that is signed with blood. this is not olis plan, this must be your plan, our plan.
Never forget there are only 2 big areas in ecommerce: amazon and zappos. this is the last chance in your life! the chance for another billion dollar ecommerce company will never come again. This is over, after amazon there came only zappos, so we cannot lose this, because your grand children will ask why you why you did not become it.
Surprise me with your aggressiveness, but smart and thought through aggressiveness – learn from the russian and japanese mistakes and the german and brazilian successes !
This is our last chance in ecommerce to build an Amazon company. After us, you can build an online games company, but no more in ecommerce. this is the LAST frontier in your life for ecommerce and I want you to rule this frontier. not 20%, not 30%, but 80% marketshare which is still possible in your countries.
I am the most aggressive guy on internet on the planet. I will die to win and i expect the same from you!
I was planning on getting the game day one but not anymore. I am planning to borrow my friend's after he is done his play through. I know that a lot of people are looking forward to the game but I would encourage people to find alternative ways to play the game (rent, borrow, buy used). Practices like this must end.
I was going to gift my friend this game. Will be FF7R instead.
Don't be offended, this game I consider those games for the story and really tedious gameplay. It did not exactly click with me tbh.
Haha, pretty much! "Would've bought it for a friend" reply says it all, but when given an actual solution like some posters mentioned they are nowhere to be seen.
As someone who has crunched postproduction to make films, I can tell you that despite how physically tolling it was, I never once for one minute regretted the amount of time I put into any project. And some of those projects paid me considerably less than what Naughty Dog pays its employees.
Yes crunch is difficult, but fuck do I care about the art I make.
Yes crunch is difficult, but fuck do I care about the art I make.
It's wild to me that so many people are incapable of understanding how many creators feel this way. Like, you're just "pArt oF thE PrOBleM mannnnn."
Unfortunately crunch is hardly relegated to the gaming industry. If you're a student you may have crunched for mid-terms, finals or other projects. If you work in retail you're probably crunching now. If you are a video editor, you most likely crunched before a project was due. Even if you were some isolated farmer in some non capitalist society thousands of years ago, your ass was most likely crunching to get shit done before winter comes.
A lot of it comes down to deadlines and the fact that nobody can actually predict what life is going to throw at them. Some companies will handle it better than others and I absolutely support efforts to make things better. But I personally don't see myself boycotting Naughty Dog when 95/100 products I own are probably made under worse conditions. So drawing the line at Naughty Dog, wouldn't make a lot of sense to me personally.
Everyone can make their own decisions and draw their owns lines however.
A lot of it comes down to deadlines and the fact that nobody can actually predict what life is going to throw at them. Some companies will handle it better than others and I absolutely support efforts to make things better. But I personally don't see myself boycotting Naughty Dog when 95/100 products I own are probably made under worse conditions. So drawing the line at Naughty Dog, wouldn't make a lot of sense to me personally.
Everyone can make their own decisions and draw their owns lines however.
What exactly is disappointing about it? Cory put in a lot of hours into making GoW, made big sacrifices for it and somebody (tho probably a fanboy) on Twitter thanked him for doing so.
You're in no position to tell him that he can't like a tweet thanking him and his co-workers for their hard work.
Throughout the last months ND devs said how proud they are about the game and that they can't wait for people to play the game and to experience what they put together in the last few years.
Crunch sucks, they all hate it for sure, I do too, but that doesn't mean they don't feel appreciated when people thank them for their hard work and love their game. And I'm pretty sure most of them feel heartbroken when people boycott their game after they put so much work into it.
Oh, they absolutely give a shit. They just don't have access to the game, so they have to find a way to convince themselves they aren't interested.
Edit: This is specifically directed at people like the one Elandyll was responding to. Not the people who are actually boycotting due to the reports of crunch.
I have a feeling this will be like the Modern Warfare 2 boycott, once all the reviews come out...
This sums up the fanboy mentality perfectly! They dont have access to something so they do their best to convince themselves the game was shit either way so...
The most funny part of this thread are the people who say "Yes, I'll boycott TLoU2" and then say "I don't even think TLoU is a great game and don't like it".
