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Ian Walker (Kotaku): Games Made Under Crunch Conditions Don’t Deserve ‘Best Direction’ Awards

BY2K

BY2K

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The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
4,714
Québec, Canada
I agree completely with this article.

kotaku.com

Games Made Under Crunch Conditions Don’t Deserve ‘Best Direction’ Awards

Last night, The Last of Us Part II walked away from The Game Awards with seven trophies, including those for Game of the Year, Best Narrative, Best Audio Design, Best Performance (by Laura Bailey as Abby), Innovation in Accessibility, and Best Action/Adventure. Arguments can be made as to...
kotaku.com kotaku.com

Last night, The Last of Us Part II walked away from The Game Awards with seven trophies, including those for Game of the Year, Best Narrative, Best Audio Design, Best Performance (by Laura Bailey as Abby), Innovation in Accessibility, and Best Action/Adventure. Arguments can be made as to whether it deserved those or not, but I think it's pretty obvious that no game that required its developers to crunch, like The Last of Us Part II did, should be given a Best Direction award, which The Last of Us Part II somehow also won.
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Let's be clear: the existence of crunch indicates a failure in leadership. It's up to game directors and producers to ensure workloads are being managed properly and goals are being met. If workers are being forced to crunch, explicitly or otherwise, it means the managers themselves have fallen short somewhere, either in straining the limits of their existing staff, fostering an environment where overtime is an implied (if unspoken) requirement, or both. And as ambitious as The Last of Us Part II director Neil Druckmann and his projects may be, "questionable experiments in the realm of pushing human limits" are not required to make a great game.
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diakyu

diakyu

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Dec 15, 2018
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Yep, I hate that it really feels like we validate these practices with such awards
 
Diarrhea Day-Lewis

Diarrhea Day-Lewis

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Oct 27, 2017
20,843
I totally agree. If anything, TGA could have taken that opportunity to roast the nominees by saying that while they are great games, the industry needs to change. And then not give the award to any of them. Or if there was a studio that didn't crunch and was nominated give it to them.

but it feels really hopeless (and I'm not a dev) that our industry is seemingly hand waving this, especially in the case of CP2077
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
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Oct 25, 2017
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Yup. I agree. A director who pushes their staff into crunch is not a good director.
 
Iron Eddie

Iron Eddie

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Nov 25, 2019
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Game deserves credit, Director or whoever is in charge of workload should not be rewarded if they are forcing them to work that many hours.
 
SunBroDave

SunBroDave

"This guy are sick"
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Oct 25, 2017
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I agree with the sentiment. However, with very few exceptions, doesn't crunch happen on basically all projects? I'm not saying it's not a problem that needs to be addressed, and should be addressed by a quality directory, but if an award for best directing was never given to a director on a project that had crunch, wouldn't an award for best directing basically never be given out to anyone?
 
Bosch

Bosch

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May 15, 2019
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Do we have in perspective if any aaa made on the recent years didn't have any type of crunch?
 
SuperBoss

SuperBoss

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Oct 25, 2017
6,739
Crunch is something that can always be improved everywhere. The game with best direction got the award though, deservedly so.
 
Vilam

Vilam

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Oct 27, 2017
5,073
I'd throw one wrinkle into that argument...

There's studio management that plans for crunch, and crunch that happens due to unforseen circumstances. The former is unacceptable. The latter has the potential to become exploitative, but can be reasonable. I'd be fully on board with outright rejecting studios that build crunch into their plans.
 
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TheBiInBilingual

TheBiInBilingual

THE STORE ENSURED ME THERE WOULDN'T BE FILM
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Feb 22, 2018
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svnty6rs3 said:
Doesn't every game have crunch in some form or another?
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I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope you didn't mean that to downplay the situation.

I don't have the article on hand but Nintendo announced the ACNH delay because they wanted to prevent the devs from crunch.
 
Bohemian

Bohemian

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Oct 26, 2017
751
Direction is more creative though, no? Producers are responsible for keeping things on track and pushing back if things are going off track from budgetary and timeline perspectives. I think you can still have great direction but poor planning and production.
 
Nooblet

Nooblet

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Oct 25, 2017
13,785
More so than direction, I'd say the main GoTY award shouldn't go to games like this. It legtimises crunch.
 

