Change has to start somewhere.
I don't think it's an easy change if it's entrenched in the culture over a studio's lifetime, but I think the goal here is to foster a better work / life balance for everyone, even if it's a long process.
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Devs tweeting about their games that were made with no crunch.
- Thread starter Captain of Outer Space
- Start date
Change has to start somewhere.
I don't think it's an easy change if it's entrenched in the culture over a studio's lifetime, but I think the goal here is to foster a better work / life balance for everyone, even if it's a long process.
I think the definition of Crunch being used by some isn't correct.
If you watch the Broken Age dev diaries there was a few points they were clearly working in the wee small hours to hit deadlines, this is crunch! So why it's on this list is amazing to me.
Perhaps the person that tweeted it didn't work past 8pm, but that doesn't mean the game didn't do crunch.
If you watch the Broken Age dev diaries there was a few points they were clearly working in the wee small hours to hit deadlines, this is crunch! So why it's on this list is amazing to me.
Perhaps the person that tweeted it didn't work past 8pm, but that doesn't mean the game didn't do crunch.
Many jobs, regardless of industry, have crunch time every now and again, the issue with video games is that it's a common occurrence, and gets into ludicrous amounts without compensation and a general attitude from management that "hey that's just the way it is ".
Sounds like a week, maybe 2 of overtime before a deadline, or shipping the game. Which is pretty common and not completely unreasonable. So as long as they're rare.
That seems reasonable, though.
Doing an occasional stint of insane hours is typical of many jobs. People can do it. It's when it starts becoming weeks and months that it turns into a serious problem.
Crunch time is ridiculous. Get a realistic project manager on the job, dont let PR promise more than is feasible and budget for what is realistic. Crunch time is just the result of poor project handling.
The craziest thing about crunch culture is that it doesn't work. Not only productivity falls off a cliff after 6 hours-ish, work quality takes an immense hit, especially if doing it for extended periods of time.
I work in advertising, another industry that has a pretty fucked up work time culture, and my agency decided to cut our weekly hours from 40 to 30, still getting paid for 40. Productivity went up with the cut. We do crunch here and there, when a project needs to ship now, but it's 10h a day maximum for a single day. I can count on one hand the number of crunch days I've done in the past 5 years, and a large part of that is due to having sensible project managers that establish achievable deadlines.
I work in advertising, another industry that has a pretty fucked up work time culture, and my agency decided to cut our weekly hours from 40 to 30, still getting paid for 40. Productivity went up with the cut. We do crunch here and there, when a project needs to ship now, but it's 10h a day maximum for a single day. I can count on one hand the number of crunch days I've done in the past 5 years, and a large part of that is due to having sensible project managers that establish achievable deadlines.
When you have a deadline you set your scope to what's possible in that timeframe, no more. It's not that deep.
Edit: it seems like game development still suffers from waterfall which is absurd to me
Next Level Games have a pretty strict No Crunch policy... They do some extended hours towards the end of projects, but generally stick to 40 hour weeks AND make critically acclaimed games on time and on budget!
They talk about it in this interview...
https://gamasutra.com/news?story=23616
They talk about it in this interview...
https://gamasutra.com/news?story=23616
It is, when scope often relies on aspects that are unproven, unreliable, or even unknown at the time of commitments. For example - commitments are often made with a fraction of the team size and a LOT of assumptions about growth, productivity and capacity of the future team structure. Or sometimes, even without the assumptions.
Two things - usually you get an end-date and you are asked to work backwards to fit the project pitch into it.
Second - publishers often won't sign something on without seeing a waterfall... milestone... plan for the associated deadline from point 1.
Scheduled overtime at pinch points is different to a year long crunch death march.
None that I play unfortunately, though I've heard great things about Minit and Guacamelee 2. Sunless Sea is available on iOS if you're into portable and have a decent enough device.
I feel this topic which started with good intentions backfired. I'm sure it's easy to make games with no crunch which nobody has ever heard of and were instantly forgotten, which is most of that list in the OP. It's a lot harder to avoid crunch if you want to make a 90+ game. All this talk from people about boycotting RDR2 seems a bit hypocritical considering I'm sure they all buy other AAA games which were made with crunch, and potentially crunch almost as bad as Rockstar has long been notorious for.
Where is the line between a person "wanting to excel" and "being exploited"? Like everything in life, if you want to do well, it takes hard work. Some people want to make the absolute best game they can, especially if there are bonuses or royalties related to that, Others just want to leave at 6pm to go home to their family, even if they know the work they've been doing could certainly be better. Good luck getting 90+ rated games if everyone on the team is like that. If someone wants to work hard and they are being well compensated for it, is that exploitation?
Take Two (Rockstar) paid out $383M in internal royalties last year, which was 21.2% of revenue. They've paid out over $300M for each of the last 4 years, and it was over $500M for the 2 years before that, around GTAV's release. I'm sure the Housers and Menzies took a huge chunk of it, but I'm confident the regular employees also got a decent share, otherwise why would they still be there?
