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[Steve Youngblood]

This is what concerns me: you appear to have shifted from decrying industry practices that strain developers (which more people should be aware of) to a view that it would be better to have not recognized the behind-the-scenes (and in many way, after-hours) work that goes into these projects.

This really strikes me as disingenuous analysis. I'm very much against crunch time being viewed as a necessary tool that is unavoidable and that people that object to it should just avoid industry work entirely. As for my view of the tweet, my position certainly isn't "I don't care about working conditions so long as I don't hear about them." Frankly, I find your hints that that's what I'm arguing objectionable.

Your reaction to this gives the impression that you think a positive thing you say about yourself almost necessarily falls into the category of bragging. That leaves about as much room for nuance as a 16-ton steel beam. You say it's fair to call this Tweet boasting, but that considering whether the Tweet is accurate or well-intentioned is largely unimportant to you. That sounds like a troubling view to me.

My point is that "what I think I'm saying" versus "how people will interpret what I'm saying" is important to consider. Just because -- in my mind -- I had the absolute best of intentions in making a statement doesn't mean that there aren't regrettable facets of my statement that I haven't considered. Again, I maintain that there is a disconnect here. Let's get back to the very thing that I and many others are arguing. Here is a statement:

we will have served the crunching team more than 11,500 dinners throughout development

What follows from that statement that doesn't require any guesswork at all? Well, we know two things. A non-insignificant amount of crunching is going on, and that that's 11,500 dinners that Ryse developers didn't eat at home. This isn't explicitly spelled out in the tweet, but it's not at all unfair to draw those conclusions, as they are accurate.

So, while it may have been the intent to highlight the hard work going into the title -- and frankly I don't think the semantic argument about whether they were "bragging" or "boasting" about this is all that important to begin with -- many people are focusing on reading between the lines and drawing reasonable conclusions about what's happening at the studio. And they object to it.

Now, does that mean that my only concern is "man, the guy in charge of their Twitter account exercises dubious judgement"? No. I do think that. However, I think the tweet highlights a larger issue that many are concerned about in the industry.

 

[dragonelite]

Maybe interesting to read
Employees reviews seems like they had a lot of problems making management work going from a small group to what they are right now.

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Crytek-Reviews-E347451.htm

 

[flyover]

God damn, a GAF crunch time defense force....

Of course there is, from those who know nothing about what it's like to go through it.

Exactly. When I got hired by EA, I was new to the game industry and knew nothing about crunch time. The project I worked on went into crunch months before its release. It was the single worst period of my working life, and one of the worst personally, as well.

Crunch is evil, and it compromises everything.

• You feel guilty for not being with your family or loved ones when you're at work, and they'll be upset you're not around.
• You feel guilty when you're not at work, and there's a good chance your coworkers/managers notice every minute they're there and you're not.
• Your work quality goes down, because you can only do so much in a day or a week, especially when you're tired and stressed and preoccupied by how you're being a bad boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/parent.
• Your home life quality goes down, because you're tired and stressed and you can never truly leave your job at the office, anyway.
• Your health goes in the crapper, because you're not exercising or sleeping or eating the way you would on a regular schedule.

Crunch is an unacceptable failure of management. And it's a failure by design. Most teams assume there will be crunch time -- some even schedule it in -- because that's how it's always been done, and because the company squeezes more for their money out of salaried workers.

I'd never work for another game company again, unless I could guarantee regular working hours throughout the project. I loved the people I worked with, and it was cool to say I made games for a living. But it just isn't worth it.

 

[Cragvis]

This makes me think cboat was right about the xb1 being released way too early and was planned for a 2014 ship date...

if they feel the need to announce how much they have had to crunch in order to get ryse out on time...then the original time tables MUST have been set to a later date when the idea fot he game was conceived.

 

[DedValve]

This is disgusting. By feeding the developers they become fat which in turn makes them lazy which gives a bad game. 900p wasn't a design choice, its the result of too many greasy pizzas.

 

[CadetMahoney]

who served crow and who ate it?

 

[Gestault]

This really strikes me as disingenuous analysis. I'm very much against crunch time being viewed as a necessary tool that is unavoidable and that people that object to it should just avoid industry work entirely. As for my view of the tweet, my position certainly isn't "I don't care about working conditions so long as I don't hear about them." Frankly, I find your hints that that's what I'm arguing objectionable.

So help me out here: We both think people should be more aware of this stuff. If game development is happening at the expense of the health and happiness of the people doing the work, that's bad all-around. So you criticizing one of the few companies to make a statement that draws attention to he people behind the scenes seems counter to that objective. You said specifically:

it's not relevant to the game itself and as such wasn't an important bit of info that needed to be tweeted.

You're saying you don't want this info made visible. That's what I don't understand. Which was why I pretty much straight-up grimaced when you followed up with this:

I certainly don't think it's unfair to infer that this tweet is boasting. Whether it's about "hard work" or "we are an awesome company that pays for employee meals" is largely unimportant to me.

