You don't understand anything about crunch. (Gaming)

by General Battuta, Monday, May 25, 2020, 22:03 (1646 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY
edited by General Battuta, Monday, May 25, 2020, 22:07

"Has any true masterpiece of a game been made without crunch? No."

Yes, many. FreeSpace 2 (maybe my pick for best game of all time) was famously done months ahead of time. My first novel was completed easily in just a few months with no crunch, and it was quite well reviewed. Movies do not routinely require crunch, and in fact there are laws and union agreements in place to make crunch prohibitive and costly. Of the four novels I've published, three were written in periods without major depression. My worst novel is the one written while I was depressed. Only one of my dozen+ short stories was written while depressed; the rest were written during periods of great happiness and productivity.

Your hypothesis is wrong.

What you see as a necessity is in fact simply a sign of poor project management. You point out that some people thrive in the game industry. You ignore the flip side of this coin: most people do not. A great deal of talent avoids the games industry because working conditions are so terrible. For example, in coding, the games industry is considered a laughable scam that should be avoided if you can get any other job.

If working conditions were less terrible, more talent would remain. Games would be better.

I hope you will carefully consider your belief that depression and creativity are linked before you choose to repeat it to those you might influence. I don't want to put time and emotional energy into this argument in a period where I'm fairly happy and productive myself, so I've asked Claude for a ban.