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

by General Battuta, Tuesday, May 26, 2020, 06:28 (1646 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

The reason crunch is prevalent is because games are poorly funded and have very, very, very few organized labor protections. There is no game dev union. Games are also poorly planned and have very little institutional knowledge-because studios fail so often, and people are constantly burning out and leaving the industry, there’s no real chance to figure out how to do it better.

Of course I didn’t ask for you to be banned. And since I’m almost ten years younger than you I won’t take it personally if you’d like to call me childish; I suppose I can’t argue.

I assume (perhaps vainly) that if you are invested in Destiny you appreciate my work on it. If not, then it won’t matter very much to you that there could’ve been a great deal more of it. But if so, perhaps consider what I’m saying. Crunch is a self-perpetuating practice caused by poor planning and uncertainty. It is a way to sacrifice long term productivity to hit short term deadlines. It burns through the talent that could make the company better in the long run in order to keep the company afloat in the short term.

It surprises me that anyone on a Bungie fan site could stand up and speak in favor of crunch. It also surprises me to hear someone who didn’t work on Destiny tell someone who did that they couldn’t have done their job without crunch. Perhaps it’s occurred to you that I felt the same way you did going in-that I believed I was going to need to work those hundred hour weeks to achieve true greatness. Perhaps you can imagine why I’m so eager not to see the same lie handed down to the next twenty-something headed to a game studio.

You believe, abstractly, that there are people who thrive under these conditions. I doubt you can name any. I can’t, and I was there. I can name dozens of talented people who didn’t. I won’t, of course, since privacy and NDAs are a thing. But I understand this situation in a way you can’t, and it’s up to you whether you want to weigh my opinion and evidence accordingly.