If you don't like a thing, not buying it doesn't mean boycott in my opinion. It's like someone hates burgers and say "I'll boycott McDonald's because they use poor animals to make those burgers". But he continues to eat pizzas and hotdogs!
If you don't like a thing, not buying it doesn't mean boycott in my opinion. It's like someone hates burgers and say "I'll boycott McDonald's because they use poor animals to make those burgers". But he continues to eat pizzas and hotdogs!
User banned (3 days): whataboutism, ignoring staff post
I'd like to see the people boycotting this, also skip Cyberpunk 2077. I mean, surely this is because they are against crunch and NOT because they are pushing an agenda against Naughty Dog, I am sure...
I understand the need for action, but gamers boycotting products isn't going to do anything other than potentially harm the bottom line of the developers you're speaking out for.
They won't. To boycott crunch would be to boycott a great deal of videogames. Most developers crunch, in some shape or form, even if not to the extremes that Bioware and ND do.
This is why boycotting games is in my opinion a foolish practice, though as a consumer you're free to spend (or not spend) your money as and how you like. I just think there are better ways to go about making change.
They won't. To boycott crunch would be to boycott a great deal of videogames. Most developers crunch, in some shape or form, even if not to the extremes that Bioware and ND do.
This is why boycotting games is in my opinion a foolish practice, though as a consumer you're free to spend (or not spend) your money as and how you like. I just think there are better ways to go about making change.
Has probably been asked already but how do we know this list is valid?
Aren't all employers compliant until it's discovered they are not?
Don't know much about the gaming industry but after 10+ years in the Enterprise IT sector I know that crunch happened in every project I worked on.
When it's just normal day to day business I never had any issues leaving work on time, you roughly know what kind of workload/meeting to expect on average days and plan your hours accordingly.
But man, whenever a project kicks off a bunch of time is wasted in the beginning (higher ups not getting on the same page/dragging decisions) and once the milestones draw close, people freak out and want everyone to stay in longer.
Last year we had to migrate a whole datacenter across town over the weekend. Think I've slept 4h a night on average that week.
Since video games are all projects (unless you work on live service) with set release dates, I imagine that crunch is inevitable.
Doesn't make it right of course.
It's a good thing when video game jounalists bring light to these issues.
This is literally the worst. Yes I am going to send a message by denying you sales for the game you busted your asses over, but I don't have fortitude or self-control to not consume the work I am protesting. You literally are just being a hypocrite if you do that. Either consume as you normally would or don't all. If you play the game you have done nothing, but may be eased some guilt in your own mind.
They already got paid and judging by other reports, they will soon leave and be replaced anyways.
I love that simple constructive questioning gets labelled as antagonizing and results in bans but trolls can be completely off topic and jump in and say they weren't going to play it anyway because it's an overrated pile of garbage.
Just love it.
Just love it.
There is legitimately nothing wrong with both his tweet, and the reply tweet.
The only ban on this page is a troll writing what you said doesn't get actioned. The previous page it's a whataboutsim post that the staff explicitly stated not to do.
What are you talking about exactly?
I mean that's an overly simplistic way of putting it when factoring in bonus schemes and the like but fair enough. Each to their own.
Crunch cab be an issue, but also in my work happens that sometimes we have to do extra work. Should be better regulated sure.
Anyway I wont boycott anything, I still think that it would be worse because of all the work these people had to do.
This kind of matter should be taken by some association for workers rights, so it would be a win-win.
Anyway I wont boycott anything, I still think that it would be worse because of all the work these people had to do.
This kind of matter should be taken by some association for workers rights, so it would be a win-win.
You can just say you will still be buying it, in the same way you still buy other consumer products that have even worse working malpractices. That's not attacking or taking away from the subject, it's just the ironic truth.
This.
Boycotting the game just hurts the devs who crunched in the first place to get it to us: the least we can do is repay their hard work with a purchase if we truly want the game.
I'd everyone did this, ND may get hit with job cuts, and that is the last thing anyone should want for them.
Here is a developers perspective: I've been in games development for 20 years; having crunched myself on multiple titles , at multiple studios: crunched on Metroid Prime:Hunters at Nintendo, Destroy All Humans at THQ, M.A.G., Unit 13 at Zipper Interactive for Sony, and Ascend for Microsoft. Game "crunch" It's just how the industry works, right? Well, yes and no. Let me explain.