Where is the line between a person "wanting to excel" and "being exploited"? Like everything in life, if you want to do well, it takes hard work. Some people want to make the absolute best game they can, especially if there are bonuses or royalties related to that, Others just want to leave at 6pm to go home to their family, even if they know the work they've been doing could certainly be better. Good luck getting 90+ rated games if everyone on the team is like that. If someone wants to work hard and they are being well compensated for it, is that exploitation?
Take Two (Rockstar) paid out $383M in internal royalties last year, which was 21.2% of revenue. They've paid out over $300M for each of the last 4 years, and it was over $500M for the 2 years before that, around GTAV's release. I'm sure the Housers and Menzies took a huge chunk of it, but I'm confident the regular employees also got a decent share, otherwise why would they still be there?
Yeah because, "wow we worked so hard on this game we had 100-hour workweeks" should be what these people are saying.
They should be damn smug for being able to complete a game while not working for 60, 70, 100 hours a week and being able to enjoy time over the weekends like any normal working person should.
Then again there are people like you who take offence that their beloved studio is being dogpiled on for having unethical work practices.
And compensated. But yeah, in a deadline driven industry you're bound to have periods where you have to work more than usual to make it.
But good management will try to keep these instances as rare as possible. You're not getting any benefits from it if it's an "always on crunch mode" anyway, just dudes pounding their chest about how they're working 24/7 while being less productive than someone on a 35h week.
The problem is that it does work in terms of achieving the goal of hitting deadlines. Watch how much money R* makes next week.
... and then how much more they pay out in internal royalties next year.
People defending crunching at this point just don't want to be guilt tripped into buying a game and having anyone think less of them. Some are even such stans for a dev they are handwaving away criticism. I'm a huge fan of what cdpr has accomplished and stood for as far as titles they make, but their crunch/overworking shit is not something to be excused.
I'm getting the game cause the answer is not so simple to me as to what will make a difference, but I do see the point and I applaud people who were planning to get it and no longer aren't. And as someone who has to do a lot of crunch/overtime weeks at a time when on a project, and not getting paid for it, I know their pain to a degree but I've never had to crunch more than 60-70 hours in a week.
Id love a proper article/study as to what publishers and devs would need to happen to decrease amount of crunch. Higher base prices for games is worth it if it meant people working normal hour.
Replace "defending" with "observing". This topic came about because of the RDR2 controversy, and many posters are saying they'll boycott RDR2. Then it turns out, as many of us knew already, it's actually the norm. If you're going to boycott RDR2 then you better be prepared to boycott a lot of other games too.
If someone wants to work hard and make something great, and if they're well compensated for it, who are you to say they can't?
The more assets and complexity means more room for error in deadline estimates and more crunch to meet it
As a software developer in non-gaming, I have very little crunch, almost none at all.
We have monthly (minor) and bi-yearly (major) releases. There are deadlines for all of these releases of course, so the feature deadline for the December release might be... November 20th or something, the bug deadline might be December 1st, or something. Sure, on Nov 20 and Dec 1st, sometimes we're scrambling to just get these last minute features or bugs submitted so they can be verified and released that month... But it's not 'crunch' it's just you might be frantically trying to get something in that you told someone you'd do... But if you have to wait till the next month... really doesn't matter. IF you have a major feature miss and that becomes a trend, sure, you'll get some heat for that, but as long as you have good reasons and have credibility, it's fine and expected sometimes.
We're a billion dollar company that makes life-saving, important products that do things like put astronauts in orbit, designs synthetic valves for a failing heart, makes the system that your automated car runs on, makes your smartphone work, and a million other less important things. ... And we don't have crunch.
If our company can do it, then a company that makes videogames can do it too. Most just don't want to. It's part of their culture and they don't know how to get rid of it.
Crunch will always result in a worse product. It will always result in developer burnout and exodus. It will always result in lost revenue. If you're a successful gaming company, if you eliminate or mediate crunch you will become more successful. No game companies are successful because of their crunch, they're successful inspite of their crunch.
I would also have less of a problem with crunch if game developers weren't underpaid. I'd have less of a problem with if it game developers had better benefits, but more PTO, had more work:life balance, had more job security... I'd say, "Well, sure crunch is a thing, but they're making more money than general software development, have great benefits, and rock solid job security..." But, instead, it's the opposite. They make 20% less than similarly experienced developers... This isn't some small number, it's $20,000, $30,000, or $40,000+ less per year than a similarly experience engineer. Their benefits are okay but not better than the rest of the industry. And, in this time when software developers have an insane amount of job security, you're hearing stories about TellTale laying off their whole team with no notice and no severance. So, in this circumstance, crunch just isn't appropriate. It's clearly not working if the industry has these problems.
