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[KidBeta]

With now over 5 years in the industry, in my experience, it's setting release dates before you actually know when it will be done and not willing to budge on quality/quantity.

I really hope the devs get over time.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

So ~28 days of hectic work before a huge launch as the flagship product?

 

[Fafalada]

Alternatives
1) Delay game - people will be upset
2) Have buggy game - people will be upset
3) Have graphical issues - people will be upset
4) Cut content - people will be upset

2-4 happen on most software products. I'd be tempted to argue 100% of those that have periods of crunch before launch.

 

[Oni Jazar]

I really hope the devs get over time.

Devs don't get OT, they get free dinners. (Sometimes)

 

[Harlock]

It depends in much factors if the crunch is fair or not. For example, if the menagement is good or if the crunch get worse because bad menagement. If the team is happy with the work or not. If they work overtime but save the weekends. But get paid for ocertime I dont think is going to happen.

 

[BenouKat]

Most of time, teams get compensation from short crunch with a dinner and a "very good job Bob" from the boss.

And from "long" crunch (more than one month for me), I often saw free day off at the end of the project.
(But the problem is you can't take these days cause the new project is about to start and you are always "the only one person which do [insert a random speciality here]")

 

[Monochromaticx]

It's "backlashes" like these that make me hate to call myself a gamer sometimes.

 

[Messofanego]

Man, what is up with the unsympathetic comments on the first page? Do people not realise those are mostly developers (whom have likely gone through crunch time themselves) reacting badly to that tweet and that gloating about crunch time is not something for an official game's twitter to tweet about?

Gamasutra - Developers react: The #RyseFacts hashtag and the war on crunch

That faux outrage is ridiculous.

lol at the responses... why so serious

Quick, everyone get outraged over...whatever we're getting outraged about.

LOL at the guy saying that this is disgusting. All studios do stuff like this at crunch time.

Just because many studios go through this, I don't see what's the fun in tweeting about it. I won't give a comparison, because you know how stupid that argument is.

twitter doesnt understand how product development works whats new.

Except those are developers responding. They know how crunch works and don't like that an official game company's twitter is making fun of the practice.

 

[Skinpop]

Cosigned.

I think a lot of this OT culture comes from

a) poor management that oversells the team to the client and can't say no

b) the team being full of young kids who liked to engage in pissing contests in the form of 'who can be in the office the longest and neglect their families the most'. I worked with one 'big name' guy who boasted about how he never saw his kids. Pathetic.

The best games I've worked on had a) a producer that said no to the client (a lot) and b) a team that saw OT as a failure that was not a better option than spending time with their families.

The worst games I worked on had long periods of crunch for no real reason except people just figured it would fix the massive problems the game had

Spoiler

that I caused, oops

. Nope.

Never again.

I now manage a small studio with lots of varying age groups / backgrounds / family situations and we never, ever do crunch. It's totally not necessary.

People like you give me hope for the future of the industry.

 

[7he Talon]

Those are some harsh responses.

 

[ZeroAlpha]

Call me ignorant but how is this considered gloating? It was stated as a fact and it appears to be true, wouldn't gloating be more "how amazing are we! So many meals man #weareawesome" or something.

 

[-PXG-]

We still don't know what they ate. For all we know, they got KFC instead of Popeye's. Shit, we'd have 50 page thread if that were the case

 

[Messofanego]

We have to remember that the outrage here is over a tweet about dinner being served to developers working crunch on a next-gen console launch game. We have literally no other information.

If some Crytek dev wants to speak up, then we have something here. Until then, just ignore the tweet and move on.

I just think perhaps people should pick their battles more carefully.

Has a single Crytek developer responded to this tweet? I don't see any. That's telling in itself that they didn't see this as a positive or bothered to add a "joke".

 

[Log4Girlz]

We still don't know what they ate. For all we know, they got KFC instead of Popeye's. Shit, we'd have 50 page thread if that were the case

I would worry about the amount of sodium in such a meal.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

We still don't know what they ate. For all we know, they got KFC instead of Popeye's. Shit, we'd have 50 page thread if that were the case

It was Frankwurthers and Sauerkrauts, served by big boobed women as it's time for Oktoberfest after all

 

[NaviLink]

ITT the majority of posters obviously don't know the first thing about game and software development and how doing crunch time is bad.

