[Game Informer] Naughty Dog Leadership Reflects On The Studio's History- Talks Crunch, Revisiting Kid Friendly Games, Future Goals

[MisterGrey3000]

Sigh...I miss PS1/PS2-era ND. I love games like Uncharted 2, but I miss their stylized cartoon platformers.
Like, they're obviously not the same studio that they were under Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin but I'm sure that current ND, if they put their minds to it, could make a cartoony platformer with gameplay/level design as tight and great as Crash 4's and storytelling as rich and thoughtful as what's in Pschonauts 2.

 

[disparate]

If you crunch to produce your software, you're bad at software production.

But I guess it's worth killing people because you need a sick duck and roll animation.

 

[YaBish]

Does anybody think they used assets from second son in LOU2 that was interesting to read I know he said they didn't but cmon a huge ass project like this all these Sony devs sharing files there saying they won't use any in the final game I am suss on that one

same with the horses interesting to see both sucker punch and naughty dog shared development on that

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I doubt they shared assets just because the stuff SP put together were over half a decade old by the time of TLOU2's release. The horse Mocap makes sense to share because I can't imagine it's cheap to hire the horses for studio time, and you can still touch that stuff up by hand to differentiate it.

 

[TheGhost]

This is how real life works.

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Real life is my CEO telling the whole company on a zoom townhall conference call "you're not impressing anyone by doing over time, spend time with your family and do the work tomorrow"

that's all that needs to be said.

 

[kimbo99]

Aren't overtime needs to be approved by leadership first?

Also if you're a dev with a family and still wishes to work longer hours simply out of passion instead of spending time with family, then I don't know what to say.

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From what I heard, some american companies don't pay for OT. I work for an American company, but work out of Canada. The laws here allow me to put in OT and get paid for it. My American counterparts don't have such privileges and I am told not to mention a word about OT to them, as a result.

 

[arsene_P5]

Real life is my CEO telling the whole company on a zoom townhall conference call "you're not impressing anyone by doing over time, spend time with your family and do the work tomorrow"

that's all that needs to be said.

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.

But what the fuck does one person who works in Sweden who tells the people that he oversees to go off for the day know about American work culture. 🤷‍♀️ Sure, I guess, have your people use all their "passion" for a stupid job, have them burn out and quit the industry because you were directly contributing to that horrible work culture.

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Perfectly said and I have huge respect for you for doing that. We need more leaders like that to stop crunch. 👏

Does anybody think they used assets from second son in LOU2 that was interesting to read I know he said they didn't but cmon a huge ass project like this all these Sony devs sharing files there saying they won't use any in the final game I am suss on that one

same with the horses interesting to see both sucker punch and naughty dog shared development on that

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I thought it was interesting and it absolutely makes sense to share tech like the horses. Great interview, if it weren't for the crunch part.

 

[disparate]

This is how real life works.

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That's complete delusion, working as an engineer for a fortune 50 company reality is every level of leadership stressing to you that work-life balance and healthy boundaries are more important than anything else.

 

[JABEE]

Change doesn't happen when you give your labor away for free. If the product wouldn't be possible without this additional stressful labor, you should be compensated for the value you are generating. You should be protected against labor that hurts your life. It only happens with unions and collective action. Because the company will keep telling you how hard change is to implement, but they won't put the exploitation of your labor and life on hold.

 

[JABEE]

Companies don't like unions because it means workers getting a larger share of their value. It means they can't cut corners and push their workers to the limit without any influence from the workers who will be putting themselves on the line.

 

[Deleted member 68874]

This is how real life works.

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I fucking hate working with people like this guy. These tweets are hilarious and I just feel bad for people with this mindset.

 

[LudicrousSpeed]

Aren't overtime needs to be approved by leadership first?

Also if you're a dev with a family and still wishes to work longer hours simply out of passion instead of spending time with family, then I don't know what to say.

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In the US, a large number of people involved in game production within a studio are hired as salaried employees, which makes them exempt from overtime. As such, for those people, no, there's absolutely zero authorization needed for overtime because they're not getting paid more for doing it.

Employees paid hourly may require an authorization, but often, hourly rates for employees like that are set with an eye towards what the overtime rate looks like and stories that have talked about the exploitative conditions that QA for major games operates under have mentioned studios offering blanket permission of OT up to a certain point (ie, everyone's allowed to run up to 60 without approval and you only need to ask if you're trying to exceed that).