Crunch affecting the gaming industry can never be truly regulated or really changed to benefit developers due to the fact that creativity, passion, unforeseen bugs, development bottlenecks, market shifts, personnel changes, technical hurdles, and feature creep all mold the development of any game. Also taking into account the pre-production factor. (I have yet to see ANY studio I've worked at do pre-production properly). Regardless of all planning strategies, budgets, and personnel; development is always a challenge, always with its unknowns, and each creative endeavor brings with it it's own unique obstacles.
Boycott or not, every single employee at Naughty Dog, Rockstar, Activision, Bungie, NetherRealm, Rocksteady...etc. know exactly what they've signed up for. Do those studios crunch. Yes. Will you crunch if you work on AAA games. Yes. Will you most likely be laid off at the end of production? Possibly. Will the sacrifice of crunch be worth it?
That is different for every person. For some, having a shipped game on the resume opens doors later on...(if they decide to stay in the Industry). The accolades, the team high of a well received creation, and the fun and excitement of working on something high profile, or working with leading industry veterans is exciting!!! Development of this nature is rare and at times the lines of a job and a passion project are blurred. I've seen first hand the benefits of crunch, game systems coming together after a year of development hell when nothing seemed to work. The team comradery, and unity of the team and the game getting aligned and becoming more in-focus. Framerate improvements, optimizations, crashes and screen tearing issues being eliminated; it's always an exciting time during the end of development - as the finish line appears on the horizon and the sacrifices, challenges, achievements, and development breakthroughs will all come to an exciting conclusion - with the hope of a well received title, awards, recognition, bonuses, and most of all...the hopes of continued employment and stability. That's just some of the good that comes from development crunch....yet the other side of the coin?
Crunch sucks, it's draining, a severe risk to developer's health, mental state, sleep cycles, social development, and their relationships. I've seen first hand the devastation of crunch and the forms it can take; health issues, hair loss, cancer, divorce, weight gain/loss, mental breakdowns, burnout, diabetes, sleep apnea, and more. So what should developers do? What should gamers do?
Crunch just can't be avoided for some games, and more specifically AAA. The higher the risk/goals/innovation, the higher the likelihood of crunch/burnout/feature creep. Yet crunch is an awful practice and should not exist, right? - but because of the points I've mentioned it's most likely never going to go away....however I'd argue, It can be managed. It can be improved. How? By actually supporting developers and buying their games.
Stay with me....
When games studios crunch, good management/publishers recognize its bad for their teams, bad for morale, bad for employee burnout, and bad for turnover. Yet the game needs to be be complete; the release dates usually are very difficult to shift as multi-million dollar ad campaigns are already slotted and sandwiched between their own titles or competitors. So what do they do?
Crunch.
So how does it improve if you buy their game? Well I've seen first hand how failure from management, bad design, bad programming, or unrealized art, plays out at studio levels....failures that take form in the shape of an unrealistic schedule, feature creep, overburdened bottlenecked departments/employees, broken tools, lack of support, or under employed departments. With each game being shipped; the "crunch" is complete exposure of the failings of the development process. Sometimes so much so destroying the game and sometimes the studio in the process. Yet when a game does ship, and is successful, and the team has learned from the experience, they are that much more educated for the next time. Mistakes made resulting in crunch on this project will be corrected (as best they can) for the next. Key failings in the development pipeline for a game will be identified in post-mortems and team discussions. Thus leading to new hires, new tools, more pre-production time, better planning, scheduling, and not having to "start over" at a new studio or team will lessen the crunch on the next title. Yet if the game didn't reach commercial success...the possibilities of fixing those issues identified become more diminished. That is why supporting a studio/developer by purchasing their game is so vitally important. When studios have the resources they need; the financial resources, the tools, personnel, support from their publisher, department heads, and fans, the crunch cycles can be lessened. It's also a massive advantage to start a new project having functioning development tools, strong talent and experience at key development weak spots, and the experience gained from shipping a title with this team. By supporting a studio that has crunched, you are rewarding the sacrifice. It makes it better for the next title. If the developer/publisher is a studio that has a goal to protect it's developers and IP makers. The -reinvestment in those teams means they get to go up to bat again with the knowledge gained from their previous attempt. Not many developers get that chance, and it's a rare thing in the industry to see it become mature.
