Unpopular Opinion - There is NOTHING wrong with crunch

First off, I have no relation to Rockstar or any company in any branch of the gaming industry. After hearing every press outlet that I follow weigh in on the Rockstar crunch period on RDR2, the opinion is basically unanimous that crunch is a terrible thing and these workers are being abused for having to work 60-80 hrs per week.

In short, I think that the people getting upset about this are incredibly naive for kicking and screaming over people having to work more than 40 hrs per week. The idea of working more than 40 hrs per week over extended periods of times, possibly even for someone's entire career is common in countless industries. From my personal experience, physicians go through 4 years of medical school with over 20 hours of classtime and at least double that amount of study time per week. After medical school, a residency of at least 4 years limits work hours to 80 hours per week. After residency, physicians typically work close to 60 hours of week for the majority of their careers. From having friends in other technical fields (engineering, software), it seems that every one of them has worked at least 60 hours per week for an extended period at some point in their career.

Does working more than 40 hours per week put stress on other areas of life? Sure, but so does a normal 40 hour work week. I have absolutely zero sympathy for any of these people in any industry having to work over 40 hours per week because every single one of them made the choice to make that their career. I've always loved games and programming, but from day one of following the gaming industry, it was obvious that game development was not a great career in terms of lifestyle outside of work, but that's the price developers pay for getting to work their dream jobs (like in any other industry) and especially in games, having the possibility to make incredible amounts of money. At one point, I thought that I wanted to be a physician, but realized that I didn't want to put in the time commitment because I would rather have a less stressful career. Yea few jobs will pay as well, but I decided to make that trade off of working less and making a bit less money.

Every single person who feels "over worked" has the choice to quit that job and go work somewhere else where they may not make as much money, but they won't have to work as long / hard. If that person has a family to support and cannot quit because they have to maintain that pay rate, well again, having a family and making people dependent on you was a choiceand their options are now restricted because of that choice.

I realize that this is probably a very unpopular opinion, and I won't go into the political aspects of the issue, but I'm just tired of the hand wringing and talking about these evil video game / capitalist companies exploiting their poor workers. Their workers all chose to work there for one reason or another (financial gain, career advancement, personal pride, etc) and make the choice not to leave for an easier job. People need to take more responsibility for the choices they make and have the courage to make a different choice if their situation is making them unhappy.

It takes a special type of lack of empathy to say, "conditions are bad for a lot of people, therefore people shouldn't complain if conditions are bad for them," rather than, "conditions are bad for a lot of people, let's try to make them better for everybody."

This is a very bad take. Maybe the worst I've seen on this site.

This is a truly terrible take.

@gooddoggy: but the conditions aren't bad for everybody. There are plenty of careers that enable people to work normal hours and have a normal life outside work. I don't want anyone trying to make conditions better for me because it's my responsibility to better my position in life however I see fit. Who's to say that your definition of "better conditions" is actually better for everyone? At one point in my career, I chose to work at least 80 hours per week because I thought the work was worth that amount of dedication. I don't regret the decision and gained a ton of valuable experience from it. Sure other areas of my life suffered a bit as a result, but every aspect of life is a series of tradeoffs. Individuals have the ability to decide which tradeoffs they want to make to shape their situation how they wish. There's no universal standard for "better" conditions, not in modern society at least.

And just to be clear, I'm not opposed to developers forming a union. It probably would be beneficial in many cases, but developers shouldn't be forced to be a part of the union to work in the industry because that would violate their autonomy.

@mems1224@thatpinguino care to elaborate on why it's such a terrible take? Should people not have the ability to make choices to live their lives however they want? Should the collective will be imposed on everyone, even if someone doesn't like what that will is pushing for?

@ballisticbooger: nope. Not gonna change your mind so you just have a great day bro.

@ballisticbooger: I'll assume you're actually asking in good faith. I have never met someone who likes working more than a 40 hour week who has any other non-work commitments in their life. By forcing workers to spend 60-100 hours grinding on a product or stfu and get out, the game industry is chasing away top talent and burning out the talent they have. 60-100 hour work weeks are not an inescapable fact of life. They are management mistakes that try to brute force around unrealistic budgets or unplanned/improperly scoped features. They should be criticized as such. Just because some people tolerate unpaid overtime rather than lose their job doesn't mean it should be an industry standard that is accepted.

