There's been a great deal of discussion this year about the overworking of video game developers in order to meet release dates, otherwise known as crunch. Those conversations came to a head again this past week when The Last of Us Part 2 swept this year’s Game Awards, including the award for “Best Game Direction.” Now, co-creator of Duke Nukem and director of the infamous Duke Nukem Forever has offered his perspective to the discussion.
Many are taking umbrage with The Last of Us Part 2, which was reportedly made under an incredible amount of crunch, winning the award for Best Game Direction. Many feel that allowing one’s team to become so overworked is, by definition, bad directing. Gaming website Kotaku ran an opinion piece titled, “Games Made Under Crunch Conditions Don’t Deserve ‘Best Direction’ Awards” which gained a lot of traction on Twitter over the weekend. So much traction, that one of the creators of Duke Nukem felt the need to respond.
Duke Nukem co-creator George Broussard tweeted on Friday that the writer of the aforementioned Kotaku article, Ian Walker, has, “no idea what it takes to ship world beating AAA games” and that the reports of “disgruntled ex-employees” are nothing compared to the many who still work at a developer like Naughty Dog and say nothing. Broussard also adds that “comparing a 20-man indie to a 300-person studio is stupid,” referring to developer Supergiant Games, which was also nominated for Best Game Direction for its work on Hades and has received a lot of positive attention for its anti-crunch work approach.
In further replies to his initial tweet, Broussard summarizes that AAA development with 300-person teams is, “a very hard problem & things happen & timelines slip” and that, “it’s not all bad management.” Broussard feels that the Kotaku article vilifies Naughty Dog and was “attacking” the studio after it just won an award merely for clicks. It is a commonly held belief that the current cycle of crunching to meet deadlines in order to please publishers and investors is just how the games industry functions, and that nothing can be done about it.
Jason Schreier, a games journalist known for his impactful reporting on crunch at developers like Rockstar Games, quote tweeted Broussard and suggested that the attitude of “things happen” is part of what allows this cycle of crunch to continue. He wonders that if all developers were allowed “a seat at the table” if things could be different, alluding to his previously published beliefs that developers should have unions, similar to the ones those who work in TV and film are a part of.
An ex-technical artist from Crystal Dynamics, who worked on Rise of the Tomb Raider, named Derrick Barth replied to Schreier's tweet, suggesting that the issue of crunch could truly only be solved if the very fundamentals of game AAA development were altered. He suggests a focus on early prototyping of games before they turn into full AAA projects could save developers a lot of time and grief later on in the development pipeline.
Jason Schreier is right in that the first step to changing the problematic system of crunch in the games industry starts with everyone in the games industry having a voice. Hopefully, that can be the case someday soon.