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Kojima is crunching to meet Death Stranding's release date
- Thread starter Lant_War
- Start date
However, this is the studio's first game and thus they could've run out of funding if they took much longer. This isn't an excuse but perhaps they're rushing for a November release because of funding.
Everyone on this site is so scared of the word crunch. It's not a bad thing if handled correctly and staff are well compensated with optional work.
Yah no, they are not doing with their on funding.
Unless Sony is running out of money, they are not rushing it because of the lack of it.
Tone in threads about crunch within widely loved studio like ND or Kojima's team is amazingly different than if it was any other publisher or dev. People bending over backwards to shrug it just off.
Was this tweet from CDPR or EA team thread would be nailing studio to cross for exploiting workers.
Was this tweet from CDPR or EA team thread would be nailing studio to cross for exploiting workers.
This place is conditioned to automatically assume the worst case scenario on all topics.
It's not crunch, they're perfectionists, it's ingrained in their DNA, and it's part of the culture.
Exactly, mid term-long term of crunch (even "voluntary") is pretty bad. People is tired, productivity goes down, health issues starts to happen and so on.
Like it or not, some developpers/publishers are less likely to be criticized, for whatever reasons.
exactly. the reaction would have been unanimously negative, yet here we have people saying it's normal or using the stupid love® and passion™ argument.
'Perfectionism' is the wrong label to begin with. It's 'institutionalized workaholism". And to your point - it's also the reason why managers are largely powerless to do much about it (assuming there even are managers in the org).
I mean in a new studio/company it's easy - at least outside of worker-hostile locations like the US. The hard question (without any good answers) is dealing with established cultures.
You can try injecting changing mindset through isolated pockets (new projects etc.) and allow it to spread. It's just as likely that you'll end up converting the people who were supposed to improve things into the established culture instead though (I've both personally experienced that and seen it happen).
Kojima apologist thread.
It's funny how people bend over backwards and hand waive shit like this when it's their developer darling and not a developer they don't care about.
Either crunch is bad or it isn't, pick a side and stay on it.
It's funny how people bend over backwards and hand waive shit like this when it's their developer darling and not a developer they don't care about.
Either crunch is bad or it isn't, pick a side and stay on it.
Just curious, as already some people pointed it out in the thread, but it hasn't been picked up on yet :
Is Kojima writing his own tweets in English after making them on his JP twitter, or does someone do it for him?
I don't speak Japanese unfortunately, but the google trad of his original tweet does not mention crunch, but "production environment" instead :
Translated Japanese tweet : "Has been planning and producing with the aim of creating a new "game nature", "worldview" and "visual" that has never been seen before. The studio we launched is a small indie, but we are working hard for the release on November 8 to be loved by everyone in the world. It became August, but the production environment continues"
Is Kojima writing his own tweets in English after making them on his JP twitter, or does someone do it for him?
I don't speak Japanese unfortunately, but the google trad of his original tweet does not mention crunch, but "production environment" instead :
Translated Japanese tweet : "Has been planning and producing with the aim of creating a new "game nature", "worldview" and "visual" that has never been seen before. The studio we launched is a small indie, but we are working hard for the release on November 8 to be loved by everyone in the world. It became August, but the production environment continues"
I'm just imagining some sexy ripped stomachs game devs have from all them crunches these days. I bet if Kojima lifted his shirt and showed tum we would see a glorious six pack.
Of course this is a culture that makes Sony lots of money and is driven by the people at the very top. If they cared about people's work-life balance, they would find ways to change it. My point is that "crunch" isn't as simple as "okay guys, we ship in a month time to work 12-hour days!" What's most prevalent — and most insidious — is crunch that nobody's asked to do.
It's baffling to me that anyone could interpret my post as me defending crunch culture, especially given my history of reporting. Do I need to add big red flashing letters saying "this is bad!!!" every time I try to explain something?
Yeah, I'm not sure why people are assuming that.
Crazy in regards to your own expectations, but we have no idea whether the deadline was crazy or fairly comfortable to meet.
Kojima certainly doesn't sound like the kind of guy who would sit on a project and call it finished with time left before the deadline; he'll keep refining until the very last second and nearing launch date there's inevitably going to be some working overtime, because you want to make the most of the time you have left.
