![]() These days, even the release of a game doesn’t always mean the end of crunch. Employees will most likely be forced to keep crunching as they work to smooth out any issues for the next weeks and even months. The title was riddled with bugs upon release, so much so that CDPR had to release a monstrous 50GB day-one update. It would be unorthodox, but something needs to give, and Cyberpunk 2077 is the latest example of why. Rockstar executives told Schreier that the company is toying with the idea of releasing massive titles, like the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6, in a piecemeal fashion to reduce the pressure on employees. The massive open-world games put out by studios like Rockstar need to find an alternative to mandatory crunch soon. Industry professionals have begun to question if requiring crunch from developers is sustainable. This approach to creating more technically demanding games becomes more difficult every year. It is made by skilled laborers who work tireless hours each week and on the weekends for little pay in order to bring you the finest revolver in the field today.” It was so bad that an unknown developer inserted a eerie message in an in-game gun advertisement: “A sidearm for many years of the US Army, it is manufactured at a factory we own and control in Worcester, Mass. In an interview, Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser casually admitted to working “ 100-hour weeks” to ship the Western adventure game. Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 required some of the most exhausting crunching in recent memory. As games become more ambitious, crunch has become steadily worse to the point where developers have even inserted in-game Easter eggs as hidden cries for help. ![]() Game testers at Call of Duty developer Treyarch have gone on the record saying that company parties would end with everyone going back to work. 'Call of Duty' developers have been quoted saying their office parties would conclude with everyone beginning to work again. Employees were afraid to speak up out of fear of losing their jobs. What started as a once-in-awhile occurrence soon became a vicious cycle with absolutely no compensation. Hoffman’s husband was employed by EA, where he experienced the crushing effects of crunch. These predatory labor practices would be exposed on an international scale by game developer and writer Erin Hoffman, who published an anonymous blog under the pseudonym EA_Spouse in 2004. Behind the scenes, however, gaming companies were already exploiting their workforce by pressuring them into working grueling shifts and justifying these long hours by telling employees that it's hard work to keep a dream job. Thanks to the proliferation of affordable internet, as well as more compact computers and home gaming consoles, excitement for video games was peaking. By then, companies like Electronic Arts had already made a name for themselves with The Sims (2000) and a flurry of sports games, while Blizzard was on the cusp of launching World of Warcraft in 2004. ![]() It wasn’t until the early 2000s that the general public became aware of the pervasive “crunch” in the development cycles of games. Relationships have been broken and homes destroyed by the pressure to work excessively.The video game industry was booming, but sever labor issues were happening behind the scenes. And not earning a penny for your troubles. Depending on the company this can range from anywhere from a few weeks to many months or even more than a year. But this isn’t happening for just a week. So the working time is already crazy but they get to work on games, a lot of people might be willing for a week of hell for a dream job. What is Crunch (Source: Fauxels/Pexels) Crunch has a very fluid definition, as it doesn’t just apply to the video game industry. For this reason, it’s not uncommon for people to sleep in the office at their desks, and not see their family for long periods. To put that in perspective, that would be working the equivalent of working over 14 hours a day not just every weekday, but Saturday and Sunday as well. There have been numerous stories from Rockstar to TT Games of crunch that add up to 100 or more hours a week. The first thing that someone might think when hearing about crunch in the games industry is that everyone has done overtime from time to time, so why all the fuss with games? The issue really is less with the fact that some overtime happens and more so the scale that it happens.
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