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Waypoint - "We Asked Nintendo, Microsoft, and 12 Other Devs How They Deal With Crunch"
- Thread starter MadLaughter
- Start date
Delays just create more crunch, though.
It's an ugly problem with no easy solution except cutting your losses and shipping the game whether it's great or not.
This might be off-topic but I have been fascinated with all the skepticism against unions in North America. I am Scandinavian and growing up, unions over here have been pretty much the norm. I spent one year in the US and ran into mostly anti-union sentiments, but more curiously I came across some people who had this idealized view of unions. the Waypoint staff remind me of the idealistic, naive view of what a union can do for you.
Over here in Sweden, people don't join the union because it's the way it should be. they don't gather around the campfire and sing songs of Socialism, it is for protection only.
Sometimes the union can't help you, and rarely does the union order a strike. The thing that a union is really useful for is making sure that the bar labor-wise is set at a realistic level.
In my personal life I have always been a part of a union, 50 dollars a month I pay should I ever need the their help. I have 15 years of work experience and I have had help from the union exactly one time; when I realized I was payed way less than my less educated colleagues. The union took my case and it resulted in a pay increase of about 30 percent. That pay increase alone made my membership worth it.
Now, what I don't get about the Waypoint way of seeing unionization is that to me it is not the solution for stopping workers being overworked in game development, the organization behind game development is rotten to its core, just like how block buster movies are.
It is almost impossible to create unions in the current system, you would have to start from square one or pretty much raise the prices of games for companies to be able to provide a healthy work environment.
Now I would not mind if games became more expensive if it meant that workers within the industry could thrive, I would just want to be sure that the extra money I spend actually goes towards the workers.
Just to conclude my rambling, I don't think game development can afford to unionize in its current form. The whole industry needs to re-evaluate profit versus sustainability when it comes to workers' rights.
"Insane working conditions, or your games are $90", if that's truly the two options we have, the AAA industry is not sustainable period.
Disappointing response for sure. Waypoint spent most of their E3 podcasts singing praises about the Cyberpunk 2077 demo (and to be fair, so did most everyone else who saw it). More specifically they were impressed with the sheer depth of detail, the kind of shit that takes thousands of hours of put together. I'm curious to know if/how they reconcile the fact that the kind of handcrafted work they like in Cyberpunk is really only possible with insane work hours and sub-par pay.
The short and wexplanation is that it's when everyone starts working crazy hours to meet deadlines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_developer#"Crunch_time"
Catch-all term for working overtime every day for multiple weeks in order to ship a product.
Yeah. I mean, it's possible he knows more, but since he's not managing NCL or any of the game development studios it'd be a bit unwise and out of line to comment on something he's not responsible for.
In my opinion, three of the biggest issues the games industry is facing in no specific order are crunch, representation, and preservation. CD Projekt's famously anti-DRM position and their platform GOG have made them a really positive force (and one of the only prominent industry forces) for the very latter. It's clear regarding their weak answer about the very former they have work to do.
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You sure about that?
You should read about the development of Halo 2.
Holy shit
Let's get rid of work hour restrictions because people really like their jobs (citation needed)
Really though, most material attributes of our civilization today are there because the majority of humans are working harder than what is comfortable to them.
I never said that that is what should be, but that's how it currently is, isn't it? Or is my estimation off?
They don't. NOA is not a developer... they are there for localization, marketing, bug-testing/QA.
Good. Fuck your very favorite AAA game, specifically, if it took perpetual crunch and unpaid-because-of-the-salary-system overtime to make it.
The cherry on top of the shit sundae is that studios and publishers love to lay people off as soon as the titles ship, too.
Let's see, with his position, I see it impossible that he does not know about those things, but they are not his responsibility.
Well, there are multiple dimensions to labour issues in video games. One of them is the effect crunch has on you as an individual, and the people you work with at a studio. None of those questions are necessarily out of the quest designer's wheelhouse, given that they're mostly about current practice (which everyone can comment on regardless of whether they implement policies or not) and not about how the company addresses this going forward (which, yeah, if you're not management, it's very hard to talk about). Labour issues affect all workers, and just because someone has no control over their company's practices doesn't mean there's nothing they'd have to say or wouldn't be informed about the subject.