I can only give you that a 3 week crunch isn't really a problem. The amount we work in the US compared to other countries is appalling. There is a way to restructure workweeks, with 40 being an average max. Its terrible to see people that work their asses off like this simply because its the way things are, instead of supporting a restructuring of labor practices. Active duty Air Force for 6 years, and I NEVER made my guys work more than a 40 hour week unless we were deployed, then it was 6 days a week 12 hrs a day, and that was pretty rotten. It was acceptable because it was a predetermined amount of time under extenuating circumstances, and when we returned home, 8 hour shifts, 5 days a week was my constant workweek, with some shops doing 4 on 3 off 12 hour shifts. If enlisted military can find a way to make it work, how dare you suggest that someone that pursued their passion of game design doesn't deserve sympathy for being worked like a dog.

@ballisticbooger: The problem with working a lot, is that people still try to lead full lives and end up sacrificing their sleep. And it the end it's sleep deprivation that causes higher risk of all kind of infection, low immunity, tinnitus, disease, burnout. Life turns into a zombie walk and torture. If you can work 10-12h a day and still get 8 hours of shut-eye, then yeah you'll be an over-achiever easily.

Crunch is all peer pressure so that's hardly a choice. Or the choice is between failure/betrayal and sacrifice.

I've seen a harrowing documentation of crunch in the amazing Double Fine Adventure! series. At least that was what really struck me and stayed with me the most from that epic documentary series.

this ain't it chief

You are part of the problem

@thatpinguino: Thanks, I appreciate your response. I agree that crunch is a result of unrealistic budges and/or unplanned / improperly scoped features. With that being said, I think that any type of creative medium will result in some sort of sprint at the end because creative works are never "done", but rather escape in whatever state they are in when some factor forces work to end in one way or another. Maybe the solution is unionization, or maybe having restrictions on crunch periods / overtime written into developers contracts. I honestly couldn't care less if games took longer to come out so that developers didn't have to work such extreme conditions, but I feel that these are ancillary aspects of the more fundamental issue of individuals making choices.

My point isn't that the conditions can't be improved, but rather that the constant outcries of how these corporations are evil and how workers are being exploited should consider the fact that every person working in the industry, for one reason or another, made the choice to join an industry where all of these factors have been known quantities for practically it's entire history. It seems to me that the many of the most vocal voices (I thought GB had a balanced and nuanced take that considered my points) are either ignorant of the fact that there are countless other industries where working more than 40 hours per week is completely normal, or that they feel like it's their moral obligation to impose their standards on other people. If they are ignorant of this fact, that's fine and I hope to have shed some light on the fact that this is a fairly common practice. However, if they are trying to impose their standards on someone who made a deliberate choice, I have a big problem with that because as I stated earlier, there is no universal standard on "better conditions" and it's the individuals choice to make their tradeoffs in life as they see fit.

@ballisticbooger: I think you are pretty clearly misinterpreting the critiques of crunch. People who criticize crunch in gaming often also criticize greater than 40 hour work weeks in all other industries. This is not a naive, gaming-centric take, this is a pro labor stance applied to gaming. Pointing out that other industries also have poor labor practices does not excuse gaming, it merely indicts other industries as well.

@ballisticbooger: but there is a standard of better conditions, and working yourself to death because you chose to do what you're passionate about/talented at, should not be some ultimate condemnation. You're basically telling these devs to work at taco bell at 30 hours a week if they dont like it, and too bad if they "chose" to marry and have a family. that sucks.

@thatpinguinoI understand that they are also criticizing working more than 40 hours per week in all industries, but my point is that I should be able to make the choice of working more than 40 hours per week because I believe that the tradeoffs are worth it in one way or another. Eg most of the industries in which working more than 40 hours per week is fairly common are also some of the most highly paid, so obviously people are trading more time for higher pay. Or maybe I want to work a job that doesn't pay as much, but will allow me to advance in my career to a place where I can eventually work less than 40 hours per week. I just don't want people imposing their moral standards of what is an acceptable work week on someone else who may see working 80 hours as acceptable for one reason or another.