Crytek boasting about this statistic is just plain nuts.

 

[dragonelite]

It was Frankwurthers and Sauerkrauts, served by big boobed women as it's time for Oktoberfest after all

And beer for dat ballmer peak.

 

[Doffen]

Call me ignorant but how is this considered gloating? It was stated as a fact and it appears to be true, wouldn't gloating be more "how amazing are we! So many meals man #weareawesome" or something.

Xbox One exclusives are not very welcome these days. You'll find bitching about everyone, but some deserves it though.

 

[Messofanego]

I don't really think an innocuous PR tweet about Ryse is the right context for a grand open discussion about systemic industry issues.

Maybe later, when there's like another EA Wives or something. This just feels like trying too hard.

I expected better from you, or maybe because I'm a liberal, I can't understand your perspective. So until some anonymous developers who risk their jobs to talk about unhealthy practices give up information for a smoking gun article that takes many months to gather sources and write about, you won't care that a game company is making light out of crunch time. This is an official tweet from a game company that most likely was written by a marketing person or maybe even a producer who is actually responsible along with shareholders and managers for this crunch time.

 

[WeylandxYutani]

Some people have got real mad about the use of a cover all term for dev end sprint.

There are far more important things to get wound up about like equality for starters

 

[monome]

stupid to post that but I took it as "we're under a lot of pressure but it's coming on day one and hopefully you see our hardwork paying when you play our game".

New IP on new console with new partnership and new vision for a Crytek game.

It's possible to think the devs felt that crunch time was worth it.

 

[RaikuHebi]

This makes Ubisoft's move with Watchdogs look a bit better I think?

 

[Fafalada]

This makes Ubisoft's move with Watchdogs look a bit better I think?

Chances are that delay was preceeded by a period of crunch already (coupled with cutting features/scope before/during).

 

[BladeoftheImmortal]

LOL at the guy saying that this is disgusting. All studios do stuff like this at crunch time.

lol at the slaves getting upset. every state does it.

 

[RoninChaos]

I always try to be aware of the people behind the products that I purchase. What they get put through just to deliver something I want. And lately it seems like that has been amplified and then I wander into this thread. I was on the fence about Ryse and now I definitely won't buy it, just based on how out of touch the management behind Ryse seems to be. Over 11k dinners served is not something to brag about. It's something to be ashamed of and I won't give them my money.

 

[Nugg]

This makes Ubisoft's move with Watchdogs look a bit better I think?

Nope, not with a delay this late. They've probably been crunching like crazy for weeks, and still didn't make it. And they'll probably crunch again come spring 2014.

It's actually worse, since I'm sure most of the team planned to kick back and have some nice vacations post release, maybe spend the holidays with their family. Nope, not anymore.

For the record, that's how I imagine it is, I'm talking out of my ass, I have no insider knowledge of what is going on at Ubisoft.

 

[Jamessh]

The only Ryse news in the past week will go 20 pages deep on yet another dev comment made in poor taste.

They are great at producing negative press.

I REALLY REALLY hope this game turns out to be great but I remember one of the idiot producers ( that coined "mash to mastery") said a month or two back they would be crashing into launch.

I homestly hope this gets delayed or polished with DLC. It's the game that converted me from PS4 to XBone (until ps4 has anything I actually want to play).

 

[Maxim726X]

Reading through this thread has depressed me immensely. I knew that crunch time was a norm in the industry, but I never knew how bad it really was.... I'm going to think twice before mercilessly bashing a major release again to be honest.

But if things are really this bad- Why don't game developers unionize? At some point it's the responsibility of the people working in this field to take control of a situation that has clearly already spun out of control.

 

[Messofanego]

Dunno if they still do it, but Crytek used to avoid hiring Germans at the German studio because they didn't want to have anyone who was knowledgable about local labor laws w/r/t overtime and weekend work.

That's terrible to hear.

Zindalgi, Relentless Software, and I've heard Avalanche Studios is trying to stamp it out.

At least some developers are brave enough to change the structure. Thanks for the info.

 

[Doffen]

lol at the slaves getting upset. every state does it.

If you don't want it this way you could start only playing games that are made in Norway.

 

[RoninChaos]

Reading through this thread has depressed me immensely. I knew that crunch time was a norm in the industry, but I never knew how bad it really was.... I'm going to think twice before mercilessly bashing a major release again to be honest.