So it's boasting, whether or not it was intended to be, and whether or not it endeavors to recognize the hard work of the team, and you don't want it seen because it has nothing to do with the game. The people creating a game have nothing to do with it? Please try to explain this to me. I don't want to create some strawman of what you're saying, but what you've said doesn't really make sense yet. You saying I'm being disingenuous doesn't help me understand this. And to be clear, I'm not trying to dick around here. I want to understand where you're coming from. The bits and pieces just don't seem to match up.

while it may have been the intent to highlight the hard work going into the title -- and frankly I don't think the semantic argument about whether they were "bragging" or "boasting" about this is all that important to begin with

You were the one arguing that it was bragging and that it made a difference.

 

[Courtial]

Here we go again on Ryse. I assume that most or all launch titles will have some pretty severe crunching weeks prior to launch, with either Sony or Microsoft pushing the developers to deliver result.

By the way, although I assume most people here and in the press have already strong feeling about the game, since they know so much of its gameplay, here are some recent (rather very positive) impressions posted today:

http://segmentnext.com/2013/10/16/ryse-son-rome-preview/

After first seeing footage of Ryse: Son of Rome at E3 earlier this year, I wasn’t sure how I would rate this Xbox One exclusive title.

The gameplay we were shown was rife with quick time events and cinematic moments that seemed quite keen on taking as much of the gameplay out of the hands of the player as was possible in favour of showing off what the new technology would be capable of.

That footage really didn’t gel with me, and I wasn’t sure what it would have to do in order to make up for that disappointing video.

Hands on with Ryse: Son of Rome was a completely different experience to what I had envisioned. I managed to sneak in a couple of rounds of the co-op multiplayer mode that sees two players take on a gladiatorial arena filled with traps and enemies, so I didn’t get to try out the singleplayer that I was somewhat familiar with from the E3 footage.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the demo, only that I was probably going to be subjected to a slew of quick time events. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the gameplay was devoid of the button hitting moments that I was dreading. Instead I was please to discover that Ryse was full of fluid hack n slash gameplay that handled the quick time events in a manner very befitting of this gladiatorial bash. [...]

Overall, the combat was incredibly satisfying. The number of enemies on screen at any one time meant that I always had an opponent to occupy me, and even when the waves of enemies had ended there were plenty of environmental obstacles to dodge. [...]

I implore you, if you have formed a negative opinion of Ryse because of gameplay videos you’ve seen, then give it a chance all the same because it definitely managed to turn my opinion in its favor.

Not sure about the popularity of that site, but this is not the first time we read stuff like this. Why is the main VG press picking up on every single "negative" non-news about the game (optional micro-transactions, 900p, crunching, etc) while giving people that are interested or have pre-ordered so little actual feedback? I guess systematic trolling at a large scale and funny GIFs are more popular than rather boringly optimistic impressions.

Sorry for the parenthesis, but the Devolver developer who twitted that the game will receive poor review and that programmers will be fired should respect his peers a little more. And if he actually has played the game, an (admittedly small) bunch of us would like to know his positive or negative impressions.

 

[SMgamer83]

I'm a game developer, but I'm lucky that crunch isn't required where I work. Don't get me wrong, I do crunch occasionally (worked a 14 hour day last night), but it's few and far between, and I don't feel forced to do it. I do it because in order to get the game/version where it needs to be, we need more time. It's not a failure of management either, it's just trying to spend as much time as we can to make it as good as it can be.

I have 2 kids, and throughout the week, I don't see them that often. (In the morning, I leave as they are getting up, and when I get home they are either on their way to bed, or already in bed.) But hey, I pretty much never work weekends (worked maybe 1 in 2012), and make a good living. For me, this is worth it.

But from friends, I've definately heard horror stories. Forced crunch for 3 months 12 hour days 6 days a week. That seems silly.

 

[Lime]

The always intelligent and insightful Mattie Brice tweeted this:

What’s funny is how many people in video game development and media think it’s okay to exploit passion and deny sustainability for profit

The industry aspect of games makes exploitation of workers part of the culture so no one can challenge it without being ostracized

i completely agree with her on both accounts.

 

[lordchompy]

Eating frozen dinners at 10 pm while at work. Foreveralone.gif

Thanks, Crytek. Because nothing speaks of quality like overworking your employees and then tweeting about it.

It must really sting for all the developers who couldn't spend that dinner with their families. And don't say it isn't exploitation because it's an industry wide practice. It's still wrong.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

You're saying you don't want this info made visible. That's what I don't understand. Which was why I pretty much straight-up grimaced when you followed up with this:

I think you are confusing that I am actually trying to attack this conversation from a couple of fronts. Am I saying that I don't want this info out there? Of course I'm not. Am I saying that tweeting this was a dubious move by the person in charge of the Twitter account? Of course I am. I'm looking at this from different angles.

