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[Plies]

Yeah, as someone who also worked in sandwich manufacturing, crunch is often a failure of planning and management, and any project manager who thinks that crunch is a "natural" part of development is exploiting their team.

BUT could it be that today's videogame working environments are too lenient and soft with its employees?

Let's say that if you could magically eliminate the delays of your favorite games by bringing back the old crunch culture, would you do it?

( and yes, this is a GTA 6 thread )

 

[jshackles]

Get to work, slaves

 

[RoboFu]

lol no, you guys can wait you babies.

 

[adamsapple]

No, let them cook.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

yes let's bring back making people suffer for your entertainment lmao

 

[Cyberpunkd]

It's a videogame, not anything remotely useful to mankind. Fuck off wizards.

 

[CrimsonTide]

No... but.. many industries work employees standard 50-60 hours (restaurant and sales as examples) to me thats "crunch"

Also as a former fast food GM, often did 60-70 hours 6-7 days a week. Salary. So no extra pay

 

[semiconscious]

hell, i'd just bring back the ps3 & xbox 360. problem solved...

 

[TintoConCasera]

No, crunch leads to low quality.

 

[tylrdiablos]

"Bring back" ? It's never been removed, has it?

 

[PeteBull]

Ofc, wanna have good work-life balance, go work as kindergarten teacher/nanny or some other bimbo job, wanna work as game dev- u gotta sacrifice ur social life, health and sanity, thats what it takes to make amazing product in the ocean of mediocrity, and ofc cut all the parasites from HR/useless woke management consultant jobs etc.

Wanna swim with the sharks- u better be ready for some heat, u not getting paid top money so ur game gets 62 meta being AAA- game dev is one of most competetive business u can imagine, so ofc u gotta be dedicated and willing to sacrifice a ton in order to make a difference.


Thats a tuff job kids had to do back in the day in terrible conditions, and they got paid piss poor w/o any insurances, be glad u got one of most amazing jobs in the world and u make big money as a developer.

 

[LakeOf9]

No, of course not

 

[Great Auk]

Crunch is not a rigidly defined term.

What some may consider crunch for others is just finishing strong.

Putting a few extra hours at work a week (paid of course) for a few months at the end of years long major project is not crunch as far as I'm concerned.

But some may consider it to be.

 

[nemiroff]

1) I'm not in Rockstar's leader group
2) Delays don't bother me
3) I don't need developers to get burnt out and their families strained because of a videogame
4) que sera, sera

 

[Topher]

I wouldn't force "crunch" on anyone for any product. At the same time, I've had to work some crazy hours for my career over the years. The video game industry isn't special.

 

[Connificent]

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

No, I don't think it has a positive impact on quality, which is what I'm ultimately concerned with.

Though it also helps being in the game dev world (albeit, on the business side) because I see the toll that it takes. I don't think it's healthy for the industry as a whole. Some crunch is unavoidable, but it should be limited.

 

[X8XFoundries]

It left?

 

[Ozriel]

what a bizarre premise for a thread. It's just a videogame. Unless you've got a terminal disease and you absolutely need to play GTA6 before you perish, you can wait.

I wouldn't force "crunch" on anyone for any product. At the same time, I've had to work some crazy hours for my career over the years. The video game industry isn't special.

Crazy hours is already standard fare in video game development right now. OP talks about ratcheting this up even further. Say, 16 hour work days, 7 days a week. Air mattresses in the office so staff are encouraged to sleep over.

Ofc, wanna have good work-life balance, go work as kindergarten teacher/nanny or some other bimbo job, wanna work as game dev- u gotta sacrifice ur social life, health and sanity, thats what it takes to make amazing product in the ocean of mediocrity, and ofc cut all the parasites from HR/useless woke management consultant jobs etc.

Wanna swim with the sharks- u better be ready for some heat, u not getting paid top money so ur game gets 62 meta being AAA- game dev is one of most competetive business u can imagine, so ofc u gotta be dedicated and willing to sacrifice a ton in order to make a difference.


