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Blizzard co-founder says that Blizzard wouldn't be where it is today without crunch, but acknowledges that it is unsustainable long-term.
- Thread starter LordDraven
- Start date
So the founder of a company said that their current business model is unsustainable? If Investors cared, they'd panic right now.
Edit: Didn't read the now-departed founder part... but still...
Edit: Didn't read the now-departed founder part... but still...
Seemingly a damning admission of the company's core business being unsustainable, but what do I know!
So Blizzard has crunch. Crunch is not sustainable. Therefore, Blizzard is not sustainable.
Got it.
Got it.
Not that it's ever been great on the employees, but why has there been such a huge focus on crunch lately? How many developers that aren't relatively small indies don't have it? Are you fine with games being delayed up to another six months or a year after already being delayed? Because that seems like what will happen if this blows up.
edit: https://www.resetera.com/threads/cr...-without-it-founder-says.126003/post-22281623
edit: https://www.resetera.com/threads/cr...-without-it-founder-says.126003/post-22281623
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Because they gotta maintain playerbase since everything is moving to GaaS.
They aren't crunching to make new games, they are crunching to add content to the games they have in order to maintain players
It's the news cycle/makes good headlines/people have decided to fixate on it. Like how "ludo-narrative dissonance" became all anyone talked about for a couple of months arbor one point. People cling to things.
Yes. For fuck's sake, yes.
I'm fine with waiting longer for a game if it means that the devs are able to work sane hours and not kill themselves crunching. Jesus Christ, what kind of a little piss-baby shithead would demand devs work themselves to death so all the little piss-baby shitheads could play their game sooner?
Of course Blizzard is better now than they were 10 years ago. 10 years ago they were making Titan, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, and Hearthstone concurrently. I think the scope of the projects at Blizzard is an indicator on why they aren't doing much if any crunching in the present day.
Yeah, I get that, but it's like ignoring that this has existed for decades already, and that none of the "cherished" developers are actually safe from this. Yet none seem to be targeted until it's actually revealed that they are doing it...as if they weren't already.
Probably most large publishers, but I guess it's easier to just keep heads in the sand right? Or is there simply a level of "acceptable" crunch for you? Because they likely all do it in some way. That's what they used to call the polishing stage.
If you can't run a business that treats your people properly, then you don't deserve to be in business. I hope all those employees who get treated badly find a place that respects and values them.
This isn't a zero sum game. It's perfectly feasible to do the right thing AND be profitable.
This isn't a zero sum game. It's perfectly feasible to do the right thing AND be profitable.
Warcraft 2 came out in less than a year after Warcraft 1.
Brood War came out ~8 months after Starcraft.
Heroes of the Storm was putting out characters every month or so.
Not to mention I'm pretty sure there is/was some crunch for Blizzcon too, because every team needed to present something at Blizzcon.
This is the founder that just left the company. So yea he doesn't have to worry about hurting his former employees anymore or what the consequences of calling the company unsustainable will be. So brave of him.
Are you trying to find some sort of idiotic gotcha?
I've been a part of dev crunch.
CRUNCH.
FUCKING.
DESTROYS.
PEOPLE.
So don't play all "Ooh, you criticize society, yet participate in it! How curious!" on me.
Uh, I'm gonna quote what Morhaime actually said, because that headline seems to be sensationalizing it a lot. Basically, Blizzard wouldn't be where it's at without the crunch they've done in the past, but that's not sustainable and things need to change.
Also:
Also:
They were putting out games yearly in the 90s, but the releases start getting spaced out a lot more in the 00s. They have over 4000 employees. Isn't that more than enough manpower for game development? Obviously they don't have all of them working on one game but I still don't understand how they have crunch.
Well Morhiame was talking about Blizzard's past and the changes they've made to avoid crunch since then, though it's not surprising there would be periods of crunch even now at Blizzard. They have 4000+ employees but that's all the jobs at the company from QA, artists, developers, marketing, esports, HR, etc. The esports team isn't going to be crunching right before the release of Diablo 4. The Overwatch team right now is making Overwatch "2" while also supporting the live game and working on the esports side with Overwatch League. To their credit, there has been a notice on the Battle.net launcher that they've been hiring for the Overwatch team for at least a year now so they're staffing up instead of just putting more work on everyone's plate.
Blizzard, known for it's "It's done when it's done" mantra, says they can't sustain themselves without crunch.
Bunch of hypocrits, apparently they can take as much time as they need to finish a game but can't help but overwork their workers to reach deadlines.
Bunch of hypocrits, apparently they can take as much time as they need to finish a game but can't help but overwork their workers to reach deadlines.
oh no, we would have to wait another six months or a year for the next AAA game? How would we ever survive? Waiting a whole year for the next AAA game is simply unacceptable, the people making these games simply have to be unable to see their families and friends so that I can get my entertainment as quickly and as fast as possible.
More seriously, the reason why there's such a focus on crunch is because workers are tired of being exploited, people are suffering while suits are getting away with millions of dollars in profit, and there's simply wider coverage of it now.
In the midst of the current push for industry-wide unionization it doesn't, as they say, take a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing
And yes, yes. 6 months is far better than the quality sacrifices and, importantly, human health sacrifices needed to get a game on shelves. I like video games a lot, but I don't like them that much, and as a software developer myself I believe in the strongest possible terms that crunch worsens development quality.
That's a shitty hot take. Maybe it's more the case that a lot of players are stuck in shitty temp agency jobs - like Treyarch QA - and so find the situation relatable and want to know about it?
A strong labor movement benefits us all. In fact, if you want capitalism to be stabilise then having good collective bargaining on the part of the workers is pretty much essential.
Erm... yes?
Of course, I'd like to play the games I want to play immediately, but as an empathetic human being I'm more than willing to delay that gratification if it means that the people making the games can do so without ruining their lives and then being tossed aside in favour of newer grist for the mill.
On a more selfish note, more games are currently coming out than I'm able to play. If longer dev times leads to less frequent game releases, I'm perfectly down for that.
Eh, that's a bit of a false equivalence. Talk of "ludo-narrative dissonance" was mostly weird navel-gazing. Being concerned about the well-being of the people who make the things you enjoy is admirable.
A lot of this comes down to Jason Schreier putting in the investigative work to uncover and publicize the conditions these people are working under. I think it's good that he's making more people talk about this, as it may lead to changes that tangibly improve people's lives.
I would be 100% fine with it. The problem isn't customers, it's publishers. Publishers are the ones that don't want to pay for an extra year of development.
Why get the full picture when you can rush in to shit out a blisting hot take?
I am really curious how this keeps happening. This isn't just Blizzard either. Why does it take a dev 2-3 years to say "This isn't going to work out."?
Would be fine with delays, or even games scaling back from being so massive these days. Not every game needs to be a 50+ hour open world experience or an ever evolving GAAS.
I don't believe this will ever stop in the HD era (not that it didn't happened before ) game budgets, costs are ridicously high like ridicuosly so. Current games need hundreds of employees and take 3+years to come out, probably with lots of outsourcing too and it will only get worse
