I feel like Todd Howard is an exception to this rule.Most creative people don't know how to manage, which is what causes delays and a harsh working environment.
Sometimes shit just has to get done. That said, the bigger and more diverse the team, the harder this is to get alignment on. I don't think it's a case of "bringing back crunch culture" so much as it's just not possible to get that tight, brotherhood-like environment you used to get when dev teams were smaller and more homogeneous.
Some people would consider this a toxic work environment.keep working or else
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As long as devs are getting paid for the overtime then yes. If not then no. I don't see why they should put in stressful hours that they're not being paid for just to meet the deadline set by some poor planning PM.
Interesting thought, however I have two conniptions with this, given today's work environments:Anyways, I'm ranting, but I think we need to move back to a reward based-incentive based industry.
crunch time is more than just upping a your weekly hours to 50 sometimes.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.
No. There's no reason an SD1 or QA person should have to work 60 hours a week because a producer and a manager somewhere higher up the line sucks at estimating things, scheduling, and planning.BUT could it be that today's videogame working environments are too lenient and soft with its employees?![]()
No, just manage projects and resources better and stop pissing money up the wall with constant revisions.and focus testing.
Expedition 33 was made by about 30 people in five years. The exact same project run out of a major modern studio would take two hundred people 7-10 years and following multiple reboots would probably stagger out of the gate to a mid-seventies metacritic and a muted audience reception.
Studios need to be working smarter, not harder
I suspect some manner of profit sharing is at least part of the answer to how Sandfall got so much out of a small team. I also think it could have the benefit of curbing the desire of certain employees to push for the inclusion of their unpopular political ideology in the game they are making.
I think metacritic bonuses would be too corrupt (this may already be happening), and in a sense would be at odds with sales-based bonuses. Game reviewers (as a group) are miles apart from gamers in terms of politics / culture war, so often the 'correct' design / content inclusion decision will be very different depending on which of those groups you are trying to please.
Working on implementing realistic female boner physics.If Exp33 was really made by 30 odd devs then what the hell are the teams with 300+ devs doing?
I get my games faster AND I get to see my fellow man suffer?
Fuck yeah bring it back
Depends. If it emerges and manifests through sheer passion or creative compulsion a team shares and devotes for a given vision then I find it admirable.
On the other hand, no. C-suites and management should not be given a mandate to force people to grind their health away.
I also want to underline there is a clear difference between working overtime and crunch. One is not like the other. Overtime can appear in infrequent instances while crunch is more of a thing that is spread over a consistently long period.
Also, this:
Wait, hold on, so your post basically demonstrates that working yourself to the bone does not guarantee success but all devs should be doing it anyway because they're too soft otherwise...?!?To ppl who think crunch(or rather working 10-12-16h days) is something evil, i got u here example of true indie(single dev) game, that launched august 2024:
Game got solid reviews but sold piss poor, and guy was working on it for years (2+, maybe even 3+ if we take in early concepts), and many of those days(on the weekends/holidays) he was coding for 12-16h non stop, thats true passion, he still didnt get rewarded for it coz afaik game costed way more to make vs what he made from sales profit.
I only know the details coz that indie dev is a co-host to a yt/twitch channel/podcast about games so while i listen to the biweekly podcast i could get info about his game on the side.
TLDR: Even if some1 works like a mule, crazy hours, it still doesnt guarantee success story, hell its extremly rare to have success story, and here we are with those AAA devs eatin tru hundreds of milions of usd budget providing us in many cases with mid(50 to 75meta for AAA game from big pub is super mid, fricken concord got 62(user score 1,7 and fully justified) and we know game shouldnt even get final meta of 30 if sellout journos were at least tiny bit genuine) games, bearing 0 risk, getting paid handsomely(easily 6figures) having all kinds of insurance and still complain.