For every "Rockstar Games" multi-million seller blockbuster company making billions a year, there's probably 10 or 20 companies shuttering their doors because they think they have to follow the Rockstar model. They don't. This is the same as the silicon valley era of crunch in the 80s and 90s. For every Microsoft, Apple, or Oracle, you had 1,000 companies that failed in their first year and burned out overworked developers who were now out of business and unemployed. Smartly, companies like Microsoft and Apple figured it out. Some teams have crunch, of course, but they balance that out with high pay, work:life balance, PTO, and good benefits, and they're a successful company 30+ years later, standing on the bones of 10,000 companies who abused their employees and swiftly closed their doors. But all you read are about the Rockstars and (old) Microsofts. "Look! IT worked for Rockstar and they made GTAV!" But... what about every other failed developer that you used to love, the dozens of companies that have dissolved over the years? THey all probably based their model on companies like iD Software or Rockstar, and most have been bought, sold, shut down, or shuddered.
We have monthly (minor) and bi-yearly (major) releases. There are deadlines for all of these releases of course, so the feature deadline for the December release might be... November 20th or something, the bug deadline might be December 1st, or something. Sure, on Nov 20 and Dec 1st, sometimes we're scrambling to just get these last minute features or bugs submitted so they can be verified and released that month... But it's not 'crunch' it's just you might be frantically trying to get something in that you told someone you'd do... But if you have to wait till the next month... really doesn't matter. IF you have a major feature miss and that becomes a trend, sure, you'll get some heat for that, but as long as you have good reasons and have credibility, it's fine and expected sometimes.
We're a billion dollar company that makes life-saving, important products that do things like put astronauts in orbit, designs synthetic valves for a failing heart, makes the system that your automated car runs on, makes your smartphone work, and a million other less important things. ... And we don't have crunch.
If our company can do it, then a company that makes videogames can do it too. Most just don't want to. It's part of their culture and they don't know how to get rid of it.
Crunch will always result in a worse product. It will always result in developer burnout and exodus. It will always result in lost revenue. If you're a successful gaming company, if you eliminate or mediate crunch you will become more successful. No game companies are successful because of their crunch, they're successful inspite of their crunch.
I would also have less of a problem with crunch if game developers weren't underpaid. I'd have less of a problem with if it game developers had better benefits, but more PTO, had more work:life balance, had more job security... I'd say, "Well, sure crunch is a thing, but they're making more money than general software development, have great benefits, and rock solid job security..." But, instead, it's the opposite. They make 20% less than similarly experienced developers... This isn't some small number, it's $20,000, $30,000, or $40,000+ less per year than a similarly experience engineer. Their benefits are okay but not better than the rest of the industry. And, in this time when software developers have an insane amount of job security, you're hearing stories about TellTale laying off their whole team with no notice and no severance. So, in this circumstance, crunch just isn't appropriate. It's clearly not working if the industry has these problems.
For every "Rockstar Games" multi-million seller blockbuster company making billions a year, there's probably 10 or 20 companies shuttering their doors because they think they have to follow the Rockstar model. They don't. This is the same as the silicon valley era of crunch in the 80s and 90s. For every Microsoft, Apple, or Oracle, you had 1,000 companies that failed in their first year and burned out overworked developers who were now out of business and unemployed. Smartly, companies like Microsoft and Apple figured it out. Some teams have crunch, of course, but they balance that out with high pay, work:life balance, PTO, and good benefits, and they're a successful company 30+ years later, standing on the bones of 10,000 companies who abused their employees and swiftly closed their doors. But all you read are about the Rockstars and (old) Microsofts. "Look! IT worked for Rockstar and they made GTAV!" But... what about every other failed developer that you used to love, the dozens of companies that have dissolved over the years? THey all probably based their model on companies like iD Software or Rockstar, and most have been bought, sold, shut down, or shuddered.
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What the hell are you going on about? I never said anything like that at all. You obviously have big issues with other people in this thread. Bring it up with them but don't attempt to put words in my mouth.
I would farther clarify my post with you but no matter what I say, I'm afraid you'll just keep using me as some punching bag on issues I don't support as well.
Full production was 10 months. The extra time was spent using a few people on the team to continue polishing.
It's not just that there's crunch in the videogame industry.
It's that there's crunch ... AND
They're 20% underpaid ... AND
They have no job security ... AND
They don't have great benefits ... AND
There's no work/life balance ... AND
There's not much PTO ...
If the game development industry were paying 20% more instead of 20% less then there'd be less of a problem with crunch. Sure, it'd still be a problem, you should still work to avoid it because crunch leads to worse products and less revenue, but there wouldn't be as much motivation to avoid it. But game developers are paid less and have worse job security than people with similar experience in analagous roles outside of game development, so it's unjustifiable.
