7 ms·

A lot of people want to work in games, so your junior people are easily replaced. Projects are episodic, and often do or die for small companies or even studio

A lot of people want to work in games, so your junior people are easily replaced. Projects are episodic, and often do or die for small companies or even studios in larger companies. So the choice is perceived as maybe burning out a team or probably shutting down. Games are also one of those things where there is a big reward for being first and best, and little or no reward for being competent. Even though, as an audience you may not see it that way.

Retric 9y ago
Games need a wide range of things some but not all of them get stuck in a crunch. You can have smaller well managed teams working reasonable schedules to get the core game play worked out then bolt on the AAA stuff once you have a winner. Crunch does have some advantages to the company, but it's also high risk.
- vvanders 9y ago
  Crunch has zero advantages, period. We're not talking about a extra week of hard work here and there, it's months of sustained 80-100hr work weeks. You're so exhausted after just a few weeks that you make a ton of stupid fucking mistakes, which compounds the whole situation. If crunch worked you'd see it more widely across our industry, however it has the benefit of both burning out people and putting them in a state where their output is lower than it could be at sustained reasonable hours. Any asshole who thinks otherwise needs to be called out on it. Source: Ex-gamedev, where I watched crunch crater two different studios.
  - pm90 9y ago
    I guess it kinda depends on how your company does "crunch". I've been lucky in that in the crunches I've been involved in, although I've worked nights and weekends, we had a good division of responsibilities and guards against overworking. So while the team was through a multi-week crunch, I personally would be working only for a week and half stretch. But perhaps that is not what you mean by crunch. I guess my point is that occasionally it isn't bad to have a tight deadline and give it your everything to get it to work. If you do get it done, it feels mighty good. But I agree that it wouldn't be something I would like to do on a regular cadence.
    - vvanders 9y ago
      A week and a half isn't crunch though, I'm talking about sustained long hours over a month or more(usually 4-6 months). Working a strong week is totally fine if followed by some recovery time. As long as it doesn't go longer than 2 weeks that's possible to do without destroying productivity, although you still run the risk of burning out your employees.
      - JBlue42 9y ago
        I think the original idea of 'crunch' is that short period but games (and, in my experience, vfx) tend to just normalize that constant long hours (though they'll hire you saying that hours only get bad at peak times without mentioning that it's always a 'busy' time).
  - Retric 9y ago
    60-75h/weeks is still crunch and can be sustained for ~6+ months without total burnout. And really this level of crunch is fairly common in our industry. The difference is Google/software as a service, does not have the same kind of hard deadlines. But, when you start talking about major launches and boxed software or startups you really do see crunch. PS: By crunch I mean unsustainable pace leading up to a hard deadline.
    - vvanders 9y ago
      15 hour days for 6 months? Nope, fuck you. Not only are you doing worse work than you normally would at a sustainable rate but you're also putting tons of pressure on people's home life. I saw 3 divorces at my second studio from people working hours along those lines. If you really think that's sustainable then you have no place in this or any other tech industry. We aren't in emergency service or work in an environment where lives are on the line. Those hours have no place here.
      - Technolithic 9y ago
        > We aren't in emergency service or work in an environment where lives are on the line. Obviously these jobs have occasional acute long work times but I'd say that jobs where lives are on the line is precisely where society doesn't want chronically sleep deprived workers.
      - Retric 9y ago
        It's 10 to 12.5 hour days six days a week. My sister is an animator for Disney and they do this every other year. But they also have significant bonuses associated with these crunches it's not unpaid overtime. Not something I want to be part of, but 30+k bonus for six months of hell is a choice many people would happily take. Hell look at fishing boats they do 15 hour days of hard and dangerous manual labor. But, again they tend to pay people for that effort.
        vvanders 9y ago
        > 30+k bonus for six months of hell 30,000 / (35 * 2 * 4 * 6) = ~$17/hr = ~34k/yr That seems like a poor deal for putting your family through 6 months of hell. > Not something I want to be part of Then don't fucking endorse it!
- georgeecollins 9y ago
  On my third game I tried very hard to make a game with a generous schedule and no crunch. One thing that I discovered was that it was very hard to get members of the team to let things go. If you are passionate, their is always room for improvement. So you had to create deadlines that put pressure on people.
  - sp332 9y ago
    Sure, but that seems like the opposite. Creating a deadline as a reasonable limit on the amount of work put in is a lot different from demanding the same amount of work in an unreasonable time.
  - s73v3r_ 9y ago
    At that point, you exercise your power as boss and tell them to go home.
  - lliamander 9y ago
    Unless you align incentives correctly, you're not paying your developers to ship software, you're just paying them to write code. Setting a deadline is one way of aligning incentives (ship by this date or else...) and can work well so long as there is a good conversation around requirements, appropriate milestones are set, and developers are trusted to make good faith estimates. However, it is not the only way.
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  But the company doesn't really bear any of that risk. If something goes wrong, they just fire the staff, and start over. Upper management doesn't feel any pain.