 

[Spinluck]

Where is Factions 2

 

[Nanashrew]

The word passion keeps being brought up as if people who work in game dev aren't passionate enough. People are falling into the trap of pretty words when passion is what's used to exploit workers frequently into crunch and overtime.

 

[SCUMMbag]

This is how real life works.

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That's absolute bullshit lol. Man is in too deep and doesn't even realise it.

The word passion keeps being brought up as if people who work in game dev aren't passionate enough. People are falling into the trap of pretty words when passion is what's used to exploit workers frequently into crunch and overtime.

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Corporations love passion because it means they can get their workforce to work for free. "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life" is another one of those phrases which is designed to exploit workers into going above and beyond the terms of their contract.

 

[headspawn]

This is how real life works.

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I dunno, by his wording it doesn't sound like they're attempting to get rid of crunch as much as they are trying to find ways to make crunch work somehow accommodate it without making it the company culture. He's right, that does sound hard.

 

[Argentil]

Disappointing answer on crunch. If things stay the same I might either skip out on their games, or buy them on deep sale in future. I've long-boycotted Actiblizz and Ubisoft - which has been fine because their games have worsened with their culture over the years, but I'd rather not expand the pool to include ND.

 

[Zem]

If you're doing 60-80 hours out of passion then honestly, get another hobby and channel some of that "passion" there

 

[gremlinz1982]

Cow poop. As a lead you would go to every person individually and tell them to wrap up for the day and go home. And you keep doing that until nobody on the team works late. You keep doing that. Every. Single. Day. Lead by example and be the cultural change that needs to happen. Never turn a blind eye. Screw the game, screw the project. People's health is far more important than a god damn game. Remind them, every day, do not let them forget that.

And never. Never fucking justify people wasting their life away on a fucking job because they are passionate about it.

But what the fuck does one person who works in Sweden who tells the people that he oversees to go off for the day know about American work culture. 🤷‍♀️ Sure, I guess, have your people use all their "passion" for a stupid job, have them burn out and quit the industry because you were directly contributing to that horrible work culture.

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Open the office doors at 8 in the morning. Close the doors at 5 in the evening. Have people come in at 8:30 and at 4:30 they should start winding down whatever they are doing.

Work Monday to Friday, close the office on the weekend. This is how so many other organizations get it done.

 

[Deleted member 46804]

Open the office doors at 8 in the morning. Close the doors at 5 in the evening. Have people come in at 8:30 and at 4:30 they should start winding down whatever they are doing.

Work Monday to Friday, close the office on the weekend. This is how so many other organizations get it done.

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I'm actually not for this. It removes flexibility and there are plenty of people within software development that like to work odd hours or days. Keeping core hours for working together and meetings while allowing flexibility makes the most sense. Any leader that's worth a damn knows when their employees are putting more than what they should hour wise. Limiting scheduling like this can alleviate crunch but it produces a double edged sword that can piss people off and is also hard to enforce when you are a global team. Just sticking to a hard and fast rule of 40 hours maximum while preserving the flexibility on when those 40 hours are worked is easy enough.

As a side note it's also worth noting that forcing "make-up" hours when someone can't fulfill their time one week is toxic. Keeping a ceiling while allowing people to fall below it when other personal life commitments come up is the way to go.

 

[jsnepo]

Removing crunch will piss people off?

Fucking hilarious!

 

[m4st4]

Their bullshit non-answer on crunch likely means they will do nothing to address the problem.

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1) Two CEOs won't just downright admit that yes, they are the kings of crunch behold their might or begone
2) They literally address the crunch and address the moves towards changing things and thinking about team's well being

But the internet wants to hear two things, as blatant and simple as possible: 'We crunched hard. Crunch bad. We won' t crunch ever again and here are the solutions for that yadda-yadda.'

You will not get that sort of internal and company sensitive talk here in the open. At best, Jason will have another article in two-three years where you'll hear that they either changed shit up, or didn't. It happened to Rockstar.

 

[Messofanego]

I'm actually not for this. It removes flexibility and there are plenty of people within software development that like to work odd hours or days. Keeping core hours for working together and meetings while allowing flexibility makes the most sense. Any leader that's worth a damn knows when their employees are putting more than what they should hour wise. Limiting scheduling like this can alleviate crunch but it produces a double edged sword that can piss people off and is also hard to enforce when you are a global team. Just sticking to a hard and fast rule of 40 hours maximum while preserving the flexibility on when those 40 hours are worked is easy enough.

As a side note it's also worth noting that forcing "make-up" hours when someone can't fulfill their time one week is toxic. Keeping a ceiling while allowing people to fall below it when other personal life commitments come up is the way to go.

