Waypoint - "We Asked Nintendo, Microsoft, and 12 Other Devs How They Deal With Crunch"

MadLaughter · Jul 9, 2018

https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/art...-they-deal-with-crunch?utm_source=wptwitterus

Waypoint went into E3 with a mission, and that mission was to talk to developers during their interviews about labor practices in the industry, crunch, and how their studios handle those issues. It's a really fascinating article, and you get to hear from Reggie and others at pretty big companies. Spoiler alert, not everyone handles the question great. I put one decent answer and maybe the two worst ones aside from the ESA answer. The whole article's worth a read.

Reggie:

How is Nintendo committed—and what are you doing now to—to ensure that there is good work-life balance and fair conditions across first party title development, your executive level, your support roles—the stuff happening at Nintendo and hopefully even at close partners? How are you combating an industry wide relationship to crunch that can often be deeply unhealthy.

Fils-Aimé: So look, I can only answer this question from Nintendo of America perspective and for us, crunch happens differently. It's not a development crunch, but it could be a bug check crunch. Or it's a crunch in preparing for an event. Or a crunch in preparing a game to pass our lot check process. Our approach is this: We flex through the use of contract employees. We flex in the way we work with our agency partners. Our mentality is we're going to flex by adding headcount as appropriate to help us get over a crunch. That's the way we approach it.

Ubisoft:

You think those protections for workers help the industry in the end?

I think it's essential. I think the balance that we're about is absolutely key. So for me, I work every [day] from 9-6, but it's super important to my balance and that of the rest of the team to go out and do other things beyond video game development. I want to be with my family. I want to be with my friends. I want to watch movies. If I'm just thinking about the game, it's bad.

I'm curious, when you hear stories coming out of North America and other development houses—

[PR: Rob, I'm sorry, we're just trying to stay pretty focused on the game. Happy to follow up with an email at a later time, we're just going to try and I will respectfully ask that we ]

And again my answer was very personal, based on my impressions of Massive as a development studio.

[PR: Not that we're not happy to talk about the topic. But we're just here with limited time.]

IO:

We've had lots of conversation in the industry this year about labor, about organization, about crunch, about work-life balance. I'm curious, as a leader at IO, how do you ensure that your people have comfortable lives, have their work-life balance met. I know how passionate you can be—I know how passionate I am as a creative person—but how do you make sure the work-life balance is where it needs to be so that you're not pushing too hard?

Friedl: I would want to talk about Hitman 2 at this point.

How about this then? For you, personally in your history in games, what are some experiences you've had in relation to these issues?

Friedl: Personally, the issue is not really... We can have a personal conversation about that off record if you want. What I can tell you is that, of course, [is] a topic of importance for Io interactive and we are doing everything we can. And I would actually say we are succeeding pretty well in making sure that it is a pleasure to work at Io Interactive. And I'm very, very confident that most of my colleagues would say the same thing.

VoltySquirrel · Jul 9, 2018

It's interesting to me how the Massive guy wanted to engage with Rob but PR was like Nah. And I was incredibly disappointed to see IOI completely dodge the question.

Also fuck the ESA hack for trying to claim crunch isn't an issue.

zombiejames · Jul 9, 2018

ItWasMeantToBe19 · Jul 9, 2018

Nintendo is a very weird situation.

Next Level doesn't crunch at all
Retro crunches constantly and on a Naughty Dog like level.
Mercury Steam is just a hellsite in general. They don't have much crunch, but the head of the studio is a megalomaniac who hates all of his employees.

So the western Nintendo studios have... very different approaches to crunch.

Serene · Jul 9, 2018

That IO answer is ridiculously shitty

LordGorchnik · Jul 9, 2018

EDIT: Got it.

Maxime · Jul 9, 2018

Regarding CDPR, French outlet Le Monde interviewed Marcin Iwinski (co-funder) and Adam Badowski (head of the studo) during E3 and the question of unions was brought up.

It's obviously a big yikes:

Earlier this year, employees of the French studio Eugen Systems went on strike for more than a month. In March, the United Game Workers Unite, an advocacy organization for employees in the video game industry was formed in the United States. What do you think of these initiatives?