Again- wanna have ez live- marry a milionaire when u are in ur early 20s dumb bimbo, u going into workforce to compete(yes its a competition, rat race meme is there for a reason) in one of most competetive/demanding business- better expect to give ur youth,social life, health, soul and sanity in order to stay there, making big bucks- if u arent ready to make those ultimate sacrifices many other devs are making- tons of other jobs are there![]()
Im saying dont expect amazing results if u put in poor performance, coz even if u put in top performance results arent guaranteed, gaming buisness is a competition, no1 is given here participation trophies(those studios get closed,devs are fired), winner takes it all, loser gets fired/gets only crumps- some1 wanna work in this hard af business- better be ready to make srs sacrificies, one of them having only 40h workweeks, hence my other claim.Wait, hold on, so your post basically demonstrates that working yourself to the bone does not guarantee success but all devs should be doing it anyway because they're too soft otherwise...?!?
Your internal moral compass is 50 shades of confused. Crunching AAA devs until they bleed won't get you good games, there are plenty of examples of that, see CP2077, a game I love but which launched in a horrible state and the team crunched their asses off to get out the door.
Crunch won't magically fix a project's issues because software development, especially on the AAA scale has so many moving parts and is too complex to just solve with the classic: "If it takes 9 months for a woman to deliver a baby then 9 women will deliver a baby in 1 month" - that's what you think crunch will do and I'm sorry to say but it really won't.
Concord wouldn't have magically become the best MP game ever if the team had constantly crunched on it because it had fundamental and conceptual problems that no amount of crunch can fix.
Let's use some critical thinking, shall we
I..I have no words for you and I regret replying cause you've clearly fallen down some seriously sad rabbit hole. Good luck with your issues I hope you will receive the help you need.Im saying dont expect amazing results if u put in poor performance, coz even if u put in top performance results arent guaranteed, gaming buisness is a competition, no1 is given here participation trophies(those studios get closed,devs are fired), winner takes it all, loser gets fired/gets only crumps- some1 wanna work in this hard af business- better be ready to make srs sacrificies, one of them having only 40h workweeks, hence my other claim.
Thats the reason game devs should be mostly male, since gamers are mostly male, on top u dont want ur most inteligent/brightest women to waste their youth/fertile years on working themselfs to the bone- it wont provide them with better chance of finding husband anyways- it will actually reduce their chances of being happily married(for various reasons)- are there exception with competent and devoted to their work female devs- yes, but they are rare af and they sacrifice a ton to be there on pair with top male devs(mostly family/children aka happiness).
That kind of job prefers males simply, male dev will understand and know better what us gamers want, and they are able to work 12-16h/day in his early 20s in order to make big buck, which actually will make him more attractive in his 30s- gf/fiance/wife will rather have workoholic man, that is well off than a bum with tons of spare time that she has to provide for(that dude is on time clock anyways before getting dumped even if he provides best dick), while we-guys dont look at women's career/money/education at all- we will happily date/marry barista if she is young and hot enough and has good(submissive) personality and potential to be good spouse(not argumentative, gives her man piece, bubbly, feminine).
Truth hurts sometimes, bro, dont believe feminism lies that men and women are the same/equal, they are oppositeI..I have no words for you and I regret replying cause you've clearly fallen down some seriously sad rabbit hole. Good luck with your issues I hope you will receive the help you need.
Yes 60 hour work week minimum we need dedication to make excellence. I work 100 hour work weeks all the time. Read the Masters of Doom book if you want to know what it takes.
You mean HARD WORK that professionals ceos doctors lawyers athletes etc ALL do to be successful?
people who voted yes are most likely unemployed
I actually know personally(gaming online makes u meet all kinds of ppl) a guy who works in stocks/investments, he works 6days a week 16h/day, hell he even had to make calls durning his "free time" while gaming sometimes, he made 450k usd last year, he is in his late 30s, im just ur regular avg mortal with my casual standard 40h workweek and i couldnt do what he does, ofc my salary is nothing compared to his(ofc i live in much poorer country too), just saying most of high earners have or at least had to work at some point in ther life extremly crazy hours for prolonged time- they can retire in their early 40s tho, while guy like myself likely gonna have to work to late 60s and still die poorIf you're working an average of 14 hours daily, 7 days a week, you're not really 'making excellence'.
Most of these work hard, but not the sort of destructive work you people are espousing. And of course the higher most of these go in their careers, the less they crunch.
Who's telling you that Elon and Jeff Bezos are crunching?
Most certainly.
That's precisely the reason not to crunch.It's Human nature to act like time is infinite till it's finite.