So, ex-AAA dev here with some feedback for those that actually want to change crunch practices.
1) Almost everyone crunches.
Most studios, especially in AAA, have crunch. In fact, out of the four different publishers I have worked for, every single one expected ALL studios under them to crunch to hit milestones/deadlines. And studios oblige because you don't want to lose incentives, bonuses, funding, or support staff. The list of studios who don't crunch - the list of products that are made 'crunch-free' is going to be unbelievably small if you are looking at AAA products. So if you plan to boycott products that are made in toxic work environments - it's going to be the vast majority of games. That's just how the industry is and boycotting isn't going to solve that.
Oh, and side note: People lie. Or exaggerate. Or downplay. I have had other developers in my own studio during crunch claim to not be crunching because we were only working 60-70 hours a week. Because their last studio worked 80+ during crunch. So this isn't crunch. Because we're in some toxic environment Olympics and shit ain't as bad as the worst experience I've ever had so...
Or, my personal favorite, when "We don't have crunch" actually means "We don't have mandatory crunch". Let me tell you about 'voluntary overtime'. It ain't voluntary. There are always punishments for not 'volunteering' to work extra hours during 'not crunch'. Either you start getting bad performance reviews from your bosses because it 'doesn't seem like you are putting in the extra effort'. Or you get left off emails or meetings out of spite. Or you get reassigned to some other part of the project that is less prestigious or more rudimentary, grunt work. Or you just straight up get demoted or fired. And what quickly happens is that you are bullied into either crunching (but 'not crunching') or pushed out of the company.
There are a lot of developers willing to publicly tow the company line that they 'don't crunch' because it's voluntary. Or their work environment isn't toxic because 'we have great benefits'. I have worked for some exceptionally shitty companies and every single one had developers willing to go in front of the media and proclaim just how awesome the studio and work environment were.
2) Boycotting punishes developers more than publishers.
I've seen countless players (and the media) claim to be fighting the industry's business practices - be it loot boxes, microtransactions, crunch, storefront exclusivity, whatever - by either boycotting products or giving poor reviews. And somehow this will show those in control of these products (publishers) that their ways are wrong. It doesn't. The people at the top of most of these companies are... fucking insane. There's probably more appropriate word to describe their behavior but I don't know what it is. There's no introspection going on when something with the game doesn't pan out. Bad reviews don't make studio heads and publishers think "Oh, geez, maybe it was the bullshit monetization we did that tanked the product!"
What happens is - excuses get made that are almost universally laid on the development team. YOU didn't implement our vision properly. YOU didn't work hard enough on these features. YOU didn't do enough crunch. YOU missed this milestone and that's why our game bombed.
Bonuses are withheld, developers are laid off, benefits at the studio are slashed.
This shit don't work.
Oh, by the way, one thing about this I want to highlight: Bonuses in the game industry.
Base salary at a lot of game studios is actually pretty low. I know every time the Game Developer Salary survey (or something similar) comes out and people look and see "OMG, devs make $90k a year!". Yeah, most of those are reporting ALL income - including bonuses. Bonuses are a HUGE portion of overall income for some developers. I have seen developers earn anywhere from 10%-100% of their yearly salary in a launch bonus. So, sure, I may have made $120k this year, but half of that was from the launch bonus.
But then the game gets bad sales for whatever reason. Or bad reviews. Well, my bonus was tied to a combination of metacritic score and sales benchmarks. And now I get nothing. The studio head still walks away with a six figure bonus. The publisher executives get paid 10x my salary regardless. The only person actually feeling any financial punishment are the developers.
So, buy whatever the hell you want. While developers probably appreciate the gesture, you aren't actually fixing any problems - and you might actually be actively hurting the people you are trying to stand up for.
Edit: Another reason talking about this is so damn hard is that even within the same studio, different jobs can have wildly different contracts and experiences. My experiences have been as a full time systems designer. I know other developers - especially artists - under contract rather than full time will not have the same issues with bonuses or even the same experiences with crunch. Sometimes one department will be working 80+ hours a week while another department, with different management, deadlines, etc., will be working 40 hours. One developer claiming bonuses matter while another claims they don't are not actually disagreeing - they just don't have the same work contract details. Just as one developer claiming they're not working crunch doesn't necessarily mean no one in the entire studio is, or vice versa.