Adam Badowski: It's a very difficult job, everyone knows, and improvements are always possible. But I do not know if the unions can contribute to it. We should find our own solutions.

Marcin Iwinski: That's what we do! It's true that we do lot of overtime, and when people join us, we warn them that it's really not easy. Releasing a game is, every time, as hard as sending people to Mars. But if there are unions, what do we do? We do not take off anymore? Originally, unions were created to protect low-paid workers, right? These guys are not low paid workers, they are extremely skilled professionals.

Adam Badowski: I think that changes for the better. For example, before, the industry did not pay overtime.

Marcin Iwinski: It's really blood, sweat and tears. From the outside, the video game industry seems to be a big success story. People who do not know the industry think that everything is rosy. It's really very, very hard, and people who decide to make a career in this business have to make a lot of sacrifices regularly.

Adam Badowski: But when you start a game, a trailer, a demo, you have to see the reactions. Today, in Warsaw, at the head office of CD Projekt, there is joy, noise, and everyone is happy!

MadLaughter · Jul 9, 2018

Maxime said:
Regarding CDPR, French outlet Le Monde interviewed Marcin Iwinski (co-funder) and Adam Badowski (head of the studo) during E3 and the question of unions was brought up.

It's obviously a big yikes:

Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Abriael · Jul 9, 2018

For CD Projekt they asked a quest designer... Talk about random.

ItWasMeantToBe19 · Jul 9, 2018

LordGorchnik said:
That Nintendo one seems strange to me. They handle crunch by bringing in more heads? Who have never touched/seen a game before? If its for QA/Bug checking I can sort of get behind it but for any other type of crunch adding to your headcount is generally more disastrous than beneficial.

I don't know if Reggie is that in tune with how development goes at western Nintendo studios... Retro, Next Level, and Mercury Steam report directly to Nintendo of Japan.

jack_package_200 · Jul 9, 2018

zombiejames said:

Yup

It's time

Lunar15 · Jul 9, 2018

LordGorchnik said:
That Nintendo one seems strange to me. They handle crunch by bringing in more heads? Who have never touched/seen a game before? If its for QA/Bug checking I can sort of get behind it but for any other type of crunch adding to your headcount is generally more disastrous than beneficial.

He can't speak for Nintendo's japanese developers. He's only speaking for NOA offices themselves - which is almost entirely localization/marketing/events.

VoltySquirrel · Jul 9, 2018

Abriael said:
For CD Projekt they asked a quest designer... Talk about random.

I imagine they wanted to ask someone higher up who makes labor decisions but that's the only person they had a chance to formally interview.

rebelcrusader · Jul 9, 2018

zombiejames said:

Hope you like 90 dollar games

Honestly I don't think the AAA dev scene would continue to exist at all

John Rabbit · Jul 9, 2018

That ESA answer is appalling.

zombiejames · Jul 9, 2018

Maxime said:
Regarding CDPR, French outlet Le Monde interviewed Marcin Iwinski (co-funder) and Adam Badowski (head of the studo) during E3 and the question of unions was brought up.

It's obviously a big yikes:

Holy shit.

rebelcrusader said:
Hope you like 90 dollar games

Honestly I don't think the AAA dev scene would continue to exist at all

Did you copy/paste this from a thread about how microtransactions and loot boxes are a good thing?

NotLiquid · Jul 9, 2018

ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
Nintendo is a very weird situation.

Next Level doesn't crunch at all
Retro crunches constantly and on a Naughty Dog like level.
Mercury Steam is just a hellsite in general. They don't have much crunch, but the head of the studio is a megalomaniac who hates all of his employees.

So the western Nintendo studios have... very different approaches to crunch.

Next Level and Mercury Steam aren't really Nintendo studios - the latter in particular isn't even based in America, and I assume they predominantly deal with the Japanese producers.

I don't think we really know how much Retro Studios crunch, other than Metroid Prime 1.

Joeku · Jul 9, 2018

rebelcrusader said:
Hope you like 90 dollar games

Honestly I don't think the AAA dev scene would continue to exist at all

If AAA can only exist because of these kinds of working conditions, it deserves to die.

