Apex Legends Game Director Issues Firm Rebuke of Crunch Culture
Recently, CD Projekt Red came under fire after it emerged that staff had been forced to crunch for weeks or even months to finish Cyberpunk 2077. (Despite the studio’s management breaking promises not to rely on the practice.) Now, Respawn has come out firmly against the practice. Apex Legends Game Director Chad Grenier today issued a formal statement explaining why the studio refuses to crunch.
Apex Legends: “Quality Content at a Healthy Pace”
“We also refuse to crunch the team,” writes Grenier; “so we’ll probably be slower at making content than if we worked 15 hour days but that’s just not something we’re willing to do. We have nearly doubled our team size since launch to accommodate the content demands, so we’re really trying to bring you quality content at a healthy pace.”
Without a doubt, Grenier’s stance should serve as an example of how to handle a demand for new content well. Far too many big studios have long relied on crunch in order to meet unreasonably short deadlines; forcing staff to work huge periods of overtime, often without a choice. Indeed, CD Projekt Red is currently facing serious criticism for crunch on the development of Cyberpunk 2077. After crunching during the development of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, studio management promised that it would never happen again. However, they explicitly broke that promise last month; six-day weeks have become mandatory for development staff.
Past examples have clearly shown that most fans are happier to see a release delayed than have it rushed out unfinished or untested. The most obvious example of this is certainly Fallout 76, but there have been plenty of other examples. That same standard should also apply to the wellbeing of the developers who worked on it. Indeed, many gamers do already feel this way, but crunch conditions often go unheard about. Hopefully, Grenier’s statement and other recent instances of crunch making headlines will spur efforts at unionisation in the video game industry; one key way to prevent big studios from exploiting their staff in such a manner.