But if things are really this bad- Why don't game developers unionize? At some point it's the responsibility of the people working in this field to take control of a situation that has clearly already spun out of control.

Probably because there are people willing to take the place of the Devs who would unionize. Some others have said it in this thread but it bears repeating: people flock to the games industry. People love games so some really want to make games and they'll eat shit to do it. On top of the fact that lately America seems to be very anti union because certain corporate interests are telling them to be , its a lose-lose situation for people wanting better working conditions.

 

[RVinP]

And beer for dat ballmer peak.

We need a poster, to portray the graph of Productivity vs Crunching time dinner served

Then call it the Ryse effect/Peak.

 

[LiquidSolid]

Man, what is up with the unsympathetic comments on the first page? Do people not realise those are mostly developers (whom have likely gone through crunch time themselves) reacting badly to that tweet and that gloating about crunch time is not something for an official game's twitter to tweet about?

Gamasutra - Developers react: The #RyseFacts hashtag and the war on crunch

Just because many studios go through this, I don't see what's the fun in tweeting about it. I won't give a comparison, because you know how stupid that argument is.

Except those are developers responding. They know how crunch works and don't like that an official game company's twitter is making fun of the practice.

Pfft, what would those game developers know about working crunch, huh?

 

[Messofanego]

I just realised why babies being born are shown in nearly every AAA game's credits.

Those developers didn't get to be there because of crunch time

 

[StuBurns]

I just realised why babies being born are shown in nearly every AAA game's credits.

Those developers didn't get to be there because of crunch time

I believe it was in BioShock Infinite, but might be something else, but in the credits it has messages from members of staff, and one of them talks about him struggling with work while his wife is looking after their young child.

Heart breaking stuff.

 

[Messofanego]

Quoting so everyone should read coldcrush's post. Might explain why AAA games' demographic target is the same if it's the younger developers who are staying. And that crunch should be scheduled into production.

Before I say anything first let me preface this with:
I am a developer, I stay doing this job because I love it and I believe in the games I make and am passionate about creating cool experiences for people to enjoy.

I have worked across 5 different AAA titles and 3 companies. There has been crunch with them all. The worst of them has been horrible, I have kids & wife and all those those hours wasted that you could be with them for a game that sometimes does not even live up to expectations, even if it is the best game ever is it worth missing out on your kids first few years?
Developers are driving away people with experience because they can't commit to this lunacy and who don't want to be a part of this kind of structure. Sure there are many talented 19 year old's who will live sleep and crunch forever at the office but the best teams are made up of diverse groups spanning all ages, life situations etc.The poster above me needs to take that into consideration. Teams made up of one demographic don't make for good games. And more often than not, no the crunch is not mentioned in the contract, if its your first gig it comes as quite a shock.

A final 2/3 week push at the end to bring everything together is not a big deal, when it runs into months stretched across most of the project that's when it gets serious. What makes it worse is that more often than not overtime is not paid for full time employees (contracter's get overtime but at the end of the project its often game over, which is not good if you have to maintain a stable income)
So you find yourself working over double the hours for no more money, If you don't seem to be crunching them you are made to feel like you are letting the people who are down, which in some ways you are as you hold up the pipeline for them.

More often than not because of poor planning in the start. There is no reason this just has to be ''the way it is'' For me there needs to be huge improvements in 3 areas:

1) Management, planning and production schedules, with early milestones mapped out, and more pre production (specifically if the studio has 2 teams and can get a head start while the other team is finishing up the other project)

2) Better tools, much of the time delays and hang ups come from poor tools, if more companies had toolsets that worked like Unreal then the pipeline would be so much quicker. Creating next gen games with next gen art, effects, ai etc is a lot of work, this can be offset with better and more efficient tools that alow anyone to jump in and make a change easily and iterate much quicker on ideas.

3) Dropping the idea that crunch is just a ''part of the process'' and not actually scheduling it into production, there is no reason for this, don't plan to crunch, how about plan to make it in the whole 3+ years you have available. A small month long crunch at the end and maybe a weekend here or there yes, 6+ months of up to 20 hr days, and 2 months before every E3, or alpha, beta, No thank you.