Thats a tuff job kids had to do back in the day in terrible conditions, and they got paid piss poor w/o any insurances, be glad u got one of most amazing jobs in the world and u make big money as a developer.

"You better be ready to sacrifice your health and family so people get to play videogames early!"

 

[Killer8]

"The children yearn for the mines" energy.

 

[captainpat]

With how low the rate of completion is for most games a lot of us can afford to wait.

 

[Ozriel]

Specifically about the GTA 6 delay, very likely Rockstar management isn't really fussed since the cash spent in the extra days of development will be easily recouped now $80 games are going to be standard.

At the incremental $10, they're making $100 million extra revenue from selling just 10 million copies.

 

[Esca]

Fuck no, they are human beings wtf is wrong with you

 

[Judge Magister]

 

[Sintoid]

Having a good project plan with the right number of resources, time and money means you don't have to crunch anyone.
Inflating concept phase cause you have no ideas and hurry to finalize the product means you don't have a vision of your product and you'll probably fail.

On the other hand I'm quite curious about words like "crunch work" or "toxic workplace", I have the feeling that sometimes a toxic workplace is only a place wich ask to a developer to achieve an objective within an agreed time

 

[clarky]

100%

 

[AmuroChan]

Crunch is such a nebulous term because what are the exact parameters? If you have to to work 1 extra hour a week for a month, is that crunch? I work in software development (non-gaming) and it's very common for people to put in extra hours in the weeks before releasing a product. I think every person has a different threshold. For me, if I have to work a couple extra hours in a week to finish up a project, that's not crunch. For another person, if they have to work even an extra minute, they'll call that crunch and complain about it. If crunch is a real issue, there should be law that defines exactly what constitutes as crunch and what the regulations are, just like there are for what overtime means and what the required overtime rate is at the state and federal level.

 

[Puscifer]

"Bring back" ? It's never been removed, has it?

It's definitely been scaled back from the sounds of things.

 

[Puscifer]

Crunch is such a nebulous term because what are the exact parameters? If you have to to work 1 extra hour a week for a month, is that crunch? I work in software development (non-gaming) and it's very common for people to put in extra hours in the weeks before releasing a product. I think every person has a different threshold. For me, if I have to work a couple extra hours in a week to finish up a project, that's not crunch. For another person, if they have to work even an extra minute, they'll call that crunch and complain about it. If crunch is a real issue, there should be law that defines exactly what constitutes as crunch and what the regulations are, just like there are for what overtime means and what the required overtime rate is at the state and federal level.

To me and I'm just saying this as one of those guys before I swapped careers 6 years ago. I worked in Telecom in different aspects but the worse I saw was when the average technicians paycheck was hitting 100-110 hours, some 120 for 1+ years, in the 2 years I worked at that company it wasn't until HR stepped in to complain about the amount of overtime + injury claims weren't balancing out lol.

 

[64gigabyteram]

GTA has always had delays, even back in the days where you guys say crunch culture was still common. If you want to know why games take too long to make, overbloated dev teams, budgets, made by committee games, and gamer expectations they're trying to meet might have something to do with it. 30 people can make an AAA product but companies will get 400 to do the exact same thing. It just leads to a slow heaving mass of devs who are harder to manage. too many cooks in kitchen

You guys can wait a couple more months.

wanna work as game dev- u gotta sacrifice ur social life, health and sanity, thats what it takes to make amazing product in the ocean of mediocrity

No, what you need is a consise vision, good project plan, and people who you really synergise with. No crunch needed to make a masterpiece

 

[TheAssist]

Would you sacrifice the well being of other so you could play a game a few month earlier in a world that has an abundance of games and other entertainment?

Great question, let me ponder about that in my evil villain stronghold.

 

[Deerock71]

I voted 'yes', because 'crunch culture never left' wasn't an option. GTA VI will have crunch in the end.