In terms of the fact that the tweet leads to this conversation about working conditions, I'm personally glad to be having this discussion. In that regard, I should applaud the person making the tweet. In terms of whether or not -- from a PR standpoint -- I think this makes for good PR to highlight the hard work going into the game, I would contest that sending that tweet demonstrates poor judgement. I don't think the intent was to spark a conversation about industry crunch time and invite criticism.

You were the one arguing that it was bragging and that it made a difference.

I was responding to a poster that didn't understand how this tweet could be seen as bragging. And I don't see why it's absurd to think that it is indeed the company tooting its own horn regardless of what you think they are specifically trying to highlight. However, my criticism of the tweet doesn't hinge on a disdain of "bragging." But I do think it's somewhat counterproductive to try and draw distinctions between "saying something positive about myself" and "bragging." We can split hairs all day, but now that we've meandered about on the topic for this many posts, I felt like circling back to the beginning and making it clear that "bragging" certainly isn't the most important factor of this debate.

 

[magnetic]

I can't believe this. I never thought I'd see this reaction here on Gaf, I thought you guys would have known better.

How - How can anyone see this and conclude that the problem lies in the responses? I mean - sure, maybe you don't care about it, or you're resigned about the fact that crunches need to happen (in which case you'd be wrong, but whatever)... but surely you understand that the initial tweet and the concept it rests upon are the issue here? And that people who are getting angry over it have a reason to do so?


In a larger sense, when something happens on twitter and people don't like it, it's bound to seem like an outrage even if people are just expressing a slight annoyance, because everyone is doing so at the same time and twitter's format favors wit over nuance. No one is saying that this is the worst thing ever or that it only happens in the videogame industry or that employees should retire or whatever - people are just seeing this utterly oblivious and disrespectful tweet and are pointing out that, hey, it is actually kinda oblivious and disrespectful, and maybe this is not what needs to be done with regards to the issue of crunch hours in game development.

What other reaction can anyone have?!


I'm sick of seeing every single sociological issue being dismissed as yet another 'twitter outrage' when it comes to games. 'Why so serious' you ask? Because we're talking about people, ffs; the question that needs asking is, why can't anything be taken seriously! It's not because the discussion is related in some way to *games* that we should brush off anything that isn't instantly happy-fun! The least one can do is step out of their own self-interest bubble for a second and realize that the audience's carefree enjoyment isn't the only thing that needs talking about in a game or the games industry.


/rant, I'm outta here.

Great post. I fully agree.

 

[Nokterian]

Exactly. When I got hired by EA, I was new to the game industry and knew nothing about crunch time. The project I worked on went into crunch months before its release. It was the single worst period of my working life, and one of the worst personally, as well.

Crunch is evil, and it compromises everything.

• You feel guilty for not being with your family or loved ones when you're at work, and they'll be upset you're not around.
• You feel guilty when you're not at work, and there's a good chance your coworkers/managers notice every minute they're there and you're not.
• Your work quality goes down, because you can only do so much in a day or a week, especially when you're tired and stressed and preoccupied by how you're being a bad boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/parent.
• Your home life quality goes down, because you're tired and stressed and you can never truly leave your job at the office, anyway.
• Your health goes in the crapper, because you're not exercising or sleeping or eating the way you would on a regular schedule.

Crunch is an unacceptable failure of management. And it's a failure by design. Most teams assume there will be crunch time -- some even schedule it in -- because that's how it's always been done, and because the company squeezes more for their money out of salaried workers.

I'd never work for another game company again, unless I could guarantee regular working hours throughout the project. I loved the people I worked with, and it was cool to say I made games for a living. But it just isn't worth it.

Thanks for sharing and shed some light on why it would never ever would work in a million years, though i don't work in the game industry even for me long hours working makes me not happy at all. And makes me not very productive for example. It baffles me that people are defending this and not even reading all the horror stories from a lot of game company's like THQ, Rockstar etc etc.

 

[Timeaisis]

Never thought I'd see the day where GAF is defending crunching. It's necessary, sometimes? sure. Is it a sign of bad management? Probably, or at least something got messed up along the way. But to outright defend it like you guys do? I think that's taking it a little far, and sounding a bit entitled to your games on time.

I'm not saying crunch is something that should never happen, but I am saying it sucks for everyone involved and should be avoided by any means necessary.

Those who defend the practice probably have ever experienced it.

 

[Just_myles]

Crunch times happen man and the outrage is a bit much imo.

Even at that frequency.

Nothing to celebrate though. Lets see how fast the internets picks this up.

Gaf>internet>Gaf

 

[FranXico]

Having read this thread, it sounds like crunch time is something that "you have to be there" in order to understand. In addition, the few people who are defending it probably never went through it or ever realized what it can do to them.