TheMisterManGuy · Jul 9, 2018

Lunar15 said:
He can't speak for Nintendo's japanese developers. He's only speaking for NOA offices themselves - which is almost entirely localization/marketing/events.

Yes, he made that clear when answering.

A Syrian Communist · Jul 9, 2018

Joeku said:
If AAA cannot exist without these kinds of working conditions, it deserves to die.

Yep.

UNIONIZE.

rebelcrusader · Jul 9, 2018

Joeku said:
If AAA can only exist because of these kinds of working conditions, it deserves to die.

You are conflating crunch with unions

Many, many development studios have incredible benefits and little crunch

Unionization is a completely different thing

Abriael · Jul 9, 2018

VoltySquirrel said:
I imagine they wanted to ask someone higher up who makes labor decisions but that's the only person they had a chance to formally interview.

You don't always get what you want when you get an interview. And if you don't get someone in the know about a certain topic, you don't ask about it. Instead, you ask about stuff he knows about. It's a simple matter of respect for the professional you have sitting in front of you.

Regiruler · Jul 9, 2018

It's strange how reggie is giving a comparatively direct answer.

Ascenion · Jul 9, 2018

Jesus, not like this CDPR, not like this.

Also in regards to Nintendo of America, what games do they actually develop? Aside from Retro? And NST which mostly does handheld titles and assists on Japanese titles.

Deleted member 5535 · Jul 9, 2018

That IO response. lol And people still think that because it's a developer company you won't see things like that and it's the fault of publishers or that they'll do everything right (as if there's no higher ups in the studios). Maybe someday people will realize that management of studios also fuck up. IO is just an example with that response with an Executive Producer trying to avoid the question when the company is now independent.

Maxime said:
Regarding CDPR, French outlet Le Monde interviewed Marcin Iwinski (co-funder) and Adam Badowski (head of the studo) during E3 and the question of unions was brought up.

It's obviously a big yikes:

That's the lovely CD Project RED for you. And no one will bat an eye in the internet as always when the company is like that.

Hailinel · Jul 9, 2018

LordGorchnik said:
That Nintendo one seems strange to me. They handle crunch by bringing in more heads? Who have never touched/seen a game before? If its for QA/Bug checking I can sort of get behind it but for any other type of crunch adding to your headcount is generally more disastrous than beneficial.

Having been an NOA contractor QA, the premise is better than you'd think. The company gives first-time contractors a seminar on how to find and file bugs, and the permanent staff are good about keeping contractors on task. There are those that are clearly unfit, but they get weeded out quickly.

Anyway, like Reggie said, NOA only localizes games and tests for bugs. They technically don't do any coding themselves. The jobs they contract out are on a project basis and can go anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months.

Koozek · Jul 9, 2018

Abriael said:
For CD Projekt they asked a quest designer... Talk about random.

VoltySquirrel said:
I imagine they wanted to ask someone higher up who makes labor decisions but that's the only person they had a chance to formally interview.

Another site asked the studio heads - see this post above: https://www.resetera.com/threads/wa...ow-they-deal-with-crunch.54310/#post-10205566

Deleted member 8112 · Jul 9, 2018

rebelcrusader · Jul 9, 2018

Put a different way

Game devs have incredible skills that are in demand all over the gaming market and in the more lucrative business/science apps field

They make incredibly good money compared to almost any job - These are not miners or automobile manufacturers; blue collar workers who are working for smaller wages

They can leave the studio/field at any time and for the most part (not always because in life axioms are never universal) they can quickly find a job because THE ARE IN HIGH DEMAND

This does not describe an industry ripe for unionization - This is an industry that works well with free market principles

If a dev does not want to work at a company that crunches...he has many many choices within and outside the gaming industry

EDIT:

One of the biggest devs in the entire industry, Bungie, never crunches

kaf · Jul 9, 2018

LordGorchnik said:
That Nintendo one seems strange to me. They handle crunch by bringing in more heads? Who have never touched/seen a game before? If its for QA/Bug checking I can sort of get behind it but for any other type of crunch adding to your headcount is generally more disastrous than beneficial.

It's fairly typical in a lot of studios. When they need to ramp up contractors are brought in on a short term (anywhere from 6 months to over a year) basis. EA, Activision, Sony all do this.