 

[cormack12]

It depends. What the blue haired Kotakus called mega crunch lasted for a small portion of the overall project, was needed and usually only covers key individuals.

It's also something a lot of people accept as a necessary evil of shipping a game, especially in the AAA space. It's also a necessary evil in a lot of other professions and internships.

If we're talking about imagined crunch where everyone is doing 18 hour days for 3 years then yeah that shouldn't exist.

 

[hemo memo]

Delays due to mismanagement. Crunch time or not.

 

[Connificent]

Fuck no, they are human beings wtf is wrong with you

 

[Sooner]

Get a grip.

 

[yurinka]

Delays always happen / happened with or without crunches.

And well, crunches still do exist. But they are way less frequent, shorter and working less hous per day / less days per week. At least in the main lead dev studios, who knows about what happens in the outsourcing / support studios from places like China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc. who do a ton of the work.

 

[Montauk]

Absolutely not. Too many people on here need to get a grip. Grow up.

You've all got access to more good games than you could finish in multiple lifetimes.

Immature consoomer nonsense.

''OMG I can't consoooooooom!''

 

[m14]

No.

Is anyone really desperate enough to play a particular game that they can justify sleep deprived employees subsisting on a pot noodle diet and defecating into an office waste basket?

 

[Garibaldi]

They are human beings. Hell no. Just wait for your throwaway entertainment product.

 

[Fbh]

Did crunch ever stop being a thing in the gaming industry?
I never got the impression it was something that stopped existing, gaming journos just figured out woke vs anti woke and culture wars stuff was generating more engagement so they just stopped talking about crunch.


As for the question.
If I was in charge of some place like Rockstar / Take Two were we have more than enough resources and we also know we'll make a bazillion dollars when the game is finally out I would try to keep crunch to a minimum.
If I'm working on a stricter budget and there's more pressure to actually release the game and start generating revenue then maybe crunch would be an inevitability I'd have to implement in the final stretch.

 

[Bert Big Balls]

Put yourself in the shoes of these workers who have to crunch. Then you've answered your own question.

 

[Iced Arcade]

We had delays even with crunch.

And it's a fucking game, calm your tits and wait.

 

[fran.fernandez]

No lol.

Instead of waiting for a game and being a troll go change yourself first.

 

[Lord Panda]

It's a tricky one and it comes down mainly to compensation and not being guilted into doing it, which is often the case with these big companies.

If it's opt-in paid overtime then sure. I've (and others) been crunching for the past 12 months to make this June 30 deadline, and that's because I just want to meet targets and get this shit done with.

 

[ProtoByte]

Put yourself in the shoes of these workers who have to crunch. Then you've answered your own question.

Overtime pay in often catered offices with AC if not WFH? These newbies wouldn't last a day in the office in the 2000s.

I'm ambivalent to the idea, personally. There is something wrong with current game dev, and some of it does have to do with laziness. I don't think making a specific point about crunch for delays fixes that.

 

[Danjin44]

There is no need for "crunch"....devs just need to not announce the game when its not ready to be announced.

Also you guys fucking being so drama queen about this, there are SOOOOOOOO MANY games, just play other games until it comes out.

 

[KyoZz]

Hot take maybe but some here seems to forget that for us it's entertainment, for them it's a JOB. I'm doing 50 hours/week from time to time, sometimes more on big projects. Never killed me.

There is abuse for sure, and a few studios clearly overwork their employee but I can't help but think some of those devs are a bunch of pussies.

"Oh my God, I have to work a little harder to finish this huge project that's taken five years of my life, nooooo"
Well yes, welcome to the real World? Go complain to people working the field, or doing hard work that is fuckin their sanity/health for the minimum wage... You'll see the response.

 

[NeonGhost]

People actually think they still don't crunch even when they say they don't

 

[Kadve]

Its not like there are millions other games to play in the meantime. As long as devs aren't doing a DN:F. Let them have the time they need.