Happens to me all the time in my own job and moving the deadline isn't going to change things: there will always be stuff that can be improved and polished
Just because something happens a lot, doesn't mean it's normal, or that we should defend it.
If delaying the product by 1-3 months would mean no need to crunch, then that's the better alternative.
If you're against the delay on the premise that it would cost too much to do so, you're actively saying that wage theft is okay.
If delaying the product by 1-3 months would mean no need to crunch, then that's the better alternative.
If you're against the delay on the premise that it would cost too much to do so, you're actively saying that wage theft is okay.
Definitely agree on the last part. It is the type that is far more difficult to control and prevent.
That's not really how it works, very little in life is as black and white as that. I know from my own experience that I've worked extra hours for weeks at a time to finish a project on time. It was exhausting and draining but ultimately extremely rewarding and I don't regret doing it. I also got paid for the extra hours and recognised for the work I put in.
That's very different than being forced to work a ton of extra hours without being compensated for it. Both are still crunch however.
Yup. It's simply a project management failure, and it's not the first time for Kojima.
So because "every AAA dev does this" it's ok? For fucks sake era it's like the discussion surrounding work conditions for developers has made zero fucking progress in the last year.
It's like we're only gonna chastise devs we don't care about and excuse the rest.
It's like we're only gonna chastise devs we don't care about and excuse the rest.
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User Banned (1 day): personal attacks, vilifying media
you are more shady than polygon to me. no offense.
And if it's a studio we live and not evil corp like Activision or EA right...
At least that's the impression I get from this thread.
Btw I don't have an opinion on this specific case, crunch could mean working 10-12 hours some days which is kinda normal but could also mean 12+ hours plus weekends.
Funny since it seems that it's not even what he wrote in his original tweet in Japanese, but it looks like no one wants to talk about it here
Yeah the original tweet mentions they are at the final part of development, then got translated to "Still in crunch time of dev".
I know I've been asking for a few posts if someone knows if it's Kojima himself tweeting in English after tweeting in Japanese, or if someone else takes care of his EN twitter, but no one seems to know or wants to answer ^^
But I'm only basing this on the google trad of his original tweet since I don't speak or read Japanese, still it's interesting that crunch doesn't seem to be mentioed in the original tweet
Yeah but this is more a meta discution about crunch, and in any case before handwaiving or accusing it could be good to try to know how this term arrived in the translated tweet while not present in the original one. So does someone know how the EN twitter is handled? Translator or Kojima himself?
It's still crunch it's just that people weren't asked to do so, he never defended it, just stated that it's in the company dna to work like this.
This forum tends to interpret "I would like more information" as "I love crunch! Now where is my Kojima idol that I may make sacrifices to it?"
I have not seen a single Kojima apologist in this thread (granted haven't read every single post). The majority of posts are from users who are utterly desperate to "expose" that Era as a whole is bending over backwards to praise Kojima at every turn - even though the majority of Era threads about him are already quite negative, including 95% of this one.
Well I for one would like more information about this Kojima idol that we can make sacrifices to
But mainly I'd like to know about how the word crunch got in the EN tweet, but is seemingly not in the JP one, and who writes the EN tweets
To be fair, there was a large story about it with personal accounts. This is the dev lead saying he's burning the midnight oil. Maybe it's a death march over there, maybe not. We have no context.
OP
OP
The story started because Dan Houser did exactly the same thing Kojima did and it obviously backfired. Like I said in the post, it could still be a mistranslation though, or maybe it's just him crunching.
I don't know where you read that, personally I'm asking if someone knows how the EN twitter is handled, by Kojima or a translator? Never said the EN tweet wasn't true or cannon lol
And if you're referencing me, please quote me correctly, I insisted that I only put the original tweet in google translate and I don't speak Japanese, and was very careful to write that I'm not sure the translation is good and crunch is not mentionned 100% sure because once again I don't speak or read Japanese.
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Oh I have a hunch, breakfast dinner and lunch, it taste so much better if I had it with Crunch.
I get it. so they wanted to do the crunch. make sure you remember this next time another company crunches.