When co-founder and vice president of Rockstar Games Dan Houser seemingly bragged that staff were pulling 100-hour weeks to get the much-anticipated “Red Dead Redemption 2” ready for its launch later this October, the backlash on social media was swift and immediate. In recent weeks, several high-profile news stories have revealed a stark divide in the culture of game-making, with anti-crunch activists on one side and several luminaries of the industry on the other, however unwittingly. There is, therefore, a moral imperative to removing long-term crunch from work environments.” “These negative effects can be both short- and long-term, and often coincide with declines in physical health, non-work social connections, productivity, turnover, and job satisfaction. Take This wrote that white paper in order to call out the persistence of the culture of crunch years after it had first been highlighted, since it has so many deleterious effects on workers’ mental health,” says Eve Crevoshay, the executive director of Take This, the non-profit that conducted the whitepaper. Yet, as article after article rolls off the presses exposing the draconian conditions that massive games are produced under, it’s clear that the practice continues to persist all across the globe.
Today, in the video games industry, the concept of excessive “ crunch” – mandatory overtime, usually couched as part of a final push to finish a game – is decried in almost all corners, from industry whitepapers to convention panels.
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