Crunch Makes Games Worse

http://gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20150120/234443/The_Game_Outcomes_Project_Part_4_Crunch_Makes_Games_Worse.php

by larsiusprime • 12 years ago

96 78 12 years ago

serve_yay2• 12 years ago

"Crunch sucks, but if it is seen by the team members as a fair cost of participating in an otherwise fantastic employment experience..."

Oh, I see: workers should repay employers for a "fantastic employment experience".

Boy oh boy. I say if your industry is such that you must have this sort of in-depth investigation in order to simply work normal work-weeks, your goose is already cooked.

astrodust• 12 years ago

When you die of a heart-attack brought on by too much Red Bull and sleep deprivation, they can put on your tombstone: "Died coding, but at least the trees in GTA V looked really nice."

ekianjo6• 12 years ago

Thats more than what most people can expect on their epitaph, though.

atomicfiredoll• 12 years ago

To be fair, this is why I have no issue when GTA V for PC gets pushed back for the one-hundredth time. Maybe they didn't estimate it well, but hopefully they aren't buying in to the pro-crunch philosophy either. It seems like they're really trying to do it right and the end product will will probably reflect that.

jiggy20113• 12 years ago

If people continue to work in the games industry despite the workload and pay they must be getting something out of it.

serve_yay2• 12 years ago

Indeed, and bless their hearts.

pixl97• 12 years ago

People commonly work against their own self interests. People commonly vote against their own self interests. People commonly do stupid things.

potatolicious• 12 years ago

People continue to join the games industry - attrition rates are sky high and the vast majority do not last.

Perhaps the argument should be reframed as - why is it that despite high-profile and commonly known, and completely batshit insane working conditions, do people still sign up (and then quit the industry entirely)?

Are we doing a poor job publicizing these conditions, or are the stories just so horrifying that they become almost outlandishly unbelievable?

tomphoolery• 12 years ago

My primary reason for learning to program was to create video games. Eventually that dream died because the juice was not worth the squeeze. Like I'm gonna spend 100 hours a week at work for some OTHER guy's idea? Give me a break.

ekianjo6• 12 years ago

If people continue to work in the games industry despite the workload and pay they must be getting something out of it.

Most people are. They get to meet with cool folks, they get press coverage, there's a lot of feedback loop between users and creators (much more than in virtually any other industry), and you get to work with people who have the same passion as you - and you can actually USE and ENJOY what you create as well. That's worth something, even if not necessarily in monetary value.

megablast• 12 years ago

That certainly is one way to look at it.

But people still do lots of horrible jobs. People work waiting for crap pay and abuse by people as well.

coldtea5• 12 years ago

Duping someone young and impressionable to think he's getting something out of a deal is not the same as actually offering something.

Especially if you drop them like dead-weight when they grow a little, and want to have a family et al and 80 hour per week doesn't seem that enticing anymore, and working on a game is not "the be all end all" a 15-year old thinks but just work.

failrate• 12 years ago

As someone who has worked in startups, web shops, and now in games, I definitely feel like I fit in better here. A lot of my peers are talented but socially awkward. I don't even feel like there's any political maneuvering going on around me. That is partially due to the company at which I work, but having worked many events over the years, I would definitely say that game developers tend to be a very particular type of geek.

ekianjo6• 12 years ago

The guy who wrote this is making linear correlations on likert scales? SERIOUSLY? Looks like some pretty poor understanding of stats.

cecilpl• 12 years ago

Why is this bad?

_delirium• 12 years ago

A number of people argue that Likert scale responses are properly treated as ordinal data, meaning that 1<2<3<4<5, but not necessarily that |1-2| = |2-3| or avg(1,5)=3. Treating them as numerical data often (depending on what you're doing) implicitly makes some assumptions about calibration of the ordinal scale that might not be warranted (e.g. the distance between a "1" and "2" response might be very different than the distance between a "2" and "3" response).

walru2• 12 years ago

Crunch is typically the result of poor planning or design on the fly or by focus-group. So, to that end, it's not the crunch's fault, even though it sucks, it's the fault of design and production not getting their ducks in a row.

jtheory• 12 years ago

The OP gets into that -- the main secondary point of the article is that when these things go wrong (as they sometimes do), a "crunch" approach actually decreases the likelihood that the project will succeed. It just makes things worse.

