WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.560 There are a few things more exciting to gamers than the launch of a hotly anticipated new title, 00:00:04.560 --> 00:00:09.520 but even with on sale dates announced far in advance, you'll hear tales of development studios 00:00:09.520 --> 00:00:14.560 having to delay their launches or forcing their employees into something called crunch time 00:00:14.560 --> 00:00:20.240 in order to hit a street date. But what does crunch time consist of? And why does it even happen? 00:00:20.240 --> 00:00:25.200 Development crunch is when programmers and other employees have to put in extra hours at work 00:00:25.200 --> 00:00:29.600 in order to meet a deadline. If you're working in another field like law or sales where a time 00:00:29.600 --> 00:00:34.640 sensitive projects are often the norm, then you know this isn't a new concept. But development 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:40.800 crunch has made headlines lately in mainstream media as video games have exploded in popularity in 00:00:40.800 --> 00:00:45.600 general. But even in the gaming world, the modern history of development crunch goes back at least 00:00:45.600 --> 00:00:51.600 to 2004, when the spouse of an EA employee famously wrote a letter detailing how crunch 00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:56.720 time workers were on the job for 13 hours a day, seven days a week, without even being offered 00:00:56.720 --> 00:01:02.960 any additional compensation or time off. Even now, 100 hour work weeks are not uncommon in the 00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:07.760 development world during crunch time, with one infamous example being how telltale games laid 00:01:07.760 --> 00:01:12.880 off a couple hundred employees right after some of them were on the job until three in the morning 00:01:12.880 --> 00:01:17.840 to finish working on The Walking Dead. But why have crunches that demand so much from workers 00:01:17.840 --> 00:01:24.160 become so common? Well, the difficulty studios face from getting a game out on time comes in part 00:01:24.160 --> 00:01:29.440 from how many moving pieces there are from the technical side of things to art and design to 00:01:29.440 --> 00:01:35.520 testing. Together, these mean that delays in any one part of the studio can have a ripple effect 00:01:35.520 --> 00:01:41.120 down the line. For example, a small bug in the game's code may not become evident until it causes 00:01:41.120 --> 00:01:46.880 problems for other departments that rely on that code. And oftentimes identifying and fixing a bug 00:01:46.880 --> 00:01:51.840 is a time consuming process. And because game design is so collaborative, it becomes tricky for 00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:57.120 the folks who work on games to push back against crunch time business practices. Unlike a traditional 00:01:57.120 --> 00:02:01.920 blue collar field like manufacturing, where there are typically bright lines between workers and 00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:06.960 management, the fact that game studio employees are expected to be creative problem solvers 00:02:06.960 --> 00:02:12.880 blurs those lines, especially as game companies, much like other tech firms, tend to have go-getter 00:02:12.880 --> 00:02:17.840 cultures in which workers often feel like they have to keep up with the most dedicated employees 00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:22.880 lest they be seen as low performing. Many folks who work in game development tend to be relatively 00:02:22.880 --> 00:02:27.840 young and have flexible schedules. So although crunch time is unpleasant, these employees might 00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:33.840 feel that their employers won't have much sympathy for them, wanting to use their free time for non 00:02:33.840 --> 00:02:38.720 work purposes if a deadline is looming. And obviously there's nothing wrong with working 00:02:38.720 --> 00:02:44.720 hard or expecting employees to do so. But many are concerned that the development industry has taken 00:02:44.720 --> 00:02:49.840 this concept to an extreme, especially as mistakes tend to pile up when workers don't have enough 00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:55.360 time to rest or pursue other activities, since coding requires a high degree of concentration 00:02:55.360 --> 00:03:00.880 that's harder to pull off when you're stressed or sleep deprived. But development crunch can result 00:03:00.880 --> 00:03:07.120 in an on time release instead of months after the promised date. So despite calls for change that 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:12.480 include everything from a labor union for game developers to closing legal loopholes that allow 00:03:12.480 --> 00:03:18.960 companies to refuse paid overtime, crunch remains a common practice in the industry because the 00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:23.760 business model of many studios has shifted away from cranking out lots of separate titles and 00:03:23.760 --> 00:03:29.840 toward concentrating on a few popular franchises and profiting off continuous DLC releases. 00:03:29.840 --> 00:03:35.040 Consumer demand for frequent game updates is quite high, meaning studios are always fighting 00:03:35.040 --> 00:03:40.560 deadlines. This pressure on devs to keep up with their competitors also means 11th hour requests 00:03:40.560 --> 00:03:45.680 for changes are common for management, which often require more crunch time. The good news, 00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:50.720 however, is that with more attention brought to the issue, a number of large studios have begun 00:03:50.720 --> 00:03:56.160 to explore ways to reduce the burden of crunch time. In the meantime, though, if you happen to 00:03:56.160 --> 00:04:00.960 know someone who works in game development, a little emotional support can go a long way.