@marc said:

Thanks for posting this for me - a terrible take OP

@yothatlimp: no worries. I like Austin's takes on games, but we disagree on almost every other issue that I've heard him discuss. However, I gotta say that for all of the talk about oppression these days, it's a bit ironic that these same people are wanting to oppress people who are willing to work in conditions that they deem are unacceptable, when oftentimes people can vastly improve their lives by being willing to work longer / harder at one point or another.

that's fine and dandy, but labour law exists for that explicit reason- to impose a moral standard on what an acceptable work week is. and the reason for this is simple- society has given an incredible amount of leverage to employers relative to their employees- one's entire ability to live a life depends on having a job that pays your way. so long as there are more people than desirable jobs, employers will continue to enjoy this aspect of the power dynamic. and abuse of that dynamic is what lead to laws that exist today.

if you want to work 80hrs/week- i'd say start a business and/or freelance. but let's not pretend that social mobility is so complete that everyone's lot is due to a 'choice' they've made.

and speaking as someone who works in a residency program in hospital- it's not like people who participate in this system are particularly happy either. but comparing game devs in crunch vs. residents in training is mostly useless, as the way the industries function and the laws that govern them are so wildly different (especially from country to country) that you'd have a very difficult time finding commonality beyond "people who have a passion get into it."

@ballisticbooger: I think you are both wrong about your assertion that the industries with the most overtime hours are the highest paid and that the tradeoffs are always made willingly. I can't just choose to quit my job if I rely on that income to live. I mean I can choose to quit, if I want to be financially ruined and lose my home. That's not a fair or real choice. And in some fields changing jobs can be impossible due to noncompete clauses and confidentiality clauses. For example, in the gaming industry, non-competes can forbid jumping ship to another company in your field regardless of what you want. Confidentiality agreements leave giant gaps in your resume until the game you were working on comes out (assuming it actually comes out at all) and that can make you unhireable unless you stay on for the whole project. For most people simply changing industries because the industry has shitty practices is a huge hurdle as well, between specialized training and logistical issues of finding someone to take a chance on a middle-aged newcomer. The power to force crunch is largely predicated on those facts. People can't simply leave so they put up with bad conditions

And despite all of that, it is some times "worth it" because you get a big bonus or get to advance your career. And sometimes your game gets canceled or your studio gets shuttered despite your crunching and you end up with nothing to show for all of the time you spent not sleeping or seeing your family.

This isn't a situation like a doctor, where a patient could die if a doctor isn't on call (and even ER doctor work weeks could use refinement so they aren't burnt out). This is an industry where those extra hours might mean a few extra animations, textures, or a mechanic. All I'm saying is that if those features are worth doing, they are worth planning for properly. If they require crunch, maybe they weren't actually worth doing at all.

@ballisticbooger: At this point I’m not even sure if you’re trolling or not. « Oppressing people that want to overwork themselves »?? What the hell. The point is to create sustainable working environment for everyone, there’s no oppression going there except the one of management forcing lower paid people to overwork themselves.

I’m currently suffering through health issues that were caused mostly by overworking. I simply CAN’T do more than 40, in my condition even the low number of 40 is near unbearable. My health issues started when I was 29 and you can easily pinpoint overworking as a cause. It’s not normal for someone this young to go through that shit.

People that voluntary overwork themselves create expectations in managers that other should do the same and it’s simply toxic, because not everyone can and simply put, nobody should. If you NEED to overwork yourself to advance forward in your career, then the system is unsustainable, it’s not that hard to comprehend. The fact that other industries do the same or are worse is not an excuse, it’s actually damning.

Obviously some people can go through this shit and get at the end of it okay, it still doesn’t make it sustainable that some luckier one don’t get permanent health damage from it.

Your take is not unpopular because it’s new or anything, your take is unpopular because it’s awful and has been adressed countless times by criticism of crunch. You’re coming into an ongoing conversation without acknowledging most points that have been made within it.

That Austin’s tweet is a valid answer, your take is awful and toxic.