Even slavery used to be considered a fact of life for certain people a few centuries ago. Consider that.

 

[Just_myles]

Having read this thread, it sounds crunch time is something that "you have to be there" in order to understand. In addition, the few people who are defending it probably never went through it or ever realized what it can do to them.

Even slavery used to be considered a fact of life for certain people a few centuries ago. Consider that.

I have and I think that sometimes the bottom line just gets in the way. A project has a deadline, or a workload (queue) has to be completed. It does suck and it should not be glorified by any means but, it's an unfortunate fact of most devs work lives including my own (occasionally not recently).

If anything, imo what bugs me is what happens after the game is shipped. What happens to all of the staff then? Artist etc...

 

[FranXico]

I have and I think that sometimes the bottom line just gets in the way. A project has a deadline, or a workload (queue) has to be completed. It does suck and it should not be glorified by any means but, it's an unfortunate fact of most devs work lives including my own (occasionally not recently).

If anything, imo what bugs me is what happens after the game is shipped. What happens to all of the staff then? Artist etc...

I consider myself lucky that I never was exposed to a long crunch time (the worst I ever went through was a couple of nights in a row until 10PM), but I certainly can imagine it being way more violent in the gaming industry.

One thing that occurs to me is that perhaps some managers are trying to shoehorn agile development into gaming? IMHO, I don't think it fits.

 

[-SD-]

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Crytek-Reviews-E347451.htm

Thanks for that.

Reading those reviews is directly comparable to the feeling I get from the games Crytek has released after Crysis Warhead. So sad...

 

[Rustafur]

When Kevin Dent says you've done something embarrassing, you know you've earned it.

 

[Audible Phonetics]

Exactly. When I got hired by EA, I was new to the game industry and knew nothing about crunch time. The project I worked on went into crunch months before its release. It was the single worst period of my working life, and one of the worst personally, as well.

Crunch is evil, and it compromises everything.

• You feel guilty for not being with your family or loved ones when you're at work, and they'll be upset you're not around.
• You feel guilty when you're not at work, and there's a good chance your coworkers/managers notice every minute they're there and you're not.
• Your work quality goes down, because you can only do so much in a day or a week, especially when you're tired and stressed and preoccupied by how you're being a bad boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/parent.
• Your home life quality goes down, because you're tired and stressed and you can never truly leave your job at the office, anyway.
• Your health goes in the crapper, because you're not exercising or sleeping or eating the way you would on a regular schedule.

Crunch is an unacceptable failure of management. And it's a failure by design. Most teams assume there will be crunch time -- some even schedule it in -- because that's how it's always been done, and because the company squeezes more for their money out of salaried workers.

I'd never work for another game company again, unless I could guarantee regular working hours throughout the project. I loved the people I worked with, and it was cool to say I made games for a living. But it just isn't worth it.

Post

//

Thread

 

[Taxman]

Exactly. When I got hired by EA, I was new to the game industry and knew nothing about crunch time. The project I worked on went into crunch months before its release. It was the single worst period of my working life, and one of the worst personally, as well.

Crunch is evil, and it compromises everything.

• You feel guilty for not being with your family or loved ones when you're at work, and they'll be upset you're not around.
• You feel guilty when you're not at work, and there's a good chance your coworkers/managers notice every minute they're there and you're not.
• Your work quality goes down, because you can only do so much in a day or a week, especially when you're tired and stressed and preoccupied by how you're being a bad boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/parent.
• Your home life quality goes down, because you're tired and stressed and you can never truly leave your job at the office, anyway.
• Your health goes in the crapper, because you're not exercising or sleeping or eating the way you would on a regular schedule.

Crunch is an unacceptable failure of management. And it's a failure by design. Most teams assume there will be crunch time -- some even schedule it in -- because that's how it's always been done, and because the company squeezes more for their money out of salaried workers.

I'd never work for another game company again, unless I could guarantee regular working hours throughout the project. I loved the people I worked with, and it was cool to say I made games for a living. But it just isn't worth it.

I left the games industry after 4 years, and a lot of it was due to crunches. I remember when I started at Wayforward, I was so hyped and excited. Surely a small company like that wouldn't be like the EA's of the world, grinding down employees until there was nothing left, right? Wrong. I saw so much burnout during my time there. And for people saying "well at least they got paid more" that's not always true either. I'm still peeved about when they "promoted" me from hourly to salary and gave me a small raise. I was excited about it at first, until suddenly the next week crunch hit and I was working 80+ hour weeks. Then when I got my paycheck I discovered I was "exempt" so I wouldn't be getting any overtime pay at all. That was when I started looking for work outside the gaming industry. I remember being told multiple times in college that the average video game programmer burned out after 5 years and thinking "That won't be me." Well it wasn't me, since I didn't even last that long.

