i mean sure, why not? there are a ton of games out there. The only thing i would need is a marketing cycle that is shorter to make up for it.
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Would(honestly) you accept if games wer sub par/ took longer to avoid crunch
- Thread starter Redfox088
- Start date
This. If the whole industry took a year off to draw up some normal time schedules and remove crunch, form unions, etc. and games were delayed for a while causing a huge AAA drought....there would still be too much to play in our backlogs. Sort it out, we have time.
OP
OP
I think that's a very good way to approach it but would be seen as unthinkable to share holders/ board leaders. Fortnite is on top of the world because that whip is getting cracked super hard. A drought of content would be devastating to their revenue stream. A good swath of players would take to the streets figuratively speaking. Idk. I was pissed about launch SFV and subscribed to the "Lazy Devs!" Mindset. Now I'm not so sure it's fair, but I'm sure as fuck not wanting all my games to be bug riddled, content deprived, or devhell induced waiting games. I know crunch doesn't inherently create these issues but it sure as hell exist because in this industry more so than any other "time is money".
Sakurai being drained by smash is a meme, but I really don't think people care that lives are pressed to get out these games. They just care that the game is of high quality. Is it then on us, the consumer, to bear the burden? I'm just not so sure. Not so sure I would want to play a game that was made in a healthy environment at the cost of quality. Or more so, not sure I'd be willing to pay for it.
If you're compensated adequately and they're upfront about the work hours when you sign your contract, I can't see why a consenting adult couldn't agree. Personally, instead of crunch for the roles that can be done in such a way I'd utilize shift work. Someone is developing the game around the clock while no one is working 100 hour weeks. Alternate and pay overtime for weekends and I don't think you'd have too much push back.
Crunch has nothing to do with games not being subpar. Crunch does not improve quality.
Here's another thing I can tell you, as a senior dev with a lot of experience: crunch doesn't even get things done any faster. Not crunching doesn't necessarily mean games would take any longer to develop — many, many studies have shown productivity rapidly becomes negative when you work much more than ~40-50 hours a week. Devs and artists working 80 hour weeks for months on end are often their own worst enemies — all the extra time they work gets soaked up fixing issues they themselves are creating by working too tired.
The reality is, crunch is just a crutch for bad managers. The Anthem expose covered this well — all a culture of crunch did was let managers avoid paying any price for making decisions late, and then changing them multiple times. If you took that crutch away from management, and forced real project planning up front, you'd get the product done for the same deadline, without the crunch. Probably with less bugs too.
Basically the entire premise of this question is flawed.
Here's another thing I can tell you, as a senior dev with a lot of experience: crunch doesn't even get things done any faster. Not crunching doesn't necessarily mean games would take any longer to develop — many, many studies have shown productivity rapidly becomes negative when you work much more than ~40-50 hours a week. Devs and artists working 80 hour weeks for months on end are often their own worst enemies — all the extra time they work gets soaked up fixing issues they themselves are creating by working too tired.
The reality is, crunch is just a crutch for bad managers. The Anthem expose covered this well — all a culture of crunch did was let managers avoid paying any price for making decisions late, and then changing them multiple times. If you took that crutch away from management, and forced real project planning up front, you'd get the product done for the same deadline, without the crunch. Probably with less bugs too.
Basically the entire premise of this question is flawed.
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Not really. Controversial opinion but I don't really think crunch is a big deal.
If you're skilled enough to get a job at Rockstar, you can get a job at pretty much any software company. No one is forcing you to work at a video game company. I don't care if it's your dream job, dream jobs aren't always easy and they don't always cater to the fantasies you had when you were studying in college.
The film industry is the same, film sets can run for up to 20 hours or more often without much of a break in between. Certain products are difficult to produce and crunch is just a necessary evil unless you want to sacrifice quality or spend a lot more money.
You don't see workers from the Bakken oil fields talking about "crunch" or how brutal their jobs are, and it's because they know what they signed up for. No one is forcing anyone to work hard or "crunch", it's a career choice you make on your own.
If you're skilled enough to get a job at Rockstar, you can get a job at pretty much any software company. No one is forcing you to work at a video game company. I don't care if it's your dream job, dream jobs aren't always easy and they don't always cater to the fantasies you had when you were studying in college.