You could make the argument that in the context of that specific interview, people are there to talk about the game and not the work conditions that made it. Waypoint specifically acknowledges that they're asking the question of everyone they can to shine a light on the subject, which may involve asking the question in venues where you don't traditionally expect it.
And yes, you could say that a developer trotted out for a conversation about developing the game may not be prepared or able to speak about labour practices. But on the flipside, it's also clear that at least some devs have interesting opinions they want to share. The creative director on The Division 2 had to be practically told by Ubisoft PR not to discuss the matter further, and he clearly had a lot of thoughts on the subject. You don't get those answers or reactions unless you ask. And you never quite know who's going to give you those answers.
To be honest, US-based software developers (in general) are paid a lot more than most foreign-based devs, even with cost-of-living taken into account. The money swirling around Silicon Valley is enough to inflate basically the entire country. It doesn't surprise me that CDPR 'pays less'. If anything, game dev salaries in the US are inflated (I'm not making a value judgment here) to keep people from leaving for other tech fields.
edit: terrific article from Waypoint. It's definitely something that could only come from their reporting, which I appreciate.
They would just ship the games to another country for testing if that's the case, which is the sad truth to this situation. :(
I'm surprised no one is talking about the Ubisoft repsonse in here. From the glaring at first, to the PR person straight up saying stop talking about this.
Especially when you consider how Massive is talking about how things are in sweden. I imagine the PR person was shutting that down before we got to questions like, how do we make the american offices more like how they are in sweden, and why aren't they the same?
Especially when you consider how Massive is talking about how things are in sweden. I imagine the PR person was shutting that down before we got to questions like, how do we make the american offices more like how they are in sweden, and why aren't they the same?
I don't even know how to respond to your question because the phrase "working harder than what is comfortable to them" is so vague that it is rendered meaningless.
I think they mean that these products can still be made without terrible work conditions. It's usually corporate gaslighting that they just have to do these things to be profitable.
Crunch is not necessary to get games with high amount of production values. It's a question of management and budgetting.
They're already doing that.
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Well then i guess i should put my imaginary pipe down for now.
Pretty sure DICE has a union and EA has kept investing in it, and it's defo an AAA game dev - though EA is known in the game industry for good benefits and work conditions, and they seem to be trying across the board to reduce crunch, other companies may not be so willing.
Ah, ok. Thank your for the explanations!
Maybe they finally learned after a decade+ of running themselves into the ground. Go read up about that company's history.
Props on them for not crunching on Destiny 2, but it's a bug not a feature (yet).
It's not just a AAA issue all developers crunch. Read Schreier's book and how hard the shovel knight people crunched. It affects all games out there and arguably indie devs more because they have limited funds. Like those shovel knight devs were burning through their money and had to go a brief time without any pay while they rushed to finish everything. At least with a AAA publisher they can keep paying.
But eliminating crunch isn't something most gamers would be ok with either. It'll result in higher budgets and games taking even longer to release than the 3-5 years they already take.
That's good then, even less of a reason to keep crunch around. I don't remember exactly where I read this (possibly a Waypoint podcast), but a developer was once asked how they avoid crunch and the answer was "by specifically planning to not crunch through development".
Having played through the Witcher 3 and the fact that the game was so incredibly filled to the brim with content and sidequests that were indistinguishable in quality from the main quest, the general consensus that it was only possible due to the lower wages of where it was made certainly made sense, at least when the game released. Cyberpunk seems to ratchet it up to 11. Not sure if my memory is failing on this but I think I remember the working conditions at CDPR not being all that hot.
