Being over worked is being over worked. If they can't finish their game without crunch, why not delay the release date by a few weeks instead if it's not such a big deal.
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Kojima is crunching to meet Death Stranding's release date
- Thread starter Lant_War
- Start date
Oh yes, I agree. The nature of project based work is that near release (and usually shortly afterwards too) there is going to be a certain amount of crunch. The problem is that 3+ months is too early (and based on the wording of the tweet, it looks like it's been going on for longer). Crunching because your product releases in two weeks and you need to fix bugs is one thing. Crunching 3 months before release because plenty of things need to be worked on is another.
Please, do show how you came to that percentage. This also ignores that it's probably avoidable in this scenario, do you really think Sony would say no?
With Death Stranding it seems especially bad, no? Crunch now, more than three months before launch? When will the game go gold? In two months? So that's two months of crunch? Seems pretty bad, does it not?
Oh and of course there will be a day one patch so there will be crunching for 3+ months. That seems awful.
Seems like some people think crunch ended after a few articles came out about it.
I can almost guarantee most everyone is working 12-14 hour days and 6-7 day weeks right now.
I can almost guarantee most everyone is working 12-14 hour days and 6-7 day weeks right now.
Exactly, its too ambiguous, is he working 50 hour weeks or 100 hour weeks? we have no idea. I assume its not that pretty, but we really dont know enough. its not like what we heard of rockstar or naughty dogs crunch situation at all.
WB Montreal
Some EA studios
IOI (they literally said it on the NoClip documentary)
and i guess pretty much all Sweden developers due to strong unions, DICE in particular.
Iron Galaxy
Slow down with the knee jerk reaction and re-read what you quoted.
Considering how much is riding on this game for HK and KojiPro, I would almost expect the man to work himself to an inhuman degree based on how he approaches his craft. Doubt he demands that of his team though.
Lol well we definitely know WB Montreal doesnt crunch, in fact they crunch so little they dont even release anything
Lol well we definitely know WB Montreal doesnt crunch, in fact they crunch so little they dont even release anything
This is exactly what this is. Crunch =/= Extreme Crunch via Rockstar, Naughty Dog, etc.
This game has about as much hype as any game I remember in recent generations. What happens if it underperforms critically and doesn't review well? I have no doubt it's going to sell well.
I am actually suprised he would even make that tweet. He must know crunch in video game development got recently a lot of very negative attention. It would be the last thing I'd mention in a tweet to promote my game.
Mads: "Kojima-san this is 15th night in a row you are asking me out on a dinner and to talk about movies, maybe we should work on that game thing?"
Kojima: "Nonsense! Now tell me how Daniel Craig's hair smells."
Thanks for your contribution.
So because it's normal we cannot discuss it? We cannot hope for change? Nah, this is normal. Close the thread /s
Sure, but you wouldn't want a thread like this for literally every AAA title do you?
I don't lol, you just put in a few words and concise sentence something I had been trying to define for months now.
Yeah, I believe there's a difference to be made and some people going "Hey! Guess we're all pro crunch now since Kojima does it!" are missing the point or lack any understanding of how project management works. We don't know the extent of crunch at KojiPro (though I'm guessing it's somewhat harsher than it should be and I wish we had more info like in previous cases, for proper discussion), but I do hope that no one in their right mind would defend the second type of crunch you describe here, because that's the one we've all been calling out in this forum.
… Are you seriously saying that working extra hours and harder for 3 weeks is comparable to doing the same for 3 months?
But yes, I agree that if they're already crunching this far out, just delay the damn thing again. No one would even be surprised.
The idea that bringing a product to market requires crunch is lie born of shitty practices. There is no benefit of having crunch over a delayed released date.
WB has a no crunch policy and they are working on 2 big games.
It's been 6 years since Origins.