The film industry is the same, film sets can run for up to 20 hours or more often without much of a break in between. Certain products are difficult to produce and crunch is just a necessary evil unless you want to sacrifice quality or spend a lot more money.
You don't see workers from the Bakken oil fields talking about "crunch" or how brutal their jobs are, and it's because they know what they signed up for. No one is forcing anyone to work hard or "crunch", it's a career choice you make on your own.
Take as long as you need for devs to work in safe conditions.
You gotta imagine that when being overworked, developers aren't exactly doing their best work and that created an even longer dev time.
You gotta imagine that when being overworked, developers aren't exactly doing their best work and that created an even longer dev time.
Yes. I already got tons of shit to play. Let games develop longer and give game developers time needed to have a bloody fucking life.
This isn't really true. Game Dev is a lot different than Web Dev or Mobile App Dev or any other hot segment of programming. I've seen a lot of kids who burnt out in the game industry struggle to get into another niche — those that do usually need to spend months learning completely different skill sets on their own before they can get through interviews.
A lot of people can't afford that kind of downtime from employment. It's definitely not a "walk into a FAANG and get hired any time you get tired of it" situation. Most game devs are only qualified to walk into other game positions.
Why on earth would you equate lack of crunch to subpar games? That's absurd. Taking more time is the answer. Crunch I think causes more problems as it's just a get it done no matter what mentality. Look at Breath of the Wild. Twice delayed, and it's incredible with just crazy levels of polish.
Honestly?
That's fine.
I can do without super blockbuster video games if it means treating human beings well across the board. Bring on the AA/indie games golden age.
I've been saying for ages that I would be 100% fine if games were the same as they were last gen graphically. So long as the performance was better.
Spiderman had a crunch-free development time and it's considered one of the best games of this generation. This thinking of "no crunch = worse product" mentality should stop.
Fair enough, but mostly my point is that no one is forcing you to work excruciating hours at video game companies. Just like no one is forcing you to work excruciating hours on freezing cold oil fields.
There are lots of easy roads to go down to make a living, video game development just isn't one of them. Get a degree in IT or accounting if you want something more straightforward.
I can sympathize with kids who got degrees specifically for the game industry and didn't realize what they were getting into, but honestly you should do some research before you make a career choice that'll last you 35+ years.
no one is forcing anybody to work anywhere. Most dream jobs are very far from easy and require very hard work.
Hard work doesn't mean having to enduring exploitative employers.
A multi billion dollar industry is built on exploiting naive kids who don't and could not possibly have the experience to know any better, and your take is that that's the kids' fault.
Ok bud. That's sure not my feeling and it's sure not consistent with what I see from people coming out of that meat grinder.
Gaming in the end is just an entertainment product , so for me as a customer It doesnt matter whether the game comes out in a year or two or ten , They don't owe me anything
Nope not one bit. As a consumer it's not my problem how these companies are managed. That being said I have zero problems with longer dev times.
I definitely wouldn't mind if games took a little longer to come out. Quite frankly, if studios just waited a little longer to announce the games the change would hardly be felt, I think. At most, there may just be fewer AAA releases each year. And quite frankly, there are so many these days anyway...
Im all against the mistreatment of video game devs, but its not the gamers fault that these companies are crunching their employees. I'm all up for waiting for a game for as long as it takes to properly develop without crunch, but not into half assed glitchy/broken games.
I don't consider crunch exploitative, because the employees are making the choice to continue to work there.
Again, is a worker in the Bakken oil fields being exploited if he has to work 12 hours straight in brutal weather? No. He can leave whenever he wants. Is an electrician on a movie set being exploited if he has to hang up lights for 18 hours straight? No. It's just how the job is done.
If you don't like it, find something else to do for money. You should have done more research before you entered the industry.
A better work life balance can reduce employee churn which means you can reduce time spent training and onboarding new workers, and preserve organisational knowledge.
If crunch is a common occurance during game development then there must also be a lot of bad games that were made using crunch.
Is this actually true? Is the assumption that working long hours is the only thing that matters to go 'above and beyond'? There must be other reasons why those games are good.
If crunch is a common occurance during game development then there must also be a lot of bad games that were made using crunch.
If it's a big movie set he's probably unionized unlike game developers working on big games.