Retric 9y ago

Games need a wide range of things some but not all of them get stuck in a crunch. You can have smaller well managed teams working reasonable schedules to get the core game play worked out then bolt on the AAA stuff once you have a winner. Crunch does have some advantages to the company, but it's also high risk.

vvanders 9y ago
Crunch has zero advantages, period. We're not talking about a extra week of hard work here and there, it's months of sustained 80-100hr work weeks. You're so exhausted after just a few weeks that you make a ton of stupid fucking mistakes, which compounds the whole situation. If crunch worked you'd see it more widely across our industry, however it has the benefit of both burning out people and putting them in a state where their output is lower than it could be at sustained reasonable hours. Any asshole who thinks otherwise needs to be called out on it. Source: Ex-gamedev, where I watched crunch crater two different studios.
- pm90 9y ago
  I guess it kinda depends on how your company does "crunch". I've been lucky in that in the crunches I've been involved in, although I've worked nights and weekends, we had a good division of responsibilities and guards against overworking. So while the team was through a multi-week crunch, I personally would be working only for a week and half stretch. But perhaps that is not what you mean by crunch. I guess my point is that occasionally it isn't bad to have a tight deadline and give it your everything to get it to work. If you do get it done, it feels mighty good. But I agree that it wouldn't be something I would like to do on a regular cadence.
  - vvanders 9y ago
    A week and a half isn't crunch though, I'm talking about sustained long hours over a month or more(usually 4-6 months). Working a strong week is totally fine if followed by some recovery time. As long as it doesn't go longer than 2 weeks that's possible to do without destroying productivity, although you still run the risk of burning out your employees.
    - JBlue42 9y ago
      I think the original idea of 'crunch' is that short period but games (and, in my experience, vfx) tend to just normalize that constant long hours (though they'll hire you saying that hours only get bad at peak times without mentioning that it's always a 'busy' time).
- Retric 9y ago
  60-75h/weeks is still crunch and can be sustained for ~6+ months without total burnout. And really this level of crunch is fairly common in our industry. The difference is Google/software as a service, does not have the same kind of hard deadlines. But, when you start talking about major launches and boxed software or startups you really do see crunch. PS: By crunch I mean unsustainable pace leading up to a hard deadline.
  - vvanders 9y ago
    15 hour days for 6 months? Nope, fuck you. Not only are you doing worse work than you normally would at a sustainable rate but you're also putting tons of pressure on people's home life. I saw 3 divorces at my second studio from people working hours along those lines. If you really think that's sustainable then you have no place in this or any other tech industry. We aren't in emergency service or work in an environment where lives are on the line. Those hours have no place here.
    - Technolithic 9y ago
      > We aren't in emergency service or work in an environment where lives are on the line. Obviously these jobs have occasional acute long work times but I'd say that jobs where lives are on the line is precisely where society doesn't want chronically sleep deprived workers.
    - Retric 9y ago
      It's 10 to 12.5 hour days six days a week. My sister is an animator for Disney and they do this every other year. But they also have significant bonuses associated with these crunches it's not unpaid overtime. Not something I want to be part of, but 30+k bonus for six months of hell is a choice many people would happily take. Hell look at fishing boats they do 15 hour days of hard and dangerous manual labor. But, again they tend to pay people for that effort.
      - vvanders 9y ago
        > 30+k bonus for six months of hell 30,000 / (35 * 2 * 4 * 6) = ~$17/hr = ~34k/yr That seems like a poor deal for putting your family through 6 months of hell. > Not something I want to be part of Then don't fucking endorse it!
georgeecollins 9y ago
On my third game I tried very hard to make a game with a generous schedule and no crunch. One thing that I discovered was that it was very hard to get members of the team to let things go. If you are passionate, their is always room for improvement. So you had to create deadlines that put pressure on people.
- sp332 9y ago
  Sure, but that seems like the opposite. Creating a deadline as a reasonable limit on the amount of work put in is a lot different from demanding the same amount of work in an unreasonable time.
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  At that point, you exercise your power as boss and tell them to go home.
- lliamander 9y ago
  Unless you align incentives correctly, you're not paying your developers to ship software, you're just paying them to write code. Setting a deadline is one way of aligning incentives (ship by this date or else...) and can work well so long as there is a good conversation around requirements, appropriate milestones are set, and developers are trusted to make good faith estimates. However, it is not the only way.
s73v3r_ 9y ago
But the company doesn't really bear any of that risk. If something goes wrong, they just fire the staff, and start over. Upper management doesn't feel any pain.