The Danger with Video Game Crunch Culture
Crunch is the practice of pushing yourself to get a project done, and Crunch Culture is when the entire workplace is partaking in it. It is the idea that getting the project done is most important, and that it is okay to overwork everyone so the work can get done. Recently, there have been many discussions about Crunch Culture and the damage it can do to not only the individuals but also the final product itself. CD Projekt Red released Cyberpunk 2077 last year, which had an extensive amount of crunch culture practiced, despite the company reporting it would not engage in it. The product shipped below standard and was sometimes unplayable despite the large amount of hype behind the game.
Most companies say they are not forcing workers to crunch, but employees point out that if they do not crunch to get the work done, they will be fired. Most studios don’t mandate people to crunch, but most employees expect it. An issue is that most teams work together, so if an employee decides to not partake in crunch, they are holding off other people's work or pushing the work to others. The cost of everyone crunching for long periods of time has a real, damaging effect on workers. During Bioware’s troubled development of Anthem, a video game released in 2019, a term was started among the company, “Stress casualties.” It was used when someone had such a severe mental breakdown they just stopped working and left. The term comes from soldiers with early PTSD, and the fact that game developers are suffering from mental damages that people in war experience is horrifying.
People who are overworked, tired, and stressed are very unlikely to do a good job and make more mistakes, therefore making the project suffer. Game development is very hard and unpredictable, causing deadlines to fluctuate. Any planned deadlines that would allow workers to have plenty of time to develop the game, but then a bug or issue would appear. So the project will need to be worked on faster to meet the previous deadline despite any effort previously. All while executives and shareholders want the game to be released on the deadline, creating more pressure. However, another group puts pressure from deadlines, the people who play the games.
People do not realize how much the gaming community puts pressure on game developers. There are often so many expectations to meet a release date. Despite all these reasons, a lot of game developers say that no matter what happens, crunch is inevitable. The issue lies if crunch is mandatory or self-imposed. In any creative career, many people will push themselves out of passion, but it is unhealthy as there is minimal work-life balance. Crunch needs to be kept in check so passionate people do not suffer. You need passionate people to make the best project possible, but you also need to make sure they aren’t suffering and damaging themselves, which includes preventing companies from abusing and exploiting their employees. There is a lot we need to do on this issue that rarely is talked about, and the first step is to discuss it.