Regardless, I do agree with the notion that crunch is avoidable, or at the very least that there should be a real effort to combat it instead of devs/publishers saying "well it's a complicated process. What do...*trails off*". The industry likes to tout it's the only way to keep making games at the pace they're making them with the content that's in them at $60, I'm now at the point where my rebuttal is "taking you at your word, then fine, I don't want $60 AAA the way it is, if it means keeping this kind of shit crunch going".
Heard some horror crunch stories over the years from some colleagues, felt lucky to only have to do it a few days (weeks at worst) over years.
Some pretty sad responses in that article.
And yeah, game development in Japan is another story, hard to compare both, mainly because it's their whole work culture, not just gamedev or entertainment in the West.
Companies evolve, just like EA is apparently one of the best companies to work for nowadays.
Of course, some companies don't evolve and love crunch culture, like Naughty Dog and CDPR.
edit: crunch is not a AAA issue, and some studios do AAA while doing barely any crunch.
Some pretty sad responses in that article.
And yeah, game development in Japan is another story, hard to compare both, mainly because it's their whole work culture, not just gamedev or entertainment in the West.
A game released 14 years ago. That's like when people take MP1 as an example for Retro.
Companies evolve, just like EA is apparently one of the best companies to work for nowadays.
Of course, some companies don't evolve and love crunch culture, like Naughty Dog and CDPR.
edit: crunch is not a AAA issue, and some studios do AAA while doing barely any crunch.
Could be remembering incorrectly but pretty sure DICE is part of a swedish Game dev union - as in the whole company, not just QA.
Such great work from Austin and the team. Waypoint consistently upping the conversation and giving space to relevant writing and topics that don't get enough covering.
They should find a way to ask Japanese Nintendo about crunch. I'm sure the results would be interesting.
Crunch is not a AAA issue. It's a budget and time issue. If anything, Indie Devs may have it worse as both things (money and time) are even more limited.
On one hand I'm heartened that gamers the last few years have started to become more vocal about shitty working conditions in game development, and supporting efforts to unionize.
On the other hand I have close to zero faith that those same gamers would be so pro-union once the rubber hits the road and the additional costs, delays, and cut game features are unfortunately passed on to them as a result of a more expensive workforce.
I mean, even on a "more enlightened" forum such as Era, I see "lazy devs" comments every day, what happens when we're in a post-union world?
On the other hand I have close to zero faith that those same gamers would be so pro-union once the rubber hits the road and the additional costs, delays, and cut game features are unfortunately passed on to them as a result of a more expensive workforce.
I mean, even on a "more enlightened" forum such as Era, I see "lazy devs" comments every day, what happens when we're in a post-union world?
Didn't he leave? I heard he was why Lords of Shadows 2 turned out the way he did but I thought he left after that.
The costs won't be passed onto consumers as much as it will be paid by all those CEOs and executives and stockholders who are reaping all the profits from the labor of developers and the money from consumers.
You shouldn't be worried about gamers' allegiance to the people who create the games based on economics, you should be worried about their lack of empathy as most recently seen with the Arena Net firings where gamers clearly were entitled assholes with zero empathy and understanding
Look, I am explicitly pro-labor and find a lot of the responses in this thread disappointing, but this is extremely naïve. The costs would absolutely be passed through to consumers.
That would be nice if it were the case, but under late capitalism it's extremely unlikely that the executives of companies would sacrifice stockholder value so that Joe Environment Artist can spend more time with his 5-year-old.
Right. And let's not mince words, I think it's shitty that it would be passed through to the consumer, but that's what is exceedingly likely to happen, and that's when I think capital-G "Gamers" will quickly flip-flop on their pro-union stance.
The power dynamic and profit sharing at a AAA dev versus an indie are way different though. I firmly believe that a 4 person indie team, where each person owns 25% of the game (and potential upside) should be free to work as they please. In a corporate environment, the dynamic is so, so different.
Which is also why we need another economic system that does not allow or motivate such people to take up all the profits for themselves.
Besides, passing costs onto consumers and higher costs of entry would mean an industry crash/contraction. So either Patrick Söderlund and his vampire cohorts take a cut or the market will be poisoned.