@mellotronrules there are no labor laws about what is an acceptable work week, only laws that say over 40 hours per week is overtime, so if someone is willing to work more they will be paid more for that time than someone else who's only willing to put in 40 hours, and salaried workers are often paid more with the expectation that they may have to work some overtime.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 7.1 million unfilled jobs so your point about employer leverage is largely invalid. Those jobs are unfilled because either there are not enough qualified people for the position, or the job doesn't pay enough, with either case forcing employers to pay more - not a great power dynamic for employers.

I agree that not everyone makes a choice to be in their position, but every person has the ability to make choices in their given situation. Social mobility may not be complete, but that's an impossibility due to people having different inherent aptitudes - true equality is impossible because people are unique individuals.

It's a great comparison because both of these careers were chosen knowing the conditions that they would be working in because they decided that the tradeoffs were worth it, whether that be for passion, financial gain, personal satisfaction, etc

There is nothing normal about working those kinds of crazy hours. People should not work that hard, period.

Well, have I got a deal for you, are you interested in working 60 hours a week AND getting paid LESS than the same position in a different industry? Well then the games industry is for you!

Wait what I don't even?

Yeah no, this is the worst take I've ever seen.

@fear_the_booboo: I'm not trolling. I'm very sorry about your health issues and sincerely wish you the best. However, just because you're unable to work over 40 hours per week doesn't mean that no one else should be able to. This is the crux of my argument, thank you:

People that voluntary overwork themselves create expectations in managers that other should do the same and it’s simply toxic, because not everyone can

To these people, either they're not overworking themselves or feel it's worth working extra for one reason or another. The last part of your statement is truly disturbing - because not everyone can do something, no one should be able to do it. THIS is the problem! PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT AND MAKE THEIR OWN CHOICES. Some people can work longer hours, while others are only capable of working 40 hours or less. Why shouldn't the people who work more be rewarded for that additional work? Because it's not fair that they're inherently more capable in one aspect of life than someone else?

Nice chatting with everyone. I'm not trolling, and if you disagree, that's fine, but please know that there are fundamentally different ways of viewing issues with valid points on each side. I'm simply advocating for people being able to make their own choices.

Off to be oppressed by my employer. Peace

Life is not conditional on value in any sense of the word. The sooner we understand that as a species, the sooner we'll be better off. I have no further comment to make right now other than to agree that this is a bad take.

Edit: I lied, I do have more to say. I assume you're a person around the age of 20-30 (probably around low to mid 20s). I bring that up b/c these takes usually come from people who have yet to actually work in a crunch environment or at the very least haven't done so for extended periods. Sure, maybe a 60-70 hour week every little once in awhile isn't a bad thing if you're into it. I've been in that position once (okay it was more like 40 hours for 2 weeks each week, I'll be honest). I was working at a nursing home and there was a big renovation. It was physical work (I was lifting well over 60-100 pounds for long periods of time). I couldn't do that again. I'll leave the details at that.

If you can do that again and again and again, fine. Congrats. Stop being entitled, though; no one is entitled to break someone over work. Life isn't a contest to see who's the strongest.

@ballisticbooger: It takes 30 seconds of googling to find why working more than 40 hours week is unhealthy. All research point to it, some may think they can do it, and they can like I could before, but it’s literally unhealthy living. Then you’re basically encouraging something that’s actively destroying their health, it’s not hard to comprehend how toxic that idea is.

There’s like plenty of research on why there’s more efficient way of working that don’t involve crunch and thus don’t alienate part of your workforce. People that work 60 hours a week are rarely more efficient or working harder than people that work 35, they’re not more « capable » they’re just putting more hours.

Again, you’re coming in an ongoing conversation, please inform yourself on the damage crunch does to people, even if it’s « voluntary », it far outweighs the advantages and those are arbitrary put in place by the system of crunch. We should rework the system to need the least amount of overtime possible or we’ll alienate most people, it’s hardly productive.

"Look, just because some people can't tolerate high exposures to lead like some superior beings can doesn't mean we should force people to give up on cheap, elegant lead piping! No one should tell you how to funnel water into your home! What are we going to do, force people to pay slightly more for a virile, quality spigot? That sure sounds like oppression."