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Those people working extra unpaid hours can go home and continue on from there remotely on work laptops? Or work certain days from home? My office is open from 9 to 5, no ifs and or buts. It really helps having those boundaries. Being given work that can't be completed during work time surely is the problem of management rather than employees, no?

 

[Deleted member 41520]

damn, is overtime also crunch?

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I always thought crunch was more of the "forced" overtime.

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Tends to be longer periods, too.

"Overtime" can mean any time over hours, even just once per week or a few times per month/year.

"Crunch" is prolonged, intensive overtime, when for multiple weeks at least you do overtime every single day, often even coming in on weekends, etc.

Lots of other industries have crunch too, they just don't call it that. The high-end financial sector is notorious for it; PwC, JP Morgan, etc.

 

[Adulfzen]

"passion" will always be used as a way to guilt trip employees and manipulate them into thinking they own the art they produce for a multimillion dollar companies when it's almost never the case.

Being proud of the work you produce is normal but companies/bosses using that mindset to exploit their employees is fucking vile and the people drinking the koolaid need a reality check at some point.

It also doesn't help that the US has an unhealthy relationship with work in general which is a result of an ultra capitalistic society

 

[arsene_P5]

1) Two CEOs won't just downright admit that yes, they are the kings of crunch behold their might or begone
2) They literally address the crunch and address the moves towards changing things and thinking about team's well being

But the internet wants to hear two things, as blatant and simple as possible: 'We crunched hard. Crunch bad. We won' t crunch ever again and here are the solutions for that yadda-yadda.'

You will not get that sort of internal and company sensitive talk here in the open. At best, Jason will have another article in two-three years where you'll hear that they either changed shit up, or didn't. It happened to Rockstar.

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Can we stop with the generalizations nonsense already? Those having a problem with ND statements don't criticise that they didn't do a 2 hour presentation about how they change things. Those criticising are criticising the statement and their opinion about crunch.

 

[m4st4]

Can we stop with the generalizations nonsense already? Those having a problem with ND statements don't criticise that they didn't do a 2 hour presentation about how they change things. Those criticising are criticising the statement and their opinion about crunch.

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And said statement is as clear as possible considering it's the interview with two CEOs about the legacy and future of the company.

 

[arsene_P5]

And said statement is as clear as possible considering it's the interview with two CEOs about the legacy and future of the company.

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That's not the problem though. The issue is about what they've said and not how clear their message was.

 

[m4st4]

That's not the problem though. The issue is about what they've said and not how clear their message was.

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You know what, you're right.

So, in the future, choose with your wallet. Don't waste your energy here, don't buy their games until you get several valid reports in the future that things have, indeed, changed for the better. Nothing we say or do here will do that, it's up to CEOs and their managers to create that environment of change.

I'll continue buying ND games and hope their next game is created in a safe enough environment, with every extra hour willingly spent and paid.

 

[boomtrick]

do people here think game devs are idiots or are children?

Like people here are shitting on this guy for liking how naughty dog is handling things.

If his views are how devs at that studio feel who are we, a bunch of fucking randoms who probably have nothing to do with the situation, to say otherwise?

If devs at naughty dog like how crunch is being handled then whatever. They are grown ass people who can take care of themselves.

It's the same story about unionization.

Unions are actually somewhat common in the entertainment industry. Hell video voice actors have a fucking union.

So if unions was a such a silver bullet that game devs at large wanted. It would have happened already.

Saying "they need to unionize" is such low hanging fruit. It's a nothing burger of a statement.

 

[MarcelloF]

You know what, you're right.

So, in the future, choose with your wallet. Don't waste your energy here, don't buy their games until you get several valid reports in the future that things have, indeed, changed for the better. Nothing we say or do here will do that, it's up to CEOs and their managers to create that environment of change.

I'll continue buying ND games and hope their next game is created in a safe enough environment, with every extra hour willingly spent and paid.

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"Don't waste your energy here" is dumb advice. Not talking about these things doesn't help at all. Talking about it brings attention to the problems and at enough heat will push for change. "Voting with you wallet" with no context isn't helpful.

People like saying discussing things doesn't help, but we've seen outcries on Twitter and such lead to change, positive and, unfortunately, negative. Shutting up about someone's beloved developer on the other hand, does nothing.

Yeah, at the end of the day, we're not the ones to actually change things, but we can put more pressure on companies to do so.