Take for example Forza, that game has had over a dozen releases from mostly the same team at Turn 10 for more than a decade. They know how to make Forza, they know what makes it work, they know how to schedule, hire, fire, manage, publish, support, polish, and bug test a racing game because they've done it multiple times. They don't start over with each new title, they build on the resources gained from the previous one. Madden does the same thing, so these types of studios can somewhat develop a blueprint that can lead to very little crunch. I have friends that work at Turn 10 and they don't really crunch at all compared to other AAA developers. They know how to make their titles and the new features and additions to each title add the unknown risk to the project resulting in any crunch that may or may not be needed. Not every developer has that luxury of experience or a game project that lends itself to that form of development. Yet it is an example of a studio that can deliver with little to no crunch because their experience and knowledge affords them the ability to do so.
Yet not all games are cut from the same cloth. Not to diminish the extraordinary effort and work of the Forza team; it's just not the same level of complexity of a Red Dead game, Call of Duty, Battlefield, God of War, or the Last of Us. It's not as easy to schedule, develop, test, produce, hire, create...these types of games. The complexity goes up, the stakes, the price, team size, required skill, tools, resources needed all go up with it as well. We are too young of an industry to see if the Forza model can be applied to other "more complex" games as only a few developers in the industry have the pedigree and resources to do so. Yet if games are not purchased, teams not supported, knowledge gained on a title not being able to be applied on the next; we'll never know. That is why supporting a game will help lessen crunch.
Yet it's hard to know which developers and publishers will do the right thing and re-invest the profits of a successful title into their developers...and that is a completely different discussion.
Crunch affecting the gaming industry can never be truly regulated or really changed to benefit developers due to the fact that creativity, passion, unforeseen bugs, development bottlenecks, market shifts, personnel changes, technical hurdles, and feature creep all mold the development of any game. Also taking into account the pre-production factor. (I have yet to see ANY studio I've worked at do pre-production properly). Regardless of all planning strategies, budgets, and personnel; development is always a challenge, always with its unknowns, and each creative endeavor brings with it it's own unique obstacles.
Boycott or not, every single employee at Naughty Dog, Rockstar, Activision, Bungie, NetherRealm, Rocksteady...etc. know exactly what they've signed up for. Do those studios crunch. Yes. Will you crunch if you work on AAA games. Yes. Will you most likely be laid off at the end of production? Possibly. Will the sacrifice of crunch be worth it?
That is different for every person. For some, having a shipped game on the resume opens doors later on...(if they decide to stay in the Industry). The accolades, the team high of a well received creation, and the fun and excitement of working on something high profile, or working with leading industry veterans is exciting!!! Development of this nature is rare and at times the lines of a job and a passion project are blurred. I've seen first hand the benefits of crunch, game systems coming together after a year of development hell when nothing seemed to work. The team comradery, and unity of the team and the game getting aligned and becoming more in-focus. Framerate improvements, optimizations, crashes and screen tearing issues being eliminated; it's always an exciting time during the end of development - as the finish line appears on the horizon and the sacrifices, challenges, achievements, and development breakthroughs will all come to an exciting conclusion - with the hope of a well received title, awards, recognition, bonuses, and most of all...the hopes of continued employment and stability. That's just some of the good that comes from development crunch....yet the other side of the coin?
Crunch sucks, it's draining, a severe risk to developer's health, mental state, sleep cycles, social development, and their relationships. I've seen first hand the devastation of crunch and the forms it can take; health issues, hair loss, cancer, divorce, weight gain/loss, mental breakdowns, burnout, diabetes, sleep apnea, and more. So what should developers do? What should gamers do?
Crunch just can't be avoided for some games, and more specifically AAA. The higher the risk/goals/innovation, the higher the likelihood of crunch/burnout/feature creep. Yet crunch is an awful practice and should not exist, right? - but because of the points I've mentioned it's most likely never going to go away....however I'd argue, It can be managed. It can be improved. How? By actually supporting developers and buying their games.
