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There are a few things more exciting to gamers than the launch of a hotly anticipated new title,

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but even with on sale dates announced far in advance, you'll hear tales of development studios

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having to delay their launches or forcing their employees into something called crunch time

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in order to hit a street date. But what does crunch time consist of? And why does it even happen?

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Development crunch is when programmers and other employees have to put in extra hours at work

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in order to meet a deadline. If you're working in another field like law or sales where a time

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sensitive projects are often the norm, then you know this isn't a new concept. But development

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crunch has made headlines lately in mainstream media as video games have exploded in popularity in

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general. But even in the gaming world, the modern history of development crunch goes back at least

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to 2004, when the spouse of an EA employee famously wrote a letter detailing how crunch

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time workers were on the job for 13 hours a day, seven days a week, without even being offered

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any additional compensation or time off. Even now, 100 hour work weeks are not uncommon in the

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development world during crunch time, with one infamous example being how telltale games laid

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off a couple hundred employees right after some of them were on the job until three in the morning

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to finish working on The Walking Dead. But why have crunches that demand so much from workers

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become so common? Well, the difficulty studios face from getting a game out on time comes in part

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from how many moving pieces there are from the technical side of things to art and design to

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testing. Together, these mean that delays in any one part of the studio can have a ripple effect

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down the line. For example, a small bug in the game's code may not become evident until it causes

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problems for other departments that rely on that code. And oftentimes identifying and fixing a bug

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is a time consuming process. And because game design is so collaborative, it becomes tricky for

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the folks who work on games to push back against crunch time business practices. Unlike a traditional

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blue collar field like manufacturing, where there are typically bright lines between workers and

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management, the fact that game studio employees are expected to be creative problem solvers

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blurs those lines, especially as game companies, much like other tech firms, tend to have go-getter

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cultures in which workers often feel like they have to keep up with the most dedicated employees

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lest they be seen as low performing. Many folks who work in game development tend to be relatively

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young and have flexible schedules. So although crunch time is unpleasant, these employees might

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feel that their employers won't have much sympathy for them, wanting to use their free time for non

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work purposes if a deadline is looming. And obviously there's nothing wrong with working

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hard or expecting employees to do so. But many are concerned that the development industry has taken

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this concept to an extreme, especially as mistakes tend to pile up when workers don't have enough

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time to rest or pursue other activities, since coding requires a high degree of concentration

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that's harder to pull off when you're stressed or sleep deprived. But development crunch can result

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in an on time release instead of months after the promised date. So despite calls for change that

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include everything from a labor union for game developers to closing legal loopholes that allow

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companies to refuse paid overtime, crunch remains a common practice in the industry because the

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business model of many studios has shifted away from cranking out lots of separate titles and

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toward concentrating on a few popular franchises and profiting off continuous DLC releases.

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Consumer demand for frequent game updates is quite high, meaning studios are always fighting

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deadlines. This pressure on devs to keep up with their competitors also means 11th hour requests

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for changes are common for management, which often require more crunch time. The good news,

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however, is that with more attention brought to the issue, a number of large studios have begun

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to explore ways to reduce the burden of crunch time. In the meantime, though, if you happen to

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know someone who works in game development, a little emotional support can go a long way.