In other words, the medicine has awful side-effects, and it doesn't even treat the illness.

jjoonathan• 12 years ago

Maybe, but that's not quite what their survey showed:

    The four strongest correlations with our crunch-related questions were:
     +0.51: “There was a lot of turnover on this project.”
     +0.50: “Team members would often work for weeks at a time without receiving feedback from project leads or managers.”
     +0.49: “The team’s leads and managers did not have a respectful relationship with the team’s developers.”
     -0.49: “The development plan for the game was clear and well-communicated to the team.”

(+ = this response was positively correlated with crunch)

walru2• 12 years ago

I'm just going off my experiences over the last seventeen years.

rhino369• 12 years ago

Welcome to white collar america programmers. It sorta sucks but at least you can afford a boat you never use and a house for your ex-wife to raise your kids. Signed Doctors, Bankers and Lawyers.

sbov• 12 years ago

If you take out the boat and house, sure. Most game developers I know working in the bay area don't make six figures.

iopq2• 12 years ago

No, they make like $95,000 which is only five figures.

marincounty• 12 years ago

I see that trend in a lot of occupations. My father was a union Electrician and never turned down overtime. Well he got everything he wanted, but he didn't value his family or friends. It was all about the job.(He took it very seriously). He took an early retirement because he could, but soon afterwards learning that no one was waiting for his company--he wished he didn't put so much energy into his job. He died a few years into retirement--very bitter. Yes--I tried to be a good son, but I really didn't like the person he became; I tried to bring him into my life, but nothing ever worked out between us. He changed when he got sick, and wished he didn't live for future, and treated his kids with honest love(at least I want to think he made a effort?)

morgante2• 12 years ago

Welcome to white collar america programmers.

Nope. At least in white collar America professionals demand fair compensation for intense work.

Gamers, on the other hand, are not behaving rationally and demanding appropriate compensation or the right work environment. Instead, they're unprofessionally stuck in a teenager's mentality that working in gaming is somehow amazing and fun.

umanwizard2• 12 years ago

I work at a huge company for 6 figures total annual compensation, right out of college. I come in and go home whenever I want to, and I probably clock an average work-week in the high 30s. If I'm particularly interested in something I'm working on, that number might go up a bit temporarily, completely of my own volition.

I have never heard of someone being asked to work more hours, and I imagine a manager even bringing it up would be very taboo.

This all applies only to my team, as I'm sure there are some at my company under more pressure. But the point is the same: why would anyone do this to themselves? We may be in a bubble, but at least for the moment, software developer is a cushy job with lots of great opportunities available. Why anyone would work 100 hour weeks in a sweatshop baffles me.

Who cares whether it makes games better or worse? I'm sure I could put out a better product if I worked 80 hours instead of 40. But I'd rather go home, sleep with my girlfriend, read a book, or (heh) play a video game. Our CEO is doing fine and doesn't need my charity.

Swizec• 12 years ago

Why anyone would work 100 hour weeks in a sweatshop baffles me.

Because idealistic 20-somethings are easily riled up into a frenzy. Promise them a chance at glory and they will do anything no matter their personal cost.

And they're full of piss and vinegar to boot.

ploxiln• 12 years ago

The games industry is like the fashion industry. Young boys, girls respectively are super motivated to get a job in the industry, they think they're not interested in doing any other job. That desperation enables the industry to take great advantage of them at the lower levels: if they're not willing to work under those terms, there are a number of eager replacements.