With more heads, you can distribute the workload better and you minimize crunch. There is also a reliance on outsourced development houses, sometimes in the US and others like Virtuous in China that make their bread and butter on being able to provide high levels of quality with good turnaround rates.

Obviously you can't ramp up on a dime, and this takes a lot of planning but a lot of studios have been doing this for the past decade (and even longer) in order to keep up with production scopes.

Deleted member 5535 · Jul 9, 2018

Ascenion said:
Jesus, not like this CDPR, not like this.

Also in regards to Nintendo of America, what games do they actually develop? Aside from Retro? And NST which mostly does handheld titles and assists on Japanese titles.

Nintendo of America is a house of marketing/localization/debug/coordination. They do have involvement with every title published by Nintendo in QA, localization and many other aspects but western collaborations respond to NCL and the producers are japanese, with sometimes a director from Nintendo also being in there. There's also japanese employees who live in US and work on those titles as well. Give a look to the credits and you'll understand it better.

Azzanadra · Jul 9, 2018

zombiejames said:

I'l admit to some cognitive dissonance when it comes to unionization in the gaming industry- on one hand I'm pro-worker in general, but on the other hand I acknowledge we wouldn't get these huge, amazing games as often or in a timely a manner (relatively speaking) without peak efficiency.

Honestly, reading about behind-closed doors stories of game development it seems that too many games (even ones that turn out great) suffer from project mismanagement and unnecessary excess and scope. For example, why do so many mid-tier developers try to create their own engines as opposed to licensing one like UE4.

CopperPuppy · Jul 9, 2018

Ubisoft: "Work-life balance is essential."

CDPR: "We're against unions, everyone knows game development is hard."

ResetEra now anti-union and anti-work-life balance

Rodjer · Jul 9, 2018

Nemesis162 said:
That's the lovely CD Project RED for you. And no one will bat an eye in the internet as always when the company is like that.

Why people should bat an eye? Developers know when they join, it's a not hidden and i think the crunch is well paid, so where's the problem?

HStallion · Jul 9, 2018

rebelcrusader said:
Hope you like 90 dollar games

Honestly I don't think the AAA dev scene would continue to exist at all

$80 and $90 games weren't exactly unheard of in the past. Not saying I want them either. Then again with GAAS and DLC bigger than ever most people end up spending that much on a single game anyways.

Deleted member 5535 · Jul 9, 2018

Rodjer said:
Why people should bat an eye? Developers know when they join, it's a not hidden and i think the crunch is well paid, so where's the problem?

People should criticize CD Project but they don't because we have this circlejerk of them in the internet. Two figure heads of the company are saying things like that like if it's something normal. It's terrible.

rebelcrusader · Jul 9, 2018

Rodjer said:
Why people should bat an eye? Developers know when they join, it's a not hidden and i think the crunch is well paid, so where's the problem?

The secret here is some game devs would rather be at work than any other place - let's enforce union rules so they can't do what they want with their lives

Progress

Deleted member 249 · Jul 9, 2018

LordGorchnik said:
That Nintendo one seems strange to me. They handle crunch by bringing in more heads? Who have never touched/seen a game before? If its for QA/Bug checking I can sort of get behind it but for any other type of crunch adding to your headcount is generally more disastrous than beneficial.

It's Nintendo of America, QA, localization, and testing is all they do.

Deleted member 13370 · Jul 9, 2018

Reggies answer is interesting. He gives a direct answer but doesn't state that the NoA staff are not crunching, just that they take in extra help to reduce the amount of crunch. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that still leads to long, long weeks, especially since QA is more or less an endless pursuit; there is never a point in game development where you say "Well, guess we found all the bugs!".

But what I was most surprised about in his answer was how he, completely on his own initiative, brought up their diversity work. Good stuff, Reggie.

Khanimus · Jul 9, 2018

Some real shit answers from CDPR and IO.

808s & Villainy · Jul 9, 2018

LordGorchnik said:
That Nintendo one seems strange to me. They handle crunch by bringing in more heads? Who have never touched/seen a game before? If its for QA/Bug checking I can sort of get behind it but for any other type of crunch adding to your headcount is generally more disastrous than beneficial.