1) Almost everyone crunches.
Most studios, especially in AAA, have crunch. In fact, out of the four different publishers I have worked for, every single one expected ALL studios under them to crunch to hit milestones/deadlines. And studios oblige because you don't want to lose incentives, bonuses, funding, or support staff. The list of studios who don't crunch - the list of products that are made 'crunch-free' is going to be unbelievably small if you are looking at AAA products. So if you plan to boycott products that are made in toxic work environments - it's going to be the vast majority of games. That's just how the industry is and boycotting isn't going to solve that.
Oh, and side note: People lie. Or exaggerate. Or downplay. I have had other developers in my own studio during crunch claim to not be crunching because we were only working 60-70 hours a week. Because their last studio worked 80+ during crunch. So this isn't crunch. Because we're in some toxic environment Olympics and shit ain't as bad as the worst experience I've ever had so...
Or, my personal favorite, when "We don't have crunch" actually means "We don't have mandatory crunch". Let me tell you about 'voluntary overtime'. It ain't voluntary. There are always punishments for not 'volunteering' to work extra hours during 'not crunch'. Either you start getting bad performance reviews from your bosses because it 'doesn't seem like you are putting in the extra effort'. Or you get left off emails or meetings out of spite. Or you get reassigned to some other part of the project that is less prestigious or more rudimentary, grunt work. Or you just straight up get demoted or fired. And what quickly happens is that you are bullied into either crunching (but 'not crunching') or pushed out of the company.
There are a lot of developers willing to publicly tow the company line that they 'don't crunch' because it's voluntary. Or their work environment isn't toxic because 'we have great benefits'. I have worked for some exceptionally shitty companies and every single one had developers willing to go in front of the media and proclaim just how awesome the studio and work environment were.
2) Boycotting punishes developers more than publishers.
I've seen countless players (and the media) claim to be fighting the industry's business practices - be it loot boxes, microtransactions, crunch, storefront exclusivity, whatever - by either boycotting products or giving poor reviews. And somehow this will show those in control of these products (publishers) that their ways are wrong. It doesn't. The people at the top of most of these companies are... fucking insane. There's probably more appropriate word to describe their behavior but I don't know what it is. There's no introspection going on when something with the game doesn't pan out. Bad reviews don't make studio heads and publishers think "Oh, geez, maybe it was the bullshit monetization we did that tanked the product!"
What happens is - excuses get made that are almost universally laid on the development team. YOU didn't implement our vision properly. YOU didn't work hard enough on these features. YOU didn't do enough crunch. YOU missed this milestone and that's why our game bombed.
Bonuses are withheld, developers are laid off, benefits at the studio are slashed.
This shit don't work.
Oh, by the way, one thing about this I want to highlight: Bonuses in the game industry.
Base salary at a lot of game studios is actually pretty low. I know every time the Game Developer Salary survey (or something similar) comes out and people look and see "OMG, devs make $90k a year!". Yeah, most of those are reporting ALL income - including bonuses. Bonuses are a HUGE portion of overall income for some developers. I have seen developers earn anywhere from 10%-100% of their yearly salary in a launch bonus. So, sure, I may have made $120k this year, but half of that was from the launch bonus.
But then the game gets bad sales for whatever reason. Or bad reviews. Well, my bonus was tied to a combination of metacritic score and sales benchmarks. And now I get nothing. The studio head still walks away with a six figure bonus. The publisher executives get paid 10x my salary regardless. The only person actually feeling any financial punishment are the developers.
So, buy whatever the hell you want. While developers probably appreciate the gesture, you aren't actually fixing any problems - and you might actually be actively hurting the people you are trying to stand up for.
Edit: Another reason talking about this is so damn hard is that even within the same studio, different jobs can have wildly different contracts and experiences. My experiences have been as a full time systems designer. I know other developers - especially artists - under contract rather than full time will not have the same issues with bonuses or even the same experiences with crunch. Sometimes one department will be working 80+ hours a week while another department, with different management, deadlines, etc., will be working 40 hours. One developer claiming bonuses matter while another claims they don't are not actually disagreeing - they just don't have the same work contract details. Just as one developer claiming they're not working crunch doesn't necessarily mean no one in the entire studio is, or vice versa.
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