 

[flyover]

I left the games industry after 4 years, and a lot of it was due to crunches. I remember when I started at Wayforward, I was so hyped and excited. Surely a small company like that wouldn't be like the EA's of the world, grinding down employees until there was nothing left, right? Wrong. I saw so much burnout during my time there. And for people saying "well at least they got paid more" that's not always true either. I'm still peeved about when they "promoted" me from hourly to salary and gave me a small raise. I was excited about it at first, until suddenly the next week crunch hit and I was working 80+ hour weeks. Then when I got my paycheck I discovered I was "exempt" so I wouldn't be getting any overtime pay at all. That was when I started looking for work outside the gaming industry. I remember being told multiple times in college that the average video game programmer burned out after 5 years and thinking "That won't be me." Well it wasn't me, since I didn't even last that long.

Ugh. Sorry to hear it wasn't any better at smaller shops. And that salary thing is a cruel trick. Probably not rare, but still cruel. When I broke down my hourly wage for the period I was in crunch (which was about three months each of "soft" and "hard" crunch, not that I noticed a difference), it was embarrassing.

 

[johnny956]

Ugh. Sorry to hear it wasn't any better at smaller shops. And that salary thing is a cruel trick. Probably not rare, but still cruel. When I broke down my hourly wage for the period I was in crunch (which was about three months each of "soft" and "hard" crunch, not that I noticed a difference), it was embarrassing.

I feel bad for salaried exempt employees. I'm technically salaried exempt but we are paid based on a 40 hour work week. So if we work say 50 hours in one week I get paid for those extra 10 hours but its not 1 1/2 like normal hourly employees if that makes sense.

 

[Schlep]

I feel bad for salaried exempt employees. I'm technically salaried exempt but we are paid based on a 40 hour work week. So if we work say 50 hours in one week I get paid for those extra 10 hours but its not 1 1/2 like normal hourly employees if that makes sense.

You're paid Straight Overtime. Wish I was, too.

 

[Skinpop]

I'm a game developer, but I'm lucky that crunch isn't required where I work. Don't get me wrong, I do crunch occasionally (worked a 14 hour day last night), but it's few and far between, and I don't feel forced to do it. I do it because in order to get the game/version where it needs to be, we need more time. It's not a failure of management either, it's just trying to spend as much time as we can to make it as good as it can be.

I have 2 kids, and throughout the week, I don't see them that often. (In the morning, I leave as they are getting up, and when I get home they are either on their way to bed, or already in bed.) But hey, I pretty much never work weekends (worked maybe 1 in 2012), and make a good living. For me, this is worth it.

But from friends, I've definately heard horror stories. Forced crunch for 3 months 12 hour days 6 days a week. That seems silly.

im glad you are comfortable in your situation but "never work weekends", I mean that should really be a given. I don't even think I know a single person who works weekends and is full time employed unless they specifically ask for it. Then again I'm no american so I have no clue what's going on over there. I just think it's sad that you bring that up as a positive when it should be the norm.

I don't mean to sound overly negative towards you I just think it's shitty and wrong when you can't even expect to be free from work on weekends.

 

[Schlep]

im glad you are comfortable in your situation but "never work weekends", I mean that should really be a given. I don't even think I know a single person who works weekends and is full time employed unless they specifically ask for it. Then again I'm no american so I have no clue what's going on over there. I just think it's sad that you bring that up as a positive when it should be the norm.

I don't mean to sound overly negative towards you I just think it's shitty and wrong when you can't even expect to be free from work on weekends.

I've had a manager chew me out before for not replying to an email he sent on a Sunday at 9PM. On a 1-10 scale of importance, I would've rated it a "you've got to be f'n kidding."

 

[JoeBoy101]

im glad you are comfortable in your situation but "never work weekends", I mean that should really be a given. I don't even think I know a single person who works weekends and is full time employed unless they specifically ask for it. Then again I'm no american so I have no clue what's going on over there. I just think it's sad that you bring that up as a positive when it should be the norm.

I don't mean to sound overly negative towards you I just think it's shitty and wrong when you can't even expect to be free from work on weekends.

With employers I've had, its all results. How hard you work or how long is irrelevant to them, its whether the job got done. And one of those employers believes in keeping manpower and resources skimpy, so long and hard increases exponentially.

 

[Skinpop]

I've had a manager chew me out before for not replying to an email he sent on a Sunday at 9PM. On a 1-10 scale of importance, I would've rated it a "you've got to be f'n kidding."

Project managers are a waste of resources. They literally add nothing but expenses. My friend works as an engineer at a section of a company where they have five project managers and four devs. How is such a thing even possible?

 

[Prince Vultan]

Dayum... Courtial didn't last long. Banned after 11 posts. Must be a record, surely? What happened there?

 

[Stinkles]

Dayum... Courtial didn't last long. Banned after 11 posts. Must be a record, surely? What happened there?