Reggie flat out said NOA doesn't do development, so it's not like he can comment on how the dev teams handle it

Knight613 · Jul 9, 2018

Don't CDPR also pay their developers fairly low compared to others because of where they're based?

TheFireman · Jul 9, 2018

rebelcrusader said:
Put a different way

Game devs have incredible skills that are in demand all over the gaming market and in the more lucrative business/science apps field

They make incredibly good money compared to almost any job - These are not miners or automobile manufacturers; blue collar workers who are working for smaller wages

They can leave the studio/field at any time and for the most part (not always because in life axioms are never universal) they can quickly find a job because THE ARE IN HIGH DEMAND

This does not describe an industry ripe for unionization - This is an industry that works well with free market principles

If a dev does not want to work at a company that crunches...he has many many choices within and outside the gaming industry

EDIT:

One of the biggest devs in the entire industry, Bungie, never crunches

You're missing the point. It is an industry full of workers who could easily make tens of thousand more by switching to a job with significantly better working conditions. That's not sustainable. It needs pay and working conditions that are more on par with other jobs that require the same set of skills.

It's not that these devs would rather work somewhere else-it's that they'd rather have a life outside of their work. They'd rather have time to spend with their family. They shouldn't be forced out of the industry in order to do that.

zombiejames · Jul 9, 2018

rebelcrusader said:
The secret here is some game devs would rather be at work than any other place - let's enforce union rules so they can't do what they want with their lives

Progress

If an individual worker wants to spend their free time working unpaid overtime, that's their business. The second that level of commitment becomes expected out of every worker, though, you've failed as a studio. The second a worker feels like they're obligated to work extra hours at the cost of their friends, family, and mental and physical well-being over fear of losing their jobs if they don't, you've failed as a studio.

leenbzoold · Jul 9, 2018

Joeku said:
If AAA can only exist because of these kinds of working conditions, it deserves to die.

All of humanitys achievements come at the expense of human blood.

Demolition_Human · Jul 9, 2018

Maxime said:
Regarding CDPR, French outlet Le Monde interviewed Marcin Iwinski (co-funder) and Adam Badowski (head of the studo) during E3 and the question of unions was brought up.

It's obviously a big yikes:

Yeah, that's a yikes from me, dawg.

Mifune · Jul 9, 2018

"Crunch" is a part of every creative industry. I work in television and we routinely work ridiculous hours to hit delivery dates, and those extra hours are never paid. At least in video games there's a chance that the lower-paid folks will get overtime pay. Not to mention vacation time, sick days, and the other benefits of a "real" job.

Nuclear Muffin · Jul 9, 2018

LordGorchnik said:
That Nintendo one seems strange to me. They handle crunch by bringing in more heads? Who have never touched/seen a game before? If its for QA/Bug checking I can sort of get behind it but for any other type of crunch adding to your headcount is generally more disastrous than beneficial.

In terms of actual game development? That's what NOA primarily do. And even for localisation they bring in a lot of contractors to help with the workload.

Obviously things like events management, video production, marketing copy etc can allow for additional headcount fairly easily too. Like Reggie said, he can't really speak for his developers (though that being said, we know that the Japanese side crunch like mad, as do Retro; but not Next Level Games - they have a strict 9-5 policy. Long hours are the norm for all Japanese devs though, not just Nintendo).

kyle mechlachlan · Jul 9, 2018

Mifune said:
"Crunch" is a part of every creative industry. I work in television and we routinely work ridiculous hours to hit delivery dates, and those extra hours are never paid. At least in video games there's a good chance that the lower-paid folks will get overtime pay. Not to mention vacation time, sick days, and the other benefits of a "real" job.

Just because it sucks for you doesn't mean it should suck for everyone.

edit: missed a word

Terbinator · Jul 9, 2018

Knight613 said:
Don't CDPR also pay their developers fairly low compared to others because of where they're based?

All relative as you've touched on. Can't comment on overall living costs but Poland is cheaper compared to the UK (as an example).

Waypoint - "We Asked Nintendo, Microsoft, and 12 Other Devs How They Deal With Crunch"

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