(Needless to say, I'm done playing the game with a hot take artist. I just can't handle the searing blaze that is "The status quo is so good that all moves to improve it are actually oppression")

@fear_the_booboo: Trying to leave, but had to respond to this softball. Sure on average, that's probably why over 40 hours is considered overtime. But like everything, people exist on a bellcurve, meaning that some people can work more than 40 weeks at peak efficiency, others can only work less than 40 hours. For the people on the right hand side of the curve, they're not destroying themselves or doing anything unhealthy by working more hours, and in a sense they are more capable. Again, you're assuming everyone is the same by citing these studies, but alas, people are different... shocking.

@thatpinguino nice straw man there. Glad to see that you're understanding the point I'm making.

@ballisticbooger: nah sorry you’re wrong. Some people won’t get cancer from smoking, it’s still unhealthy. Some people won’t get muscular pain from crunch like I did, it’s still unhealthy. In a world where voluntary overtime wasn’t creating expectations in managers I MIGHT be able to see your point but even then it’s a massive stretch.

Considering most work is made in a team, you should do what’s more efficient for the team, not for individuals, so yeah everyone is different, so we should have working conditions that are sustainable for everyone.

I’m not citing studies, I’m telling you to seek them because you’re obviously completely oblivious to the whole conversation going on about crunch.

The Austin Walker tweet is valid. You should see the lengths pro-labor activists have gone through over the past 150 years to achieve a better life among the working class and to flatten the power of bosses. You should investigate your own pro-managerial stance on this, why you're doing it, who it benefits, what's at stake when you say these things.

Careers in game development should be actual careers and not five-year stints where you're expected to burnout to crunch and market volatility. The industry has been broken by mismanagement.

Also, any unpaid hours of labor is wage theft, which is the majority of overtime work considering how many people are on salary contract.

@ballisticbooger: Oh I understand the point you're making. It's just a terrible point. And you know that. That's why you made this thread and named it what you did. That's why you're here arguing the way you are. It's a very peculiar position that says "actually the status quo is great and agreeing with management makes me a brave truth teller", but that's your position. And fine, to each there own. But you're going to get a bunch of pushback because it's a bad opinion. Which again, you know because you made this thread.

@fear_the_booboo: No I'm not wrong - show me where traits / abilities don't exist on a bellcurve. That's a terrible example because smoking objectively does damage to every person who smokes (even if they get cancer it's still damaging their lung tissue & constricting and hardening their arteries). Just like @thatpinguino above, nice straw man.

Working more than 40 hours per week doesn't damage every person. Sure, most people are only capable of 40 hours, but others are perfectly capable of working more than that (or less than 40 in your case). Try again... or better yet just stop. I'm sure you had psychomotor pain because you couldn't handle the stress. Again, I'm very sorry about this, and that's not an indictment of your character, but rather just means that the job you were in was too stressful for you, whereas other people are perfectly capable of dealing with that level of stress. Again, people are different.

I like to choose to work extra shifts when I want to make more money. The times in my career when I have been forced to work extra shifts I did not like so much, especially when I wasn’t paid extra for them.

Physician training was cited in the OP post. A field in terrible need of reform too. Medical students and residents kill themselves or drop dead because of the poor work life balance.

@ballisticbooger: It does though. It’s as simple as that.

Nice try but that opinion is not allowed. If you think that way you are a horrible person who deserves to lose your job. Austin has told us all how we must feel on this issue, so you must comply. Resistance is futile.

@thatpinguino: I named it that because I know it's not a common opinion. I directly responded to you saying that conditions could improve. I don't think I'm a brave truth teller, just want to show that there are more fundamental aspects of this debate that are not being discussed apart from corporations and management are exploitative and evil.

You're right, some people make shitty takes online and refuse to offer much of a counter-argument to replies other than 'they should deal with it.' Grow up.

@ballisticbooger: Except you are literally arguing for the way the world currently is. Crunch is already ubiquitous. You're on the winning side of the argument. And you're arguing there's nothing wrong with that to people who are clearly pointing out actionable issues. Someone has to speak for the powerful and against work standards I guess?

If you're capable of dealing with more than 40 hours of stress and consider it oppression when someone says you can't work more than 40 hours a week, then you can simply go get another job where that's a possibility, right?

