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Crunch meaning game industry6/20/2023 ![]() There is a long history of overwork in the video game industry, first brought to public attention with the open letter signed by EA_spouse (EA referring to the publisher Electronic Arts). Workers then began telling reporters that evening that weekend work has been going on for at least a year. Schreier reported that workers had been put on mandatory six-day workweeks right up until the new launch date. and I actually would for us to also be known for treating developers with respect.” He confirmed this sentiment in another interview a few months later.įlash forward to September 2020, two missed deadlines into the production of Cyberpunk 2077, and the message from CD Projekt Red changed. Marcin Iwiński, the company’s cofounder, explained that they would be introducing a “non-obligatory crunch policy. As Jason Schreier reported in 2019, this was initially the case with CD Projekt Red. Some companies have publicly come out against the practice. In recent years, overwork in the gaming industry, known as “crunch,” has made headlines. Its parent company also owns GOG, a digital storefront for games that does not use anti-piracy measures, and has a number of other policies that make it popular with consumers. In part because of this growing awareness, CD Projekt Red has gone out of its way to cultivate its reputation as one of the “good” video game companies. The fact that crunch is so widespread means it is not an emergency measure in the gaming industry, but a feature of it. Over that time, numerous scandals around overwork have popped up, with games like Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 facing justified criticism for the atrocious working conditions under which they are made (though the pushback hasn’t, of course, stopped it and games like it from selling millions of copies). For example, Cyberpunk 2077 has been in development for at least seven years, with over five hundred workers involved. These titles can involve thousands of workers and take many years to complete. Companies have been making games since the 1970s, and the scope and size has greatly increased in recent years. The video game industry is no longer a “new” industry. Given the topic of CD Projekt Red’s new game, the irony of mandatory overtime should not be lost on anyone familiar with the origins of cyberpunk. Yet the company missed the initial launch date of Apwhich would have been just in time for the pandemic lockdown - then missed a September deadline, passed one in November, and are now aiming for a December launch.ĭespite the huge budget for the game, workers are now being asked to work longer hours and weekends in order to finish it. According to a recent report, the company has spent $121 million developing the game and other unannounced projects. One of the big upcoming titles, CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077, has illustrated many of the industry’s contradictions. As marketing and advertising budgets continue to rise, ensuring a game is ready to launch on time has become critical. ![]() Like the film industry, deadlines are important for making money out of video games. With this growing audience for video games, companies are identifying new ways to make money from the industry. With this increased interest, they’re seen as offering more than just an opportunity to corrupt young minds - as evidenced, for example, by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s and Ilhan Omar’s recent Twitch streams of Among Us to promote voting. Before lockdown, they had already become a mainstream cultural activity, but political debates about the role of the medium had only just begun to develop beyond panic about violence and immorality. Video games have provided an escape for many during the pandemic. These changes are particularly notable as spending often declines before the launch of a new generation of consoles, which both Microsoft and Sony are planning this month. In April alone, the increases were 73 percent for games, 163 percent for hardware, and 46 percent for accessories. ![]() The quarantine has given many of us the chance to play more video games, particularly when some of us are now “working” from home.įollowing the lockdown, US consumer spending on video games reached a second-quarter (from April to June) high of $11.6 billion, an increase of 30 percent from the previous year. The continuing COVID-19 pandemic has proven disastrous for many sectors, yet the video game industry is continuing to boom. ![]()
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