https://kotaku.com/inside-rockstar-games-culture-of-crunch-1829936466
Here's the story Jason has been working on the last weeks.
Here's a sample:
Adding more links to new articles, thanks hydrophilic attack
Eurogamer:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-10-25-the-human-cost-of-red-dead-redemption-2
GameIndustry:
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-10-26-rockstars-broken-work-ethics
Here's the story Jason has been working on the last weeks.
Here's a sample:
In the final year of development on Red Dead Redemption 2, the upcoming Western game, the top directors decided to add black bars to the top and bottom of every non-interactive cutscene in hopes of making those scenes feel more cinematic, like an old-school cowboy film. Everyone agreed it was the right creative move, but there was a catch: It would add weeks of work to many people's schedules.
"You can't just slap black bars on the cinematics we've already shot," said one person who worked on the game. "You have to reframe the camera so that the cinematics flow in a particular way, and you're emphasizing what you weren't emphasizing initially with that shot."
With no hope of delaying the game any further—Red Dead Redemption 2had already been bumped internally before it was announced, then publicly delayed twice—there was no way for the developers at Rockstar Games to add more time to their schedule. Instead, they would have to crunch, putting in extra nights and weekends in order to redo these scenes and deal with the rest of the massive workload that was ahead of them. Would the black bars prove to be worth it?
This has been a common occurrence in the last years of development on a Rockstar game. Dan and Sam Houser, the co-founders of Rockstar and creative leads on Red Dead Redemption 2, are renowned for rebooting, overhauling, and discarding large chunks of their games. Through eight years of development on Red Dead Redemption 2, the Housers and other directors have made a number of major changes to the story, the core gameplay mechanics, and the game's overall presentation. It's a process that some see as essential for making a game of this nature, but it's also one that leads to a great deal of overtime, and has contributed to a culture of crunch at Rockstar Games that is impossible to deny, according to interviews with dozens of current and former employees. This isn't crunch that came in a burst of a few weeks—it's crunch that, those employees say, has lasted for months or even years.
Adding more links to new articles, thanks hydrophilic attack
Eurogamer:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-10-25-the-human-cost-of-red-dead-redemption-2
GameIndustry:
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-10-26-rockstars-broken-work-ethics
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