I'm not morally judging the situation, I think of it as a natural effect of market forces. A rational person would just go to another industry. I'm a software developer who was never anywhere near the game industry, fwiw, though I have had an appreciation for computer games since childhood. But In these industries, there are enough enthusiastic, perhaps not quite rational people, to keep that workforce unusually pressurized, metaphorically speaking.

rwallace• 12 years ago

I agree except for one thing: I am morally judging the situation. Just because market forces have given you the power to ruin the lives of people who trusted you, doesn't make it morally okay to do so.

shortsleeves2• 12 years ago

There's a significant part of the staff working on game production that is not engineering. There are far fewer job opportunities for the folks working in the Art, Design and Audio departments.

For engineers, there's a wide range of disciplines (graphics, networking, systems, gameplay, AI, audio, etc...), so in theory there's a ton to learn and it's easy to continually be challenged. In practice, at a large company, you'll most likely end up working on a very narrow specialty, on a very specific genre of games. Much like the film industry, people continue to join thinking they will make it big, i.e.: have a critically acclaimed title on their resume.

_pmf_• 12 years ago

There are far fewer job opportunities for the folks working in the Art, Design and Audio departments.

Looking at the app store shovelware using cookie cutter Unity engines, I'm not sure about this. I think scripting a level using an existing engine would qualify as game design, not as programming.

soup10• 12 years ago

Basically because because people(especially programmers) take jobs in the game industry because they want to, not because they have to. Usually because either they are really into gaming/graphics or some related field, or there is a perception(at-least before you get in) that it's less boring and more artistic and less like working for "the man" than normal software development.

nmcveity• 12 years ago

My experience is similar to yours, except it starts "I work at a game company...".

autarch• 12 years ago

I'm sure I could put out a better product if I worked 80 hours instead of 40.

No you couldn't. People seem to often miss this point. It's not a choice between "work crazy hours or produce less". It's a choice between "work crazy hours and do shit work" or "work sane hours and do a decent job".

umanwizard2• 12 years ago

Well, maybe you're right, but that misses the point. Read "I'm sure I could" as "Even if".

ineedtosleep• 12 years ago

From the article referenced (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-10-23-game-devs-w...)

As we get deeper into the process we discover that things that sounded good on paper don't work in practice. Things that worked in prototype don't work in a fully textured and lit level. And then the folks providing money or distribution randomize and disrupt by demanding demos or screenshots at the most inconvenient times!"

That quote was listed as one of positive quotes for crunch, but it solidifies even more that the process is broken and/or better project management has to be done.

jblow• 12 years ago

You can't schedule something unknown.

j_baker• 12 years ago

Who'd have thought that the business-types (Rubin and Spector) are supportive of crunch, while the developer (Paxton) doesn't like crunch? Apparently, the business types like turning their organizations into meat grinders while the developers like not being overworked and exploited.

anon42• 12 years ago

At this point I'm half-expecting they do it for the feeling of power, rather than for the goal of making a better game.

forrestthewoods• 12 years ago

Naughty Dog makes best in class games. They also have some of the worst crunch in the industry. I therefore conclude the title somewhere between incomplete and wrong. There's no blockbuster game on the market that wasn't crunched on. That's not excuse, just a simple fact.

Can we have "crunch makes your startup worse" next? Then we an see a raise of hands for how many now successful startups were born in crunch.

21echoes• 12 years ago

did you read the article? the article addresses this in the second paragraph. it then goes on to compare levels of crunch with metacritic scores and ROI data, and finds that crunch statistically significantly hurts projects.

anon42• 12 years ago

Five guys furiously getting an MVP off the ground in minimal amount of time is different from a studio of hundreds slogging through months of unpaid overtime.

egypturnash• 12 years ago

I used to work in the Hollywood animation industry. I had friends who worked in the LA video game industry around then.

Crunch was, quite simply, an expected part of life in both industries. I think it may be something that emerges from the way human brains work, when dealing with projects that take more than a year to finish. People slack off near the beginning because, wow, they have YEARS to get it done. (Or obsessively try to polish a small part, because, again, wow, YEARS.) As the release date approaches, it starts to feel more like an actual thing, and people start panicking because there is a colossal amount of money involved in a big-budget game or feature cartoon. You can't take longer because you're running out of money, and you have a ton of sunk costs in the advertising that says a specific date, there are merchandising tie-ins waiting for the release, all kinds of things pushing towards "the team works crazy hours and burns out".

