If you want happier developers producing better games, here’s what you need to know about the causes and consequences of crunching. However, crunching has damaging consequences for game quality, developers’ health, and brands’ reputation - and both sector insiders and the gaming community are beginning to push back against crunch culture. Many developers enter the gaming industry knowing it has a reputation for terrible work-life balance - but accept it as a fair price for following their passion. Wondering what the big deal is? You might have internalized the crunch culture. Change from the top is necessary to implement many of these improvements.

We must come together to improve our industry and ensure it is supportive of the wonderful creatives who fuel it. Just as DEI policies are necessary to protect our talent, so are anti-crunch policies, particularly when we are seeing record profits. But their 2021 Developer Satisfaction Survey has found it’s on the rise, causing them to call for decisive leadership to control and reverse this detrimental trend. If crunching in games development doesn’t guarantee good results, why does it continue to be a prevailing trait in games development?Īccording to the IGDA, crunch had been decreasing year on year. Others - such as Overkill’s The Walking Dead and Bioware’s Anthem - have failed to deliver. Some of these ‘crunch games’ - like Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Fortnite, and Fallout 4 - have gone on to critical acclaim and commercial success. For decades, high-profile games have been tarnished by reports of excessively long work hours, unpaid overtime, and ‘stress casualties’. Crunching isn’t a new concept in games development.

Crunch meaning video game