Can't see anything in his post history.

 

[Phat Michael]

Exactly. When I got hired by EA, I was new to the game industry and knew nothing about crunch time. The project I worked on went into crunch months before its release. It was the single worst period of my working life, and one of the worst personally, as well.

Crunch is evil, and it compromises everything.

• You feel guilty for not being with your family or loved ones when you're at work, and they'll be upset you're not around.
• You feel guilty when you're not at work, and there's a good chance your coworkers/managers notice every minute they're there and you're not.
• Your work quality goes down, because you can only do so much in a day or a week, especially when you're tired and stressed and preoccupied by how you're being a bad boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/parent.
• Your home life quality goes down, because you're tired and stressed and you can never truly leave your job at the office, anyway.
• Your health goes in the crapper, because you're not exercising or sleeping or eating the way you would on a regular schedule.

Crunch is an unacceptable failure of management. And it's a failure by design. Most teams assume there will be crunch time -- some even schedule it in -- because that's how it's always been done, and because the company squeezes more for their money out of salaried workers.

I'd never work for another game company again, unless I could guarantee regular working hours throughout the project. I loved the people I worked with, and it was cool to say I made games for a living. But it just isn't worth it.

I don't see how this is different from any other corporate job with deadlines. Not saying I endorse it, but when you have a deadline there are times when you just have to stay late and that is all you do. You don't get overtime either.

The worst I personally encountered actually involved travelling to 8 countries in 12 days on top of extended late shifts to get the job done. It wasn't great but you have to understand that every industry has their version of "crunch" and you can't leave just because of that.

Saying that, boasting about it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do.

 

[Wolf Akela]

I don't see how this is different from any other corporate job with deadlines. Not saying I endorse it, but when you have a deadline there are times when you just have to stay late and that is all you do. You don't get overtime either.

It isn't really different. I have a friend who work for one of the biggest IT companies in the world, and they have nothing to do with game development. She was forced to work on a graveyard shift. If you apply for a leave or ask to change your schedule, they're guilt you into not doing it. The HR will tell you something like "oh I'd love to but I'm not sure if this will be good for your annual performance review".

I work in IT as well. I've had my fair share of overtimes, they were 1-2 nights tops and most of them were announced ahead of time. On rare occasions (like emergencies) we get told about overtime on the same day. The worst overtime I've had lasted until 7am. Pretty much everyone took an auto-approved paid leave that day. One night is usually bad enough. You stop being able to think properly. I know I started doing very lousy work around 3am.

I just don't see what kind of twisted logic people use to defend crunch time.

 

[Perkel]

It isn't really different. I have a friend who work for one of the biggest IT companies in the world, and they have nothing to do with game development. She was forced to work on a graveyard shift. If you apply for a leave or ask to change your schedule, they're guilt you into not doing it. The HR will tell you something like "oh I'd love to but I'm not sure if this will be good for your annual performance review".

I work in IT as well. I've had my fair share of overtimes, they were 1-2 nights tops and most of them were announced ahead of time. On rare occasions (like emergencies) we get told about overtime on the same day. The worst overtime I've had lasted until 7am. Pretty much everyone took an auto-approved paid leave that day. One night is usually bad enough. You stop being able to think properly. I know I started doing very lousy work around 3am.

I just don't see what kind of twisted logic people use to defend crunch time.

As you said it isn't really different in other industries difference here is amount of crunch time. Week of crunch of two is normal in almost any kind of work but half a year of crunch ? I didn't see anything like that in other kind of industries i saw personally even if there was deadline.

 

[Phat Michael]

As you said it isn't really different in other industries difference here is amount of crunch time. Week of crunch of two is normal in almost any kind of work but half a year of crunch ? I didn't see anything like that in other kind of industries i saw personally even if there was deadline.

Yeah half a year of crunch would be ridiculous. Is that standard? The most I've seen is Prolly 3 weeks to 1 month in my field where things get crazy.

 

[Azull]

Yeah half a year of crunch would be ridiculous. Is that standard? The most I've seen is Prolly 3 weeks to 1 month in my field where things get crazy.

For big AAA pubs it seems that it is the standard. Longest crunch I ever had was 2 months straight (mineral recovery industry). Never again.

 

[Perkel]

Yeah half a year of crunch would be ridiculous. Is that standard? The most I've seen is Prolly 3 weeks to 1 month in my field where things get crazy.

Difference is also that Crunch in other industries is mostly because of something happened. Troubles with other companies (like not paying for work etc).

In game industry crunch looks like is simply planned from start or people start with ridiculous deadline that 90% chance they will miss it.

 

[Laughing Banana]

This thread reminds me about the Foxconn thread.

Anyways, if someone really feels strongly about the condition of the people behind game development, then what should he/she do? Vote it with his/her wallet I assume? In that not supporting/buying games from studios known to exploit their employees like this.