 

[arsene_P5]

Yeah, at the end of the day, we're not the ones to actually change things, but we can put more pressure on companies to do so

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Yep. Jason and the attention the article about crunch at Rockstar got, changed things for the better, according to some of the developers and they were glad Jason investigated their work environment and people raised their voice to support.

 

[boomtrick]

I'm actually not for this. It removes flexibility and there are plenty of people within software development that like to work odd hours or days.

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I 100% agree. Been a software dev for over 10 years and I have not noticed any benefits to having core working hours.

Personally speaking idk if it's my autism or what but I barely get any work done during the day.

So what I did and still do is essentially twiddle my thumbs at half capacity during the day and essentially do actual work from like 10pm to 2 am.

Covid has actually been a boon for this since many companies have realized that flexible working hours doesn't hurt anything.

This was already an industry where delivering product was more important than hours worked so it was already heading this way.

 

[Kasey]

So, in the future, choose with your wallet. Don't waste your energy here, don't buy their games until you get several valid reports in the future that things have, indeed, changed for the better. Nothing we say or do here will do that, it's up to CEOs and their managers to create that environment of change.

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"don't criticize the thing I like"

It's a message board, dude. The point is literally to talk about shit.

 

[RR30]

You know what, you're right.

So, in the future, choose with your wallet. Don't waste your energy here, don't buy their games until you get several valid reports in the future that things have, indeed, changed for the better. Nothing we say or do here will do that, it's up to CEOs and their managers to create that environment of change.

I'll continue buying ND games and hope their next game is created in a safe enough environment, with every extra hour willingly spent and paid.

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Don't waste your energy here so I can keep buying ND games without feeling bad about the awful crunch culture they've fostered.

 

[m4st4]

Don't waste your energy here so I can keep buying ND games without feeling bad about the awful crunch culture they've fostered.

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Uh, not in the least bit.

I don't feel bad playing Naughty Dog games.

Feel free to waste plenty of energy wherever you feel is needed. If Naughty Dog changes their way in the future? For the better of their devs.

 

[Iron Eddie]

Uh, not in the least bit.

I don't feel bad playing Naughty Dog games.

Feel free to waste plenty of energy wherever you feel is needed. If Naughty Dog changes their way in the future? For the better of their devs.

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This is a forum, isn't most things a waste of energy by your standards? The reality is recognition of the problem needs to be known in the first place. The more it gets out there the more pressure there is to address it.

 

[HStallion]

You know what, you're right.

So, in the future, choose with your wallet. Don't waste your energy here, don't buy their games until you get several valid reports in the future that things have, indeed, changed for the better. Nothing we say or do here will do that, it's up to CEOs and their managers to create that environment of change.

I'll continue buying ND games and hope their next game is created in a safe enough environment, with every extra hour willingly spent and paid.

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You seem to be wasting a lot of energy yourself. You don't have to post in the topic you know. Don't even have to open it in the first place.

 

[Deleted member 10044]

My favorite studio. Great interview.

 

[Darksol]

Love these guys, love this studio; just keep making whatever you're passionate to do, and I'll keep buying the games.

 

[DailyCalmSpirit]

If devs at naughty dog like how crunch is being handled then whatever. They are grown ass people who can take care of themselves.

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Multiple ND devs have publicly come out about loving to work there, but, I guess that doesn't matter. They're just lying because they're terrified of being fired or some conspiracy shit.

Also, all these arguments of "you work 8-5 and go home" might work for a lot of companies out there, but, if you want to be best in class, sorry to tell ya, but, some people will need to work more than that. Nature of the beast.

Like, mock passion all you want, but, you won't get that award shelf with 40 hours a week.

 

[KingM]

Multiple ND devs have publicly come out about loving to work there, but, I guess that doesn't matter. They're just lying because they're terrified of being fired or some conspiracy shit.

Also, all these arguments of "you work 8-5 and go home" might work for a lot of companies out there, but, if you want to be best in class, sorry to tell ya, but, some people will need to work more than that. Nature of the beast.

Like, mock passion all you want, but, you won't get that award shelf with 40 hours a week.

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You can work overtime when unionized though. Just have a better shot at getting more pay for the extra time. Which results in management having to look and see which ha it's are productive and which are just tossing bodies and time on a pyre to fuel production despite diminishing returns.

 

[Cats]

I mean, if they're gonna pull that "Some people like crunch due to passion" card, then pay them fairly with overtime ffs. Oh, now you don't like crunch so much that it's not free labor?