Me? I draw a graphic novel now. The only deadline I have to make is the self-imposed one, and I'm lucky enough that my finances have enough slack that my schedule can have some slack, too.

Animats• 12 years ago

I used to work in the Hollywood animation industry. I had friends who worked in the LA video game industry around then. Crunch was, quite simply, an expected part of life in both industries.

Much of Hollywood animation is unionized. (animationguild.org, IATSE Local 839). Crunches mean paid overtime. From the Animation Guild standard contract: "All time worked in excess of eight (8) hours per day or forty (40) hours per week shall be paid at one and one-half (1 1/2) times the hourly rate provided herein for such employee’s classification. Time worked on the employee’s sixth (6th) workday of the workweek shall be paid at one and one-half (1 1/2) times the hourly rate provided herein for such employee’s classification. Time worked on the employee’s seventh (7th) workday of the workweek shall be paid at two (2) times the hourly rate provided herein for such employee’s classification. All time worked in excess of fourteen (14) consecutive hours (including meal periods) from the time of reporting to work shall be Golden Hours and shall be paid at two (2) times the applicable hourly rate provided herein for such employee’s classification."

This discourages unnecessary "crunches".

If you would like The Animation Guild to represent you and your fellow employees at a game company, print up some of these cards and get your fellow employees to sign them: http://animationguild.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Represe... You can force your employer to have a union election.

DigitalSea2• 12 years ago

I wholeheartedly agree, crunch is damaging to any industry over extended periods of time. It doesn't matter if you're a game developer, web developer or architect, crunch affects everyone. It is an outdated way of thinking that the game industry has failed to let go of that the more people and effort you throw at a problem, the quicker it gets solved.

The more hours you throw at a problem in my experience as a developer, you end up with more problems than you started off trying to solve. You lose focus, when you lose focus things that were once obvious are not in your peripheral vision and you make mistakes. It is akin to driving a vehicle tired, you are more likely to be in an accident.

Sadly the gaming industry is notorious for this kind of behaviour of expected crunch. Yeah, you push yourself to get out a game, but then what? You start working on another new game or DLC for the current game and you find yourself working 80 hour weeks again, what was the benefit of those long hours other than keeping your job? It is a repeating cycle.

People have been decrying the crunch in the gaming industry especially since the 90's and yet, nothing ever changes or improves. Someone writes a blog post or article, people unanimously agree things need to change and then it all blows over until the next article comes along. What's it going to take: a spate of sleep-deprived, stressed game developers taking their own lives?

I accept the fact that avoiding crunch altogether is unavoidable in any industry, but we need to better manage it. We need to have a framework in place that prevents people from being expected to work 80+ hour weeks for years on end. Sometimes you need to put in some extra hours to finish a project, that's cool, just don't factor it in every time, expect it for months or years on end and above all: don't forgo compensation for the sacrifice your employees are making under the guise of "we need to do this"

Look at mostly every single AAA game released in the last few years, more issues than you can poke a stick at. Look at GTA V, when it launched people couldn't even play the multiplayer component, same thing happened to the highly anticipated and hyped Destiny and pretty much every insert game name here - is it the fault of the developers who were enslaved to complete the game? No. It is the lack of resources, lack of care for sane work hours, lack of compassion or concern for employees that causes large games with budgets that rival Hollywood movies to fail spectacularly on launch.

When is the last time a large company like Rockstar Games or Electronic Arts released a game that wasn't broken or buggy to some extent on launch? Besides having an extremely generous budget to hire the best and produce something spectacular? I can't recall a time that happened in the last few years. Perfection is not a priority, churn and burn is the name of the game. Get it out now as long as it is complete and we'll sort out the bugs with a patch shortly after launch. Oh, and hurry, the investors want to see a quick profit on this one.