And yet the fact remains that people still buy the games in droves. A lot of people in this thread too a part of that fact, I am dare to wager.

What does that tell? Foxconn? Only care so long as it doesn't bother their convenience? Heh.

 

[U-R]

That tweet was unbelievable, what's next? *Insert corporation here* gloating for exploiting minimum wages and child labor?

The fact that crunch time is considered "normal" in this industry is appalling (and the main reason i quit as soon as i could), but bragging about exploiting the lives of your workers is downright scum.

 

[SenjutsuSage]

Exactly. When I got hired by EA, I was new to the game industry and knew nothing about crunch time. The project I worked on went into crunch months before its release. It was the single worst period of my working life, and one of the worst personally, as well.

Crunch is evil, and it compromises everything.

• You feel guilty for not being with your family or loved ones when you're at work, and they'll be upset you're not around.
• You feel guilty when you're not at work, and there's a good chance your coworkers/managers notice every minute they're there and you're not.
• Your work quality goes down, because you can only do so much in a day or a week, especially when you're tired and stressed and preoccupied by how you're being a bad boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/parent.
• Your home life quality goes down, because you're tired and stressed and you can never truly leave your job at the office, anyway.
• Your health goes in the crapper, because you're not exercising or sleeping or eating the way you would on a regular schedule.

Crunch is an unacceptable failure of management. And it's a failure by design. Most teams assume there will be crunch time -- some even schedule it in -- because that's how it's always been done, and because the company squeezes more for their money out of salaried workers.

I'd never work for another game company again, unless I could guarantee regular working hours throughout the project. I loved the people I worked with, and it was cool to say I made games for a living. But it just isn't worth it.

I don't believe a crunch in itself is inherently a bad thing, if you both really care about the project and the time allotted for crunch is reasonable. It's difficult to see how some form of crunch wouldn't be necessary on many occasions, unless of course you expect everything to go flawlessly, and for no snags to be hit during development. Sometimes even with a smooth and very efficient development process, there's just the release date that you have no control over. I'm not saying it can't possibly ever be abused, as I'm sure it is on many occasions. However, making a game is a team effort, and even without someone necessarily being in game development, people can still understand being there for their team, and making it clear in no uncertain terms to other members of that team, that you are doing your part and your work will be done in a timely fashion. Even in cases when you do happen to need a break, nobody should be able to question your level of commitment to the project.

I have a good friend in development, and they talk about this quite often, and they seem to have a very different view on crunch. They seem to take pride in it and have the most fun during crunch situations, and think it brings a team closer together, because it always gives them a much better understanding of how other people on the team work, and what you can do to make things easier for them, and so the time invested, as well the time you spend not just doing your own work, but casually talking with and really getting to know your co-workers, can lead to major breakthroughs in the overall development process, which makes the amount of crunch needed next time less necessary. In their view, the biggest cause for issues is specific team members just not wanting to inconvenience others by requesting some kind of help.

But even in the event that there's an expectation that there will be a lot of crunch time on a project, the trust and chemistry built up between members of the team, in their view, really does go a long ways towards making the entire crunch seem more like your average work day and a lot more manageable. They think the problem with crunches on more time strapped teams that they know about is that the management isn't being aware of the fact that people are, well, people, and so don't have very good instincts on what they can do to make things easier on them, or help keep morale high. For example, the studio managers up at my friend's studio had a crunch day where family, friends and even kids could come up to the studio and just chill and hang out. They had all sorts of activities planned. No obligation to work, just a day set aside for people in the studio to spend the day not seeing it as a work environment, but as a place where they could forget everything and just have fun. Funny enough the team went from maybe looking like they could use the break to being even more motivated and excited to work on the game some more, with my friend actually still programming with a child sleeping on their chest lol. So, I guess it totally depends on the studio environment and the people.

That tweet was unbelievable, what's next? *Insert corporation here* gloating for exploiting minimum wages and child labor?

The fact that crunch time is considered "normal" in this industry is appalling (and the main reason i quit as soon as i could), but bragging about exploiting the lives of your workers is downright scum.

I couldn't disagree more. People are extrapolating way too much from an innocent tweet meant to be for fun. They're scum for sounding like they're going all out to help make things as pleasant for their staff as possible? Did it ever occur to people that these people aren't necessarily being forced to crunch as much as they are, but are perhaps going the extra mile because they want to make the project they're working on even better? Does it have to be that they're treating them like scum? I suppose that's one take, but somehow I have my doubts.

 

[Quadraphonic]

Did it ever occur to people that these people aren't necessarily being forced to crunch as much as they are, but are perhaps going the extra mile because they want to make the project they're working on even better?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[eyeball_kid]

im glad you are comfortable in your situation but "never work weekends", I mean that should really be a given. I don't even think I know a single person who works weekends and is full time employed unless they specifically ask for it. Then again I'm no american so I have no clue what's going on over there. I just think it's sad that you bring that up as a positive when it should be the norm.

