Delay more games: the crunch crisis in game development, and how to solve it

By Sam Carpenter (Duke ‘24)

At the end of every year, the video game development community gathers at the Game Awards, the largest and most influential awards show in the industry. The Game Awards recognize the very best games from the year, awarding prizes to only the most creative, influential, and revolutionary titles. The most coveted title is the legendary Game of the Year award, the gaming equivalent of the Oscars’ Best Picture, awarded only to those games that transform the industry and delight players worldwide. In 2020, the GOTY award was given to The Last Of Us II, from the studio Naughty Dog. TLOU2 holds the record for the most Game Awards ever, and even won the award for Best Direction, recognizing “outstanding creative vision and innovation in game direction and design.” This award recognizes a studio with outstanding leadership that directs its developers better than any other. However, although Naughty Dog’s leadership did create a masterpiece of gaming, they did so by having developers work 12+ hours daily for months on end. The game, like many of Naughty Dog’s projects, was a massive burden on the developers, making them work countless hours of overtime for no compensation. How, then, could it be recognized for the best direction, despite months on end of painful development crunch? Unfortunately, crunch in game development is so widespread, TLOU2’s development was typical. The problem plagues the industry, and at this point, very little seems to stand in its way.

As an industry with inherent deadlines in the form of release dates, game development is inherently prone to crunch. When an unfinished game is set to come out in a month, studios and individual developers alike may feel as though they have no option other than to work overtime, especially when fans may not be receptive to a delay. (When Cyberpunk 2077 was delayed back in 2020, developers received death threats.) This can be especially difficult because game development progress is hard to measure; when a game isn’t done, it can be difficult to get a sense of how much is left relative to how much is done. As a result, it’s become extremely common for the last few months of a game’s development to be “crunch time”, when developers are expected to work long hours to make sure the release date is met. For many studios, especially some of the biggest developers, crunch time has become part of the cycle rather than an extreme measure, and it’s increasingly expected that developers work overtime near a game’s release date. This expectation of overtime is known as crunch culture, and it’s permeating the game industry. The amount of time crunch encompasses has also increased as crunch culture has spread; at one time crunch may have only covered the weeks before the release date, but now crunch is often expected for massive swaths of a development cycle.

Oftentimes, crunch is not enforced so much as it is encouraged or expected. Developers who work long hours may do so in an attempt to further their career prospects or to keep pace with coworkers who stay late and arrive early. When the expectation is set by management, even if it isn’t enforced, it becomes increasingly difficult for employees to resist. Many studios do also require overtime or may give so much work as to not be completable without overtime, even if they don’t explicitly require overtime. Even so, there is no tangible reward to the employees for their hard work. Federal and state laws exempt certain types of software developers from receiving overtime pay, and most game developers fall under these laws. When there’s no need to pay employees, and major profit incentives from pushing them harder, game development studios have no reason not to encourage or expect massive overtime from their employees. However, the costs are real, and the crunch crisis is a real crisis.

Surveys show that more than half of game developers have been diagnosed with some type of mental health condition, many of which relate to anxiety or depression. Working 100-hour weeks, as many developers are forced to do, is not healthy, and it’s extremely common for developers to experience the consequences.

The health implications of stress are well-known, and they affect game developers massively. Surveys show that more than half of game developers have been diagnosed with some type of mental health condition, many of which relate to anxiety or depression. Working 100-hour weeks, as many developers are forced to do, is not healthy, and it’s extremely common for developers to experience the consequences. For example, during the development of the game Anthem, “stress casualties”, or employees disappearing for months at a time as a result of burnout, became the norm. The games suffer, too; Cyberpunk 2077 was widely panned by critics upon release for bugs that were largely caused by crunched developers. Although such hits as Fortnite, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Uncharted 4 may have been made possible by 70–100 hour work weeks, many equally successful games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Hades were made without crunch. Furthermore, studies have shown that, on average, games made with crunch receive worse reviews, showing that crunch really does hurt a game in the long run. Although crunch may line the pockets of development studios, it hurts in the long run.

Animal Crossing

How can we address crunch culture in game development? It’s been an elephant in the room of the gaming industry for a number of years now, and very little has been done to address it. The laws that exempt development studios from paying overtime are obviously a contributing factor, and amending them may help alleviate some of the crunch crisis. Many developers are also currently attempting to unionize. However, the most important reason the crunch crisis continues is that gamers continue to allow it to happen. Gamers must boycott games that are made with crunch, and send a message to studios that we will not allow routine abuse of workers. Moreso, the gaming community’s toxic response to delays must stop; even outside of the extreme cases of death threats, gamers build hype to such a point that delays are demonized and discouraged. If the gaming community learns to put aside its demons and work towards developer rights, the crunch crisis could end; but until then, it continues to plague development culture everywhere.