I'm not against unionization for devs, just like I'm not against unionization for tradesmen. But unionization mostly implies greater pay, it doesn't guarantee elimination of crunch. Most films sets go over 12-14 hours almost every day in my experience.
Sub-par? No. But more time to polish in a way that doesn't make the employees work like a slave? Of course. It's not like we lack games to play anyways, more wait won't hurt.
I just want good games. Crunch or not I don't care, it's their job, they choose that. They are grown up and professional people doing a job where no one forced them to stay. You don't like the job? Be patient, save money and look for another job with better conditions. It's not my (our) problem.
Don't nintendo employees in general do "only" 40h a week? And they still make some of the best games on the market. No crunch doesn't mean less quality, they can take a little longer to release the game too, to compensate the lack of crunching. It's not like there aren't enough good games releasing these past few years, it's actually pretty overwhelming how many good games there are to play, and there's more and more games as a service too.
I'll never accept a sub-par game, regardless of reasons. I will, however, always accept a delay if it means avoiding overworking employees to death (or poor health).
It has been years since I stopped caring about release dates, and the majority of my purchases is made well after release anyway.
It has been years since I stopped caring about release dates, and the majority of my purchases is made well after release anyway.
I would be ok with games not shooting for ultra realism and crazy detail in favor of good gameplay, like with Pillars of Eternity vs Final Fantasy VII Remake 1, 2, 3, 4, whatever the number of games will be. I'd love FF7R that was more like Pillars of Eternity with Persona turn based speed and flow, all of the game in one package.
I'm bad at waiting for anything i really want but on the other side i don't want people to crunch just so i can play the nxt blockbuster 2-3 months earlier.
Just don't reveal it so soon. Keep it in the dark until you're sure you can finish without crunch.
But sadly this is a business and in the end big publishers like EA are willing to send out broken games to keep their deadline. SO i'm afraid that they won't hold back to help their workers.
Just don't reveal it so soon. Keep it in the dark until you're sure you can finish without crunch.
But sadly this is a business and in the end big publishers like EA are willing to send out broken games to keep their deadline. SO i'm afraid that they won't hold back to help their workers.
By that logic, there's no need for any labour laws anywhere because people can simply job hop until they find one that won't exploit them.
I don't give a rat's ass about crunch. That exists in many different fields of business outside of video games
It's only dedicated hardcore gaming forums/sites like ERA or Kotaku who care about it. All the mass casual consumers, who don't daily read/research gaming forums, do not know nor care (just like the OP said with his friends). If anyone here is surprised that the masses don't care, then you are seriously in a bubble and oblivious
I would never accept sub-par quality/polish games. I don't buy those
However -- I don't mind games taking longer to release. But that's not because I really care about dev crunch, that's just because I have a huge backlog anyway so the timeframe won't affect me
It's only dedicated hardcore gaming forums/sites like ERA or Kotaku who care about it. All the mass casual consumers, who don't daily read/research gaming forums, do not know nor care (just like the OP said with his friends). If anyone here is surprised that the masses don't care, then you are seriously in a bubble and oblivious
I would never accept sub-par quality/polish games. I don't buy those
However -- I don't mind games taking longer to release. But that's not because I really care about dev crunch, that's just because I have a huge backlog anyway so the timeframe won't affect me
Accept it? I wouldn't be able to do anything.
Be fine with such a change? No I wouldn't, because I have the wherewithal to realize that my morals can't be inconsistently applied to games, and that demanding literally everything in my life to either be slower or of lower quality just so faceless people won't have to undergo something which could be described as crunch when I myself already work much, much, much longer hours anyway is just picking and choosing for a pet industry I just so happen to like.
Is crunch good? No. Do I feel even the smallest twinge of guilt when I utilize a product made by someone crunching? Not even a little bit.
Be fine with such a change? No I wouldn't, because I have the wherewithal to realize that my morals can't be inconsistently applied to games, and that demanding literally everything in my life to either be slower or of lower quality just so faceless people won't have to undergo something which could be described as crunch when I myself already work much, much, much longer hours anyway is just picking and choosing for a pet industry I just so happen to like.
Is crunch good? No. Do I feel even the smallest twinge of guilt when I utilize a product made by someone crunching? Not even a little bit.