Like I said I love my job and videogames that along with how long and hard I had to work to get into the industry keeps me from leaving, but something needs to be done, especially with the pressures of developing next gen experiences that require so much polish and where expectations are so high. The fact that Crytek posted this thinking it is OK is a sign of how engrained it has become in the industry.

I would like to think that teams that manage to achieve an environment with minimal crunch would be able to use this as a draw to source talented developers and retain staff. This post has gone on too long already, what I am saying is not rocket science nor is it unrealistic.

 

[Brewster's Wallet]

The inclusion of the crunch into the plan is the big part that worries me.

Within most industries there is a realisation that you'll have to work long hours at times to finish for a project/audit/presentation/etc. But that should only happen if something has gone wrong and the problem should be discussed in the planning of the next project.

 

[Pillville]

By the time this batch is done, we'll have bought Jesse several ice creams.

 

[sixteen-bit]

#PRBackfire #RyseFacts

 

[Kogepan]

#PRBackfire #RyseFacts

They had it coming. Why would they be proud of the fact that their game is so far behind schedule/not ready?

 

[Haunted]

An attempt to humanise the dev team to stem some of the criticism the game has received isn't such a bad idea, but this backfire was kinda beautiful.

 

[StuBurns]

#PRBackfire #RyseFacts

I'm sure it's been mentioned, but it's almost like a satire of CBOATs TruthFacts.

 

[JaseC]

Yes? And they still have crunch nine years later. Well, they certainly did for L4D2, because Gabe talked about it, there's no reason to think they won't for their next major release.

Do you have a source? Google isn't getting me anywhere. I'd imagine there is "crunch time" at Valve but I wouldn't think it's in the traditional sense in that people are slapped with overtime to ensure the game is ready. Portal 2 was delayed twice (Holiday 2010 -> February 2011, February 2011 -> April 2011), after all, and Gabe once said that part of the reason Valve has annual holidays is because he doesn't like seeing people voluntarily working more than they should.

 

[Harlock]

Google works have crunch too. That is why the offices have a lot of cool things like was your home...

 

[Pillville]

Google works have crunch too. That is why the offices have a lot of cool things like was your home...

So, my wife and kids would be there? Otherwise, I don't care.

 

[xenist]

Crytek said:

LOLOL!!! We suck at running projects and time management so we work ourselves half to death a minute to midnight!

Games industry is so weird. They wear crunch time as a badge of honor. The only thing crazy crunch time stories tell me is that their management sucks.

 

[StuBurns]

Do you have a source? Google isn't getting me anywhere. I'd imagine there is "crunch time" at Valve but I wouldn't think it's in the traditional sense in that people are slapped with overtime to ensure the game is ready. Portal 2 was delayed twice (Holiday 2010 -> February 2011, February 2011 -> April 2011), after all, and Gabe once said that part of the reason Valve has annual holidays is because he doesn't like seeing people voluntarily working more than they should.

I don't, but I know it was an audio podcast interview.

He said the team claimed "we want to go into crunch tomorrow", in reference to the first week of L4D2's development, and that they had crunch at the end too. That by splitting up the period of crunch, they were able to produce a game in a year.

 

[JaseC]

I don't, but I know it was an audio podcast interview.

He said the team claimed "we want to go into crunch tomorrow", in reference to the first week of L4D2's development, and that they had crunch at the end too. That by splitting up the period of crunch, they were able to produce a game in a year.

Ah, interesting.

 

[Gustav]

Crytek is German, there is no way they aren't getting compensated for their hard work.

Working for a German company I understand German employment law is hardcore.

Sorry, I'm a game dev in Germany. You couldn't be more wrong. I worked overtime for 650€ a month (before taxes). At another Job, I had 20 hour days. All not compensated.

 

[Andvary]

Man, what is up with the unsympathetic comments on the first page? Do people not realise those are mostly developers (whom have likely gone through crunch time themselves) reacting badly to that tweet and that gloating about crunch time is not something for an official game's twitter to tweet about?

Gamasutra - Developers react: The #RyseFacts hashtag and the war on crunch









Just because many studios go through this, I don't see what's the fun in tweeting about it. I won't give a comparison, because you know how stupid that argument is.



Except those are developers responding. They know how crunch works and don't like that an official game company's twitter is making fun of the practice.

This.

If any you think the backlash was uncalled for, please read the gamasutra article.