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"Crunch" Glorification
Apr. 20th, 2016 04:58 amRecently, one Alex St John posted something a bit retarded. He basically tried to make "crunch" time in the video game industry - you know, where programmers/developers are expected to work 80+ hour weeks for months (all that overtime being unpaid mind you) in order to get games out the door "on schedule" - look like something positive.
He's currently being bitched out by most if not all of the video game industry.
Basically he likened making games to creating art. And people should be just fine with sacrificing all their time and energy (And social lives, etc) without expecting to be paid properly for the work put in. I think he tried to coin a term of "Wage Slaves" to those who 'complain' about their pay (or lack thereof) when putting in those 80hr weeks.
The article at PC Gamer pretty much covers everything so go read that. I particularly love Rami Ismail's comment/response to Alex. “Your complaint here is literally that someone asked to be paid fairly.”
I pretty much agree with the article. Crunch Time has become "expected" and for the most part now PLANNED for by marketing when they're setting deadlines. And when bars go up, they don't come back down. So if a crew manages to pull off one crunch time successfully, they're now expected to be able to do that work all the time. Even as burnout sets in, which seriously fucks up a dev group.
This is actually one of those things that have caused the plague of buggy games that have become the norm these days.
He's currently being bitched out by most if not all of the video game industry.
Basically he likened making games to creating art. And people should be just fine with sacrificing all their time and energy (And social lives, etc) without expecting to be paid properly for the work put in. I think he tried to coin a term of "Wage Slaves" to those who 'complain' about their pay (or lack thereof) when putting in those 80hr weeks.
The article at PC Gamer pretty much covers everything so go read that. I particularly love Rami Ismail's comment/response to Alex. “Your complaint here is literally that someone asked to be paid fairly.”
I pretty much agree with the article. Crunch Time has become "expected" and for the most part now PLANNED for by marketing when they're setting deadlines. And when bars go up, they don't come back down. So if a crew manages to pull off one crunch time successfully, they're now expected to be able to do that work all the time. Even as burnout sets in, which seriously fucks up a dev group.
This is actually one of those things that have caused the plague of buggy games that have become the norm these days.