No one's stopping you from discussing anything, but there's nothing to discuss in depth when we don't know the extent of the crunch. Maybe everyone is working crazy 100 hr weeks. Maybe it's an additional 5 hrs. Or 10 hrs. There's levels, but we have no concrete details to really discuss (and outside of Kojima going into detail or a dev anonymously speaking, I doubt we'll get any). This might as well be a general crunch thread
It entirely depends on the product. Some release dates are flexible, some are too aligned with too many other things to have as much leeway. I think software companies should strive for as little crunch as possible, and there are definitely signs that a project is significantly behind schedule that should be addressed when that is known (to avoid/minimize crunch), but you can only plan for things so well when you're talking about incredibly complex systems on the order of years. Not to mention when you get down to the final months it's not even usually features that are the big push, but fixing bugs which are much harder to estimate for
How do you know it isn't extreme crunch?
crunch is crunch. I don't get why it's ok now.
It is true, even if for some it's just the last few days before going gold or working on a day 1 patch.
Sure crunching for weeks or months is way worse but we don't even know how many hours or how much work Kojima and his team are doing, or even what he considers crunching.
If it's working overtime/coming in on non workdays/letting personal health suffer, then yes, obviously it is.
We don't know the exact nature of Kojima Productions crunch culture so it could just be something simple as working harder but keeping the same hours/work days.
Yeah and that's not exactly a good thing, name one indie or AA studio that could survive 6 years without a release
I hate the whole outrage culture this site does so often, but in this case I'd like it if his tweet get's more visibility, especially by people like Jason who can go and investigate a more into the situation, then it's a good thing.
As long as people realize we don't have enough information to really make a full conclusion, of course.
Question. Do Japanese workers go public as often as workers in the west when talking about crunch? We know it's terrible in Japan, with some offices in the past, where they'd sleep under their desk for a few hours, instead of going home.
Sure, ignoring the examples (like Stygr's) in this thread or other developers that have come forward.
It'd be awesome if he could get more insight. I loved the articles he did on Bioware
Well then I expect to see a thread about this for every single AAA game going forward b/c believe me every single one of them have crunch at some point whether it's the last couple weeks or so on. Without knowing the details you can't really lob this in with some of the more severe cases we've heard about.
This thread is a tremendous example on how nowadays we as a society have too much damn time on our hands to, in the words of the glorious Bunk, give a fuck when it ain't our turn to give a fuck.
This trend of reacting and offering opinions to vague ass events or quotes with next to no context and act like we know what we're talking about is staggering.
This trend of reacting and offering opinions to vague ass events or quotes with next to no context and act like we know what we're talking about is staggering.
Yeah, weird right? Though there isn't enough information to start pointing fingers yet.
Also I'm left shaking my head at those who are just turning a blindeye saying this is 'normal'. Crunching 4-6 weeks before going gold is normal. This is beyond that (though unfortunately I'm sure even longer crunches are still commonplace as well).
I'm pointing out that the situation you mentioned and development 3 months before release being referred to as "crunch" are in no way equivalent. Criticism of crunch culture is more about extended periods, not 2-3 evenings right before shipping.
Both can be avoided but chronic crunch is the more serious issue.
Fairly certain if a lead dev goes on twitter to say "we crunching!" months before release, you'll see the thread posted here as well.
The fact Kojima volunteered this info should tell you it's probably not as horrific as you all imagine it to be.
And the post about Insomniac games said it was *relatively crunch-free* not 'completely' so even they experienced it.
One thing I can say for certainty without knowing the precise nature of his teams crunch, the conditions and working environment can't be anywhere near as toxic as Konami's during MGSV.
I work in tech and several times a year I have periods I refer to as "crunch time". I also have never worked over 40 a week in this job ever. Without additional context from someone working on this game, I'm not sure this is a revelation worth getting mad about yet.
You likely will. So? There have been several threads on various devs crunching or not crunching over the last several months. If you're not interested in these threads, move on. No one is forcing you to post.
Let me preface by saying I am not really a fan of him, nor do I have any interest in Death Stranding. I do believe that there is an error in the translation as, I don't believe he would be that full of himself to say something like others in this thread are suggesting. However if there is really terrible crunch times like what was said about naughty dog last week then there is no excuse for that.
It's really hilarious to see. And people say they're not Kojima stans. Lol
Delay the game and give the devs room to complete the projects soundly.
What does AA and indie have to do with WB Montreal?
Rocksteady is entering their 5th year without a major release as well.