FacelessSamurai

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Dec 31, 2017
1,430
A good game's a good game, crunch shouldn't have anything to do with being more or less rewarding of an award, so I completely disagree.
 
elenarie

elenarie

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Verified
Jun 10, 2018
10,140
They are not wrong.

A director that has no good handle on scope and their staff's workload is a terrible director. Why you would give someone an award for that is beyond me.
 
Lulu

Lulu

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Oct 25, 2017
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overthewaves said:
I think that's literally every game ever?
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WOW GOT EM

JK

kotaku.com

The Secret To The Success Of Bastion, Pyre, And Hades: No Forced Crunch, Yes Forced Vacations

It’s been ten years since Supergiant Games opened its doors. The team put all of their hopes into the studio’s debut game, Bastion, an action-RPG with a narrator. It succeeded with flying colors. Since then, the studio has released Transistor, Pyre, and Hades, every single one receiving critical...
kotaku.com kotaku.com
 
-Peabody-

-Peabody-

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,619
Yeah I agree, personally. Saying crunch is unavoidable is just a hand wave excuse to avoid the problem. I gurantee CD Projekt Red will be up for the same award next year too.
 
Aaron D.

Aaron D.

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,415
"He guys, everyone does it. So that makes it okay, right?

Case closed. Your move, Kotaku."
 
Alex840

Alex840

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Oct 31, 2017
5,170
I have to agree with this. Games like Spider-Man or Ori where working hours are flexible and no crunch is not embedded in the culture are much more deserving of awards.

Games like TLOU are more than deserving of their GOTY awards, but crunch is mostly a failure of production leads.
 
svnty6rs3

svnty6rs3

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May 13, 2020
628
ezekial45 said:
No. There are games---AAA, indie, and otherwise--that don't crunch at all.

One example here.
www.vg247.com

Respawn refuses to crunch team for Apex Legends

Apex Legends maker Respawn is trying to update the game without breaking its staff
www.vg247.com www.vg247.com
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by don't crunch at all does that mean everything just runs at the normal schedule and no one puts in overtime, weekends etc? Honestly didnt know that was a thing and thought as the game release gets closer its pretty normal to put in more hours to finish the game.
 
Skittles

Skittles

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,348
Lulu said:
WOW GOT EM

JK

kotaku.com

The Secret To The Success Of Bastion, Pyre, And Hades: No Forced Crunch, Yes Forced Vacations

It’s been ten years since Supergiant Games opened its doors. The team put all of their hopes into the studio’s debut game, Bastion, an action-RPG with a narrator. It succeeded with flying colors. Since then, the studio has released Transistor, Pyre, and Hades, every single one receiving critical...
kotaku.com kotaku.com
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Damn dude you found one of the few exceptions to the norm. You got em
 
Darcadia

Darcadia

Prophet of Truth
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Oct 31, 2017
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Massachusetts
I agree. The director oversees development, has has the authority to adjust workflow and scope to ensure the team's well being
 
LunaSerena

LunaSerena

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Oct 25, 2017
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svnty6rs3 said:
Doesn't every game have crunch in some form or another?
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Read the article. One of TLoU II competitors in the category of Best Game Direction was Hades, made by Supergiant.
The article does detail the measures taken by Supergiant to avoid crunch, and without it, they developed a Game of the Year contender.

If TLoU needed an extra year of development to come out without crunching, then so be it. The upper management of the company should have argued with Sony to get it, instead of forcing their employees to crunch. Both Naughty Dog and SIE have the resources to take the financial hit.
 
Raigor

Raigor

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May 14, 2020
15,312
Supergiant Games
Insomniac
Respawn Entertainment
Iron Galaxy
Obsidian
Valve
Moon Studios

Are some of the studios that don't actively crunch on their projects.

The big problem are the big premiere studios, and they crunch A LOT, but since they release good games the press will hardly care.

Rockstar
CDPR
Santa Monica
Naughty Dog
Netherrealm Studios
 
Yuntu

Yuntu

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Nov 7, 2019
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Bosch said:
Do we have in perspective if any aaa made on the recent years didn't have any type of crunch?
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There are studios avoiding it. And they all say pretty much the same thing: they make better games that way because you are more motivated and less tired at work.
 
Windrunner

Windrunner

Sly
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Oct 25, 2017
6,638
Best direction is for "outstanding creative vision and innovation in game direction and design".

This has literally nothing to do with whether or not a studio crunches.
 
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