Stay with me....
When games studios crunch, good management/publishers recognize its bad for their teams, bad for morale, bad for employee burnout, and bad for turnover. Yet the game needs to be be complete; the release dates usually are very difficult to shift as multi-million dollar ad campaigns are already slotted and sandwiched between their own titles or competitors. So what do they do?
Crunch.
So how does it improve if you buy their game? Well I've seen first hand how failure from management, bad design, bad programming, or unrealized art, plays out at studio levels....failures that take form in the shape of an unrealistic schedule, feature creep, overburdened bottlenecked departments/employees, broken tools, lack of support, or under employed departments. With each game being shipped; the "crunch" is complete exposure of the failings of the development process. Sometimes so much so destroying the game and sometimes the studio in the process. Yet when a game does ship, and is successful, and the team has learned from the experience, they are that much more educated for the next time. Mistakes made resulting in crunch on this project will be corrected (as best they can) for the next. Key failings in the development pipeline for a game will be identified in post-mortems and team discussions. Thus leading to new hires, new tools, more pre-production time, better planning, scheduling, and not having to "start over" at a new studio or team will lessen the crunch on the next title. Yet if the game didn't reach commercial success...the possibilities of fixing those issues identified become more diminished. That is why supporting a studio/developer by purchasing their game is so vitally important. When studios have the resources they need; the financial resources, the tools, personnel, support from their publisher, department heads, and fans, the crunch cycles can be lessened. It's also a massive advantage to start a new project having functioning development tools, strong talent and experience at key development weak spots, and the experience gained from shipping a title with this team. By supporting a studio that has crunched, you are rewarding the sacrifice. It makes it better for the next title. If the developer/publisher is a studio that has a goal to protect it's developers and IP makers. The -reinvestment in those teams means they get to go up to bat again with the knowledge gained from their previous attempt. Not many developers get that chance, and it's a rare thing in the industry to see it become mature.
Take for example Forza, that game has had over a dozen releases from mostly the same team at Turn 10 for more than a decade. They know how to make Forza, they know what makes it work, they know how to schedule, hire, fire, manage, publish, support, polish, and bug test a racing game because they've done it multiple times. They don't start over with each new title, they build on the resources gained from the previous one. Madden does the same thing, so these types of studios can somewhat develop a blueprint that can lead to very little crunch. I have friends that work at Turn 10 and they don't really crunch at all compared to other AAA developers. They know how to make their titles and the new features and additions to each title add the unknown risk to the project resulting in any crunch that may or may not be needed. Not every developer has that luxury of experience or a game project that lends itself to that form of development. Yet it is an example of a studio that can deliver with little to no crunch because their experience and knowledge affords them the ability to do so.
Yet not all games are cut from the same cloth. Not to diminish the extraordinary effort and work of the Forza team; it's just not the same level of complexity of a Red Dead game, Call of Duty, Battlefield, God of War, or the Last of Us. It's not as easy to schedule, develop, test, produce, hire, create...these types of games. The complexity goes up, the stakes, the price, team size, required skill, tools, resources needed all go up with it as well. We are too young of an industry to see if the Forza model can be applied to other "more complex" games as only a few developers in the industry have the pedigree and resources to do so. Yet if games are not purchased, teams not supported, knowledge gained on a title not being able to be applied on the next; we'll never know. That is why supporting a game will help lessen crunch.
Yet it's hard to know which developers and publishers will do the right thing and re-invest the profits of a successful title into their developers...and that is a completely different discussion.
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More power to the folks that won't buy.
Mocking people who have elected to not purchase this, or any other game, due to the workers being abused is a obscenely shitty thing to do. Absolutely disgusting.
Given the amount of toxicity from some folks on this forum regarding this stuff, links to the stories of crunch should really be featured in a section of the OT.
Mocking people who have elected to not purchase this, or any other game, due to the workers being abused is a obscenely shitty thing to do. Absolutely disgusting.
Given the amount of toxicity from some folks on this forum regarding this stuff, links to the stories of crunch should really be featured in a section of the OT.