What is "Crunch
Time"?
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary the definition of
"Crunch Time" is as follows:
"a critical moment or period (as near the end of a game) when
decisive action is needed"
For the development team working in video game industry the "Game
Crunch" means to work extra hours to release the game on schedule.
What is the origin of
"Crunch Time"?
The term and problem of "Crunch
Time" was brought to public attention in November 2004 with an anonymous
blog post under the name "EA Spouse" (in 2006 the identity of the
poster was revealed to be Erin Hoffman - fiance of one of the EA developers).
It was a written protest against the labor practices of Electronic Arts and the
negative impact it had on its employees. This post went viral and has led to
many discussions in the video game industry, yet there were no visible changes
until March 2005, when Electronic Arts revealed their plan to extend overtime
pay to some of the employees.
The similar problem was brought to public
attention in 2010 with a letter addressed to Rockstar Games by the significant others
of developers at Rockstar San Diego. The letter, similarly to the post from
2004, was a complaint about the working conditions caused by the "Game
Crunch" and the damage it has done during that time. It appears though
that this letter didn't have an impact on the company, because the same
problem arose recently near the release of Red Dead Redemption 2.
How to solve this
problem?
I believe that the seed of the problem lies in
people's distorted view of what the "Game Crunch" really is. There
are many companies that boast about the amount of hours their employees work weekly just
before the release of the game. People see it as a virtue, a sign of hard
work and a proof of their dedication to create a great product. People are
blind to the other side of the coin and companies use it in their favor. To solve
this problem the employees that are subjected to the infamous
"Crunch" have to speak loud about the issue and we as consumers have
to listen to them. That in my opinion is one of many ways that can solve this
problem.
These are my questions
for you:
- What are your thoughts on "Crunch Time"?
- Have you ever experienced it? How did you feel during that period?
- How would you solve this problem?
Source:
- https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2018/01/16/crunch-the-video-game-industrys-notorious-labor-problem.aspx
- https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/mbkm33/we-asked-nintendo-microsoft-and-12-other-devs-how-they-deal-with-crunch
- https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-10-19-how-to-avoid-video-game-development-crunch
- https://kotaku.com/crunch-time-why-game-developers-work-such-insane-hours-1704744577
- https://kotaku.com/inside-rockstar-games-culture-of-crunch-1829936466
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_developer
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Hoffman
- https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crunch%20time
Comments
I haven’t experienced Crunch Time at my company but I definitely experienced it in my other endeavours, such as personal projects and studying. I knew I had to go through that period in order to achieve the results I expect and I always felt completely exhausted after that.
I once again agree with Bartosz that the Crunch Time could be addressed by accounting for it during the planning of your project, by managing it well and by noticing its symptoms early enough.
I think the "crunch time" is a result of a poorly planned or handled process, which assumptions and objectives were determined as an overall management of people's work and their responsibilities.
Have you ever experienced it? How did you feel during that period?
Yes, I have experienced this once at my work when deadline was next day and we had still a lot of work to do. Honestly, I did not take it to myself as I did not have any plans for that night, but the fact I had to stay all night at work because of someone's laziness did not feel good.
How would you solve this problem?
When it comes to this type of situation it is already too late, because time passes independently of us or our decisions. The best thing to do is just to accept current situation and focus on delivering our work the best we are able to.
I have never experienced it, but to fight it rather I would try to set up an entire schedule to solve everything ahead of time.
Although I know that some things come out for a walk and we do not change them. It is often caused by the person managing the work, then we can change such a person and maybe it will give something; p
I did experience crunch time a couple of times, and it certainly isn't pleasant - the constant pressure of approaching deadlines as well as the constant need to work result in high stress, which is only compounded by the lack of time for sleep or relaxation.
There is no easy solution to dealing with crunch time, but it is possible to deal with it to an extent. Among possible solutions are delaying the release date as well as hiring more employees to lessen the workload on individual employees, but doing these things is easier said than done.
- I think it concerns not only game development but the whole industry. It is just a consequence of bad project management and lack of communication
Have you ever experienced it? How did you feel during that period?
- No. I would consider changing job if I had
How would you solve this problem?
- More communication with client/product owner. Change software development Paradigms/methodologies to different or more agile.
Yes, I’ve experienced the crunch time. With few projects and especially with my diploma project, which was a computer game. It was a hard time, but that was our fault. We just discussed our problems with the team, made a few important decisions, made a plan of future work and worked hard. This is the only way to make it work.
Probably we can solve this problem by do the list what we must do in which week and create fake deadline earlier to have few weeks to polish something.
Most frequently "Crunch" comes from bad project management and from having overambitious concept towards to fund.
Personally, I didn't experienced this phenomenon yet. Of course, some weeks in my work were harder, sometimes I need to stay longer, but generally that were single situations.
In my opinion, it is impossible to completely erase "Crunch" from work hours, but we can minimize chances of occur and mitigate its fallout. Base way to do this is to have good project management and limited requirements towards to project.
I think that it's unfair of the company when it's not providing extra help / money to employees during that time. I think that companies shouldn't overuse employees time and dedication as you've said. Companies should care more about employees during that period of time.
Have you ever experienced it? How did you feel during that period?
Yes, I'm young employee with half of year experience and I experienced this "period" once. It was really stressful and exchausting. Time was as I said really hard, I was close to drop it all, but I managed to organize myself and decided "just to do it". After all we all got a nice aplause from manager, overtime money etc, but I miss psychologist help during that time, it can really break someone's mind.
How would you solve this problem?
I'd pay more attention to employees stress and psychical condition.
Feeling during the crunch is the worst ever, u feel ever exhausted running mostly on coffee and quick snacks, u feel like shit, what comes after is a relief and much needed sleep.
The problem with "Crunches" is when they are done they should be implemented if ever in the middle of the projects not only at the end. We use them to finalize things instead of to "make things testable" for future polishing what comes of end of the line crunches are buggy messes that need future work.
Actually, I experience it now. I’m just at the end of the project and it has to be ready on time, but I’m still behind. How I feel? Not good, to be honest, but focused and determined.
Better time management is the key for success in my opinion. You should do as much as possible in the early part of project development. Then, you will have more time for fixing bugs before the release.
I have experienced it once but then company gave us then some payed days off as a "thank you for your involvement".
To solve this problem I would start from good planning and being able to create realistic deadlines.