Some of you might recall the famous post from an anonymous blogger by the name of EA Spouse. A wife of a video game developer working at Electronic Arts pouring her heart out over the toll his long hours take on him and his family, the excessive work hours he puts in: http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/ - large publications lapped the story up, people were outraged and yet here we are in 2015 reading another article about long hours. Things will not change until something bad happens (and probably not until it starts happening frequently).

We've been talking about things needing to change for far too long, but nothing ever seems to get better.

iopq2• 12 years ago

Or people could just stop working at those places and choose to work at places that have reasonable working hours. I know I won't work overtime without getting 1.5x pay.

onion2k• 12 years ago

Look at GTA V, when it launched people couldn't even play the multiplayer component

A staggered release of features is quite a good solution to the problem. There's no reason why a game has to be feature complete before it's released. Some parts can be added in subsequent minor versions. It happens with every other kind of software.

DigitalSea2• 12 years ago

You misunderstand. My point was millions of dollars were spent on producing GTA V, years of development work put it and for a while after launch you couldn't even play the GTA Online component which was one of the advertised features. It wasn't so much there were issues or they were releasing it non-feature complete. My final point being: you can make developers put in excessive overtime to finish a game, but it won't be a pretty result.

Pinatubo• 12 years ago

Could these results be driven by sequels? I would expect that a sequel would need less crunch time (many big problems have already been solved) and have a higher ROI (they're likely making a sequel because the franchise is popular, and less effort is needed).

vehementi• 12 years ago

Sony's H1Z1 launched its early access (i.e. alpha) late last week and their president was saying the dev team was doing 18 hour days, and they worked 2 of the 3 days of the MLK weekend. Again, early access, not release, etc.

morgante2• 12 years ago

What do people expect of an industry where supply and demand is completely out of whack?

Supply of programmers in the games industry is almost completely inelastic. No matter how little they get paid (relative to tech standards) and how poor conditions become, young programmers will continue to flock to the games industry because it's perceived as "cool."

Why people make employment decisions based on what they play in their free time I will never understand. I also love reading books, watching movies, and eating food—but I have no delusions that those would be good career options.

More generally, I think the best way to improve working conditions across the tech industry is to kill the meme that working on "sexy" tech is important. So long as companies are able to attract talent through silly stories or sexy projects, rather than a good work environment and competitive salaries, programmers are going to continue to be abused and perceived as unprofessional.

Lawyers don't choose which firm to join based on who has the coolest name. It's time that programmers stopped chasing cool and started acting professional.

famousactress• 12 years ago

The priceless quote here for me is:

“Schedule 40 hours a week and you get 38. Schedule 50 and you get 39 and everyone hates work, life, and you. Schedule 60 and you get 32 and wives start demanding you send out resumes."

That's a pretty great approximation of my experience with the concept.

pandaman• 12 years ago

In my experience crunch is often caused by poor direction, political games, understaffing, under-budgeting other such factors that are crippling to the game quality. So, naturally, a project that is in crunch is likely to fail in sales and in reviews. The article authors address this, but only at the angle of "Does it help to salvage a failing project?" and I agree with their negative conclusion. Crunching is not going to salvage anything.

Why would it? Your publisher changes the requirements every quarter and the game's genre every year, your producers (managers) are busy trying to get each other fired, people are leaving because they think the game is going to suck and they have not seen a bonus in 5 years, you cannot hire anyone because they think the game is going to suck and you don't have money anyway so you could as well crunch trying to ship whatever with whomever is left but crunching is not going to fix these issues.

Crunching can only improve a project that does not have any crippling problems. And it usually does (again, from my experience). It works because nobody can schedule 2+ years creative work for 200+ people with such a precision that on the last day of the schedule you check in the last line of code, export the last asset, pack a build and send an 80+ (hell, even 60+) metacritic game to the manufacturing. Game production is an iterative process. The more iterations you make - the better the game becomes in your eyes if not in the reviews. This is why people crunch voluntarily. They want to ship better games.

Crunch Makes Games Worse

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