Speaking with Gamesindustry.biz, Uncharted creator Amy Hennig, an outspoken critic of crunch time in games development, spoke about the idea of unionizing in the games industry.
“I don’t think unionizing is actually the answer because most people do it out of a passion for what they’re doing. They need to be protected by the people that are running the studios and the projects to make sure crunch is discouraged.”
Furthermore, she goes on to say that she isn’t anti-union. “I believe that the key creatives that make up the hub of [a project] are going to become more like free agents as they are in the film business. And I think that will force the change sooner than some sort of unionization around crunch is going to.”
What’s Crunch?
Crunch in games development is having to work long hours everyday in order to meet deadlines and avoid delays. Thus, developers can get overworked and have to work on weekends and holidays. Additionally, in another Gamesindustry.biz article, Amy Hennig said crunch can affect a developer’s relationships. “There’s people who don’t go home to see their families. They have children who are growing up without seeing them”. Amy goes on to say health can be affected too. “My health really declined, and I had to take care of myself, because it was, like, bad. And there were people who, y’know, collapsed, or had to go and check themselves in somewhere when one of these games were done. Or they got divorced. That’s not okay, any of that. None of this is worth that.”
Where to go from here
From the sounds of it, there’s no easy way to avoid crunch. It’ll be interesting to see if crunch time decreases over the next few years. As gamers, it’s important to understand how much work and manpower goes into making the games we play every day.