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.
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.
2-4 happen on most software products. I'd be tempted to argue 100% of those that have periods of crunch before launch.Seanspeed said: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
I really hope the devs get over time.
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.
twitter doesnt understand how product development works whats new.
People like you give me hope for the future of the industry.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. Nope.that I caused, oops
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
Chances are that delay was preceeded by a period of crunch already (coupled with cutting features/scope before/during).RaikuHebi said:This makes Ubisoft's move with Watchdogs look a bit better I think?
lol at the slaves getting upset. every state does it.LOL at the guy saying that this is disgusting. All studios do stuff like this at crunch time.
This makes Ubisoft's move with Watchdogs look a bit better I think?
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.
Zindalgi, Relentless Software, and I've heard Avalanche Studios is trying to stamp it out.
lol at the slaves getting upset. every state does it.
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.
And beer for dat ballmer peak.
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.
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.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
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.
#PRBackfire #RyseFacts
I'm sure it's been mentioned, but it's almost like a satire of CBOATs TruthFacts.#PRBackfire #RyseFacts
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.
Google works have crunch too. That is why the offices have a lot of cool things like was your home...
LOLOL!!! We suck at running projects and time management so we work ourselves half to death a minute to midnight!
I don't, but I know it was an audio podcast interview.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.
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.
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.