There are 7.1 million jobs, at least according to you above

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 7.1 million unfilled jobs so your point about employer leverage is largely invalid. Those jobs are unfilled because either there are not enough qualified people for the position, or the job doesn't pay enough, with either case forcing employers to pay more - not a great power dynamic for employers.

And here are some more of your words

Every single person who feels "over worked" has the choice to quit that job and go work somewhere else

Same principle - anyone who feels "under worked" can go get another job, right? I'm sure there are plenty of employers out there who are willing to exploit and overwork you or anyone else who feels oppressed by the average 40 hour work week. And if they're locked into that 40 hour work week... well, they made that choice, something you also wrote about in your first post

I would write this entire thread off as one big troll thread if I hadn't recently spoken with someone in real life who had pretty much the same opinion.

@ballisticbooger: Man, you've already moved the goalposts of your argument. Calling out these comparable situations as strawman arguments is doing nothing for you because you've already ceded your thesis. The title of your thread reads "there is NOTHING wrong with crunch", yet you've already admitted that it has the capacity to harm people, and that just because something harms someone less than others doesn't mean it isn't harmful at all. If you want to argue in good faith at least be consistent about your stance, because luring people in with the claim that "there is NOTHING wrong with crunch" and then telling them they're overreacting when you admit "conditions could improve" isn't going to get you anywhere.

@ballisticbooger: im on mobile, so i don’t have the patience to get into compairing medical training and patient care vs. game development. but if you were interested in the medical field, you should know the labour practices in medicine are abnormal, wildly different from country to country, and usually exempt from typical fair labour legislation. so no, i think comparison falls apart almost immediately.

@ballisticbooger: I hope that one day you grow up and realize that actual, living human beings produce the shiny toys you love so much, and that they could produce so much more if they were not threatened by an increasingly stratified system which treats them as disposable waste regardless of their output. When that day comes, I look forward to seeing you join the union in solidarity with your fellow workers.

"People are different" is not really the one-size-fits-all argument you think it is. If every time someone suggests that working more than 40 hours a week is bad for a good number of people, you just say "well folks are different all over so who are you to say huh," congrats, none of this discussion will ever go anywhere. There are going to be outliers in every study, that doesn't mean you can just invalidate the studies findings by pointing at them.

Also just because other industries overwork their employees doesn't make it excusable in any of them.

I dont get your point, why is "just quit" a better option than improving your working environment to be more humane?

I've said something pretty similar (albeit very facetiously if not full on sarcastically) in the Rockstar/Red Dead 2 thread, so I do agree with the sentiment in that I don't believe that there's anything wrong with people who choose, key word, choose to work the extra hours in order to finish the project, task or assignment and are aware of the potential consequences and sacrifices of doing so. I'm not going to say that there isn't much to the counter argument against crunch since the points made about said consequences of working overtime are valid, but it's the black and white "all crunch is bad" gang mentality on the extreme side of the argument that makes me roll my eyes. Now if Rockstar for example did in fact force employees into working at those extended hours, then I'd have a problem with crunch since uncomfortable/hostile work environments with oppressive management is a significantly clear cut issue where the powers at be are clearly in the wrong. But since the thing about Rockstar and crunch are alleged (at the time of posting this), I have to see the shades of grey.

I posted this in the Red Dead Redemption crunch thread, but I'll post it here again. Crunch is absolutely bad for workers and businesses. People make mistakes when overworked and then later have to crunch to fix those mistakes. It's also fiscally irresponsible for companies. They lose talent to sick days and burnout and can end up wasting money by having to push back or even miss deadlines because somebody made a mistake on the tailend of a 60+ work week. Sometimes shit really does happen, and developers might have to put in extra hours to fix a mistake, but chronic, back to back weeks of 60+ will come back to bite either you or the company.

It's also sometimes purely optics about how upper management thinks what working hard looks like. Jason Scheier's piece on Rockstar employees has one example of a guy showing up on the weekend and not doing anything because he has no work to do just so his bosses could see him in the office so he could get his bonus. That's poor management and definitely not something that is "inherent" in the game's industry or any other industry.