I don't mean to sound overly negative towards you I just think it's shitty and wrong when you can't even expect to be free from work on weekends.

Working weekends is pretty much an expectation for the entertainment field. Also advertising and marketing. This may be less true in Europe, but I think it's slowly changing everywhere as corporations spread their business practices across global offices. If you are making a product and the release date of that product can make or break your company, or determine whether you or other employees eat or not, or determine whether some pinhead executive gets his or her promotion or dictate the size of their cocaine budget, then you will be on a death march for a significant period of time in 90% of the cases.

I've worked in the gaming industry, and I've worked in advertising directly supporting the gaming industry, and I've worked straight programming and design jobs. Being directly responsible for a product's creation yields the greatest personal sacrifices, and trickles down proportionally from there, but I've also seen someone go to the hospital while working 20 hour days for weeks on end, trying to get a marketing campaign done in time for a big console title. So the intense pressure and unrealistic deadlines do affect everyone in the industry very negatively at times.

Companies know what they're doing when they hire young people. They are naive and are just excited to be "part of it". Most have no basis for comparison as to what's realistic in the 'professional' fields. Most don't have the confidence to speak up. It's like a cycle of abuse, and everyone becomes complicit in it. Often it isn't an evil manager scheming to enslave workers, it's that they went through the same BS and they don't know any different. Or they simply don't have the management skill or sensitivity to mold the project into something sustainable on a human level.

It's hard to adequately describe the debilitating affects of working like this over an extended periods of time. Take a reasonably healthy person, then put that person into that grinder of no sleep, too much coffee, too much stress, bad food, for weeks and months on end, and there is a very quantifiable physical cost. Then there is the mental cost -- the complete exhaustion, the depression, the extreme mental fatigue.

The film and television industry workers were smart enough to unionize, otherwise they'd probably be like this as well. Ironic considering so many game studios are trying to ape the look and feel of films, but want to (and get away with) making them in a comparatively substandard, sweatshop kind of way.

 

[Blake'sGrave]

That tweet was unbelievable, what's next? *Insert corporation here* gloating for exploiting minimum wages and child labor?

The fact that crunch time is considered "normal" in this industry is appalling (and the main reason i quit as soon as i could), but bragging about exploiting the lives of your workers is downright scum.

lol

exploiting the lives of your workers? seriously?

people like you make me glad I don't work in the industry, having to read nonsensical, ill-informed, hyperbolic bullshit like your post and all of those twitter replies in the OP would really grind me down.

 

[2San]

Thanks for that.

Reading those reviews is directly comparable to the feeling I get from the games Crytek has released after Crysis Warhead. So sad...

They have an average rating. Compare this to Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft. If you want to look up hell look for Rockstar San diego.

 

[remnant]

Like I said before, anyone going to boycott Ryse...anyone complaining starting a union?

Complaining about crunch is becoming like a past-time for people..

 

[Dead Man]

Project managers are a waste of resources. They literally add nothing but expenses. My friend works as an engineer at a section of a company where they have five project managers and four devs. How is such a thing even possible?

Good ones are worth their weight in gold. The problem is that is too easy for many bad ones to take credit for success that is due to the teams hard work, not their planning and expertise, and then they get promoted above their ability.

Like I said before, anyone going to boycott Ryse...anyone complaining starting a union?

Complaining about crunch is becoming like a past-time for people..

Can't talk negatively about something unless we plan to cure it. Awesome.

 

[HariKari]

people like you make me glad I don't work in the industry

Plenty of people who actually work in the industry have weighed in on the issue right here in this thread and agree with what you call 'hyperbolic bullshit'. I think you'll find their excellent posts about just how damaging and avoidable crunch time can be enlightening. While crunch is endemic to the industry, bragging about it as if it's something to be proud of is another issue altogether.

 

[Dead Man]

lol

exploiting the lives of your workers? seriously?

people like you make me glad I don't work in the industry, having to read nonsensical, ill-informed, hyperbolic bullshit like your post and all of those twitter replies in the OP would really grind me down.

If only you had read the rest of the posts on this page you may not have ended up looking so foolish.

 

[mclem]

Did it ever occur to people that these people aren't necessarily being forced to crunch as much as they are, but are perhaps going the extra mile because they want to make the project they're working on even better?

They're going the extra mile to make the project they're working on even better because their producer did not. You could get the same effect by building another month into the schedule; few people would object to that.

That's what crunch is, at heart: Programmers bailing out management. At the other level, though, it's management having to promise the earth to publishers to secure money. And publishers want to spend as little as possible, of course, in part because profitability is so volatile in this industry.

It's a vicious circle, and breaking it is nontrivial.