My plead with the videogame industry is the same. I don't think we -- gaming enthusiasts -- need to boycott our favorite games and I don't think that game developers need to form some magic union. Neither of those things will ever happen. Instead, I think videogame industry companies:
- Need to invest in real managers
- Need to invest in real project managers
- Need to invest in real human resources departments
- Invest in training so your managers aren't awful.
- Invest in real cultural improvement programs instead of "WORK HARD PLAY HARD" bull shit.
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There are some great great titles in there. I count at least 16 that I'd recommend.
For those with a "gotcha" mentality asking "oh so you'll boycott all AAA games?", yes, I can absolutely enjoy my gaming time just fine with indies/AA/non-crunch AAAs.
For those with a "gotcha" mentality asking "oh so you'll boycott all AAA games?", yes, I can absolutely enjoy my gaming time just fine with indies/AA/non-crunch AAAs.
Exactly.
The problem comes when long periods of overtime becomes expected. When Leads or producers start to actually SCHEDULE in overtime. Because you know at that point, they haven't even tried to avoid it. They're just like fuck it, these 3/4 months, everyones gonna be doing 50-60 hour weeks, and we're gonna cram in all this work.
The attitude often is, because other studios do it, or because it's seen as a "standard" why bother trying to improve?
Those situations become severely toxic, because then employees get rewarded for spending more time in the studio than others, even if they're doing less work.
And if you don't like it, leave. There's a 1000 more passionate juniors willing to do twice as many hours for twice as less. So count yourself lucky!
Those people can go fuck themselves.
Once again I'll post a great talk Josh Sawyer, Director at Obsidian, had on crunch in game development that he did earlier this year at Reboot Develop 2018, called "Take Care."
He really hits all the relevant points from burnout effect, simple inefficiency of crunch and blame on management. As well as stuff like unionization.
He really hits all the relevant points from burnout effect, simple inefficiency of crunch and blame on management. As well as stuff like unionization.
I disagree with those generalizations. Some of the most successful games in the industry have had massive crunch and produced some of the highest rated games ever, and haven't led to developer exodus or lost revenue. You also can't 100% align the business model in your industry to video games. I agree there's definitely room to improve regarding management. OTOH, if you guys are running late, the client paying for the software may be upset, there may be some re-negotiation, but not that big a deal compared to say missing the holiday season for games, or hoping to launch a couple of months before heavy hitters then launching at the same time and being over-looked by consumers. In your field the client has already agreed to pay $X for the software. In games, it launches and you better hope X consumers choose to buy it instead of games Y and Z.
It sounds too like in your field it's easier to schedule because the parameters and requirements are much clearer from the start. With games, it's how high should the player be able to jump, how far can he do this move from, how do these move lists work, what should the AI do, where should these items be placed, let's add this feature, cut that feature, now we've added X feature we should do Y feature too, and so on. I doubt they have every day of work pre-scheduled before even starting implementation. The harder something is to accurately schedule, the harder it will be to avoid crunch and hit the deadline and produce something good. Again, that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.
You should, there are some real gems in there, especially Guacamelee 2 and Dungeon of the Endless
Yep. Working a bit more per day for a week or two before E3 / Gamescom / release of the game is reasonable, in my opinion.
EDIT: Besides, it's not the whole team that does that. Usually it is only the people involved in the events, due to cross continent planning and meetings and what not.
There is a video done by playstation magazine back in the 90's proudly chronicling how the Gran Turismo team basically never left the office, most of them having made makeshift tents in their cubicles. I'll see if I can find it.
And we know Half-Life 3 doesn't have any crunch! :(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
One of the best games on that list is Guacamelee 2. You know what's conspicuous by its absence? Guacamelee 1. I wonder if in some alternate universe where they didn't put in the extra effort to make Guacamelee 1 so good, if the studio in that universe survived long enough to make a sequel.
Wow such dedicated workers no wonder the games were so good !!
More people should play Hohokum.
One of the most chill games ever.
Glad to see it made the list.
One of the most chill games ever.
Glad to see it made the list.
Crunch is not something for an industry or a business to be proud of. It's a sign of management failure and people should be embarrassed about it, not proud.
It's a failure of management to set realistic deadlines. It's a failure of management to properly staff their teams. It's a failure of management to prevent scope creep. It's a failure of simple project management.
Any project manager in any other industry that failed so consistently on such a fundamental level would be out the door so fast their heads would spin, but in the games industry they're celebrated.
It's a failure of management to set realistic deadlines. It's a failure of management to properly staff their teams. It's a failure of management to prevent scope creep. It's a failure of simple project management.
Any project manager in any other industry that failed so consistently on such a fundamental level would be out the door so fast their heads would spin, but in the games industry they're celebrated.
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I was gonna say...I bet there are no AAA games on that list made by developer with a publisher under a corporate umbrella that has to answer to shareholders.