 

[RPGam3r]

Multiple ND devs have publicly come out about loving to work there, but, I guess that doesn't matter. They're just lying because they're terrified of being fired or some conspiracy shit.

Also, all these arguments of "you work 8-5 and go home" might work for a lot of companies out there, but, if you want to be best in class, sorry to tell ya, but, some people will need to work more than that. Nature of the beast.

Like, mock passion all you want, but, you won't get that award shelf with 40 hours a week.

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You can let people work more to get those "awards on their shelves" by giving them more time, rather than asking them to sacrifice their personal time.

 

[boomtrick]

Multiple ND devs have publicly come out about loving to work there, but, I guess that doesn't matter. They're just lying because they're terrified of being fired or some conspiracy shit.

Also, all these arguments of "you work 8-5 and go home" might work for a lot of companies out there, but, if you want to be best in class, sorry to tell ya, but, some people will need to work more than that. Nature of the beast.

Like, mock passion all you want, but, you won't get that award shelf with 40 hours a week.

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I disagree on the idea that crunch is mandatory to deliver good work.

Like insomniac doesn't seem to have crunch issues and they are doing just fine.

Tech at large doesn't have major crunch and is actively against it as a culture and they do fine.

Like I personally would never work at Naughty dog. Pay seems to be shite and hours aren't the best (clearly).

But if devs there like their situation then who am I to tell them that they are victims or idiots or whatever.

Edit: Checked Glassdoor and Naughty dog pays its devs pretty good from 120-160k

I've seen some abysmal salaries at other dev shops like 80k or less.

 

[disparate]

Multiple ND devs have publicly come out about loving to work there, but, I guess that doesn't matter. They're just lying because they're terrified of being fired or some conspiracy shit.

Also, all these arguments of "you work 8-5 and go home" might work for a lot of companies out there, but, if you want to be best in class, sorry to tell ya, but, some people will need to work more than that. Nature of the beast.

Like, mock passion all you want, but, you won't get that award shelf with 40 hours a week.

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The best part of this is that you're objectively wrong, once you hit 40 hours, or frankly sooner, productivity craters. The extra hours were done for nothing, and people accomplished nothing with the extra hours of their lives they spent.

Like they probably would have accomplished the same game and accolades either way but instead people spent time away from their families and personal lives for nothing.

 

[arsene_P5]

Multiple ND devs have publicly come out about loving to work there, but, I guess that doesn't matter. They're just lying because they're terrified of being fired or some conspiracy shit

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Nobody said everyone hates to work there. But some of them clearly do or they wouldn't want their own game to fail. Jason reported it now often enough that they got a crunch problem.

The best part of this is that you're objectively wrong, once you hit 40 hours, or frankly sooner, productivity craters. The extra hours were done for nothing, and people accomplished nothing with the extra hours of their lives they spent.



Like they probably would have accomplished the same game and accolades either way but instead people spent time away from their families and personal lives for nothing.

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Psst. Don't tell him that.

 

[boomtrick]

The best part of this is that you're objectively wrong, once you hit 40 hours, or frankly sooner, productivity craters. The extra hours were done for nothing, and people accomplished nothing with the extra hours of their lives they spent.

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Iirc research showed that the average worker is only productive about 3 hours a day in an 8 hour work day.

So longer work days generally don't necessitate better quality.

That said a typical white collar workers day is spent doing bullshit.

Meetings, interruptions, lunch, chat with coworkers, etc.

I think like on average it takes a developer like 15-30 min to get into focus after an interruption.

So unless you leave devs alone the entire day they probably are cranking out a few hours of actual work at best.

So I don't think cutting hours is necessarily the answer either.

 

[m4st4]

You seem to be wasting a lot of energy yourself. You don't have to post in the topic you know. Don't even have to open it in the first place.

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Not really, couple of seconds to post an move onto other dozens of toolbars. ;)
Won't post here no more though, great article and insight into current day Naughty Dog, that is all. Peace out. 🤟

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

Neil Druckmann: Everybody has a different definition of what crunch means. And I guess for us, we think of it as, how do we look out for the well-being of our colleagues and everyone that works at Naughty Dog, which is some combination of how many hours you work.

Bullshit. You work 40 hours.

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40hrs is a normal work week for a full time worker in the US, without overtime.

 

[StereoVSN]

Good interview, but their answer on crunch is not particularly illuminating. I read it more like that's how they do their work and it is what it is.

I guess we shall see.

Oh, and it is a shame they won't be doing more lighthearted games anytime soon, that's a bit of a bummer.