In particular, AAA game development is infamous for its ‘crunch culture,’ where the video game industry is known for. When it comes to big budget games, development studios need long hours and weekend work from employees as release deadlines near. It’s called a “crunch” and it’s been a big deal for the video game industry and the workforce.
What is Crunch Culture?
Crunch culture refers to the expectation that video game developers work long hours, including weekends and evenings, to meet looming deadlines. Even smaller companies like AAA gaming studio have reported these intense working conditions. During a crunch period:
Employees may work 60-80+ hours per week for weeks or months leading up to a game’s launch date.
- Paid overtime is rare, meaning extra hours are essentially unpaid.
- Working weekends and nights becomes the norm.
- Taking time off can be frowned upon or disallowed.
This intense workload is seen as a necessary part of the job in the competitive AAA game industry, where release timing is everything. Shipping a game on time takes priority over personal lives and health.
Crunch has been called the “industry’s open secret”—it’s widely known that crunch happens but rarely discussed openly. Critics say this acceptance of crunch culture leads to the exploitation of passionate developers.
Key Factors That Lead to Crunch Culture
With in total of 211.4 billion U.S. dollars (+46.43 percent), the worldwide income in the ‘Games’ area of the media business was projected to keep rising between 2024 and 2029. The revenue is expected to reach 666.69 billion U.S. dollars following the seventh straight rising year, therefore attaining a new peak in 2029.
These figures prove that the crisis must be overcome because the industry is developing more and more. Crunch culture stems from both studio practices and industry pressures:
Unrealistic Deadlines
Release timing is vital for any AAA video game, as competition is fierce. Key sales periods like holidays put pressure on release dates. If a deadline seems unattainable, it won’t necessarily get extended in favor of protecting worker wellbeing. This trickles down to developers.
Scope Creep
As new gameplay ideas emerge and technology improves during a game’s multi-year development, studios can be tempted to add more features. However, this scope creep makes existing deadlines harder to hit.
Fear of Delay
Studios fear that delaying a game will cause consumers to lose interest and erode trust in the studio. Therefore, release timing takes priority over addressing development roadblocks or staff burnout.
Passion Exploitation
Developers are often gamers who dream of making games. Studios can exploit employees’ passions, making them feel that a crunch is mandatory if they wish to remain in the industry.
Job Insecurity
The video game industry is volatile, and layoffs are common, even after major releases. This lack of job security further enables a crunch culture; developers feel that working long hours is expected and necessary to keep their jobs.
The Impact of Crunch on Game Developers
Crunch culture extracts a significant human cost from game developers:
Deteriorating Health. The health consequences of sustained crunch time are diverse, including fatigue, sleep deprivation, mood changes, depression, and more. Musculoskeletal issues are also common, with little time for breaks.
Burnout and Talent Drain. Many developers simply burn out from endless crunch. Talented creators end up leaving the industry earlier than planned seeking better work-life balance. This drain of talent can impact game quality.
Lowered Motivation. Overwork undermines employee morale and engagement. Developers lose their energy and passion for projects after months of crunch.
Poor Work-Life Balance. With the crunch allowing little time for friends, family, and personal needs, developers struggle to maintain balance, and their relationships and home life suffer.
Lack of Diversity and Inclusion. The excessive demands of crunch make the game industry less accessible to working parents, people with disabilities, and others requiring work-life balance, reducing diversity.
Signs of Change: Recent Steps to Address Crunch
After greater focus on the issue in recent years, some studios are taking measures to eliminate or reduce reliance on crunch:
Delaying Release Dates. A few major studios have chosen to postpone releases rather than scramble developers to meet original timelines. This signals a shift in priorities.
No Mandatory Overtime Policies. Leaders like Epic Games, EA, and Ubisoft have introduced policies explicitly banning or limiting mandatory overtime. This makes crunch technically voluntary, although peer pressure remains.
Unionization Efforts. Developers organizing labor unions at studios allow workers to advocate for health, pay, and anti-crunch measures collectively.
Public Commitments. Studio executives from Sony, Nintendo, and others have made public pledges to prevent excessive overtime and prioritize employee well-being. Accountability pressures them to follow through.
Workforce Expansion. Scaling up staff and scope appropriately to release goals makes crunch less of an inevitability. However, this approach is costly upfront.
Looking Ahead: Culture Change Required
Recent steps indicate positive momentum, but eliminating the root causes of the crunch requires a fundamental transformation of studio cultures:
Realistic Planning from the Start
Unrealistic deadlines stem from flawed planning. Leaders must staff, scope, schedule, and budget projects pragmatically from the start to avoid unreasonable expectations. Mastery of production planning fundamentals is critical. Many studios underplant initially due to optimism bias or competing priorities. But investing more rigor here pays dividends through sustainable pacing later. Planning for padding, flexibility around features, and workforce scaling sets up teams for success.
Focus on Sustainable Pace
The excessive demands of crunch often stem from efficiency obsession – studios attempt to squeeze every hour out of developers to maximize output. However, this myopic approach damages long-term retention and health. Leaders need to enable sustainable pacing instead. Some periods of heightened intensity may organically occur, but the baseline should be 40 hours, not 60 or 80. Short-term gains shouldn’t undermine the entire team and project’s stamina in the long haul.
Value People Over Passion
Studios can no longer exploit employee passion as a substitute for investing in healthy, supportive working conditions and appropriate rewards. Workers give their best work when they feel valued, not when passion is relied on to compensate for overwork. Passion runs out; value and balance promote retention.
Respect for Personal Lives
Flexible schedules, remote work options, caregiving supports, and clear boundaries around off-hours communications enable better work-life balance. Leaders must move beyond giving lip service to respect for personal lives. They need to question assumptions baked into studio cultures, implement policy/training, and model balance themselves. Workers are whole people with multifaceted lives and needs.
Incentives That Deter Crunch
Standard industry bonus and royalty incentive structures currently reward shipping games at all costs above other measures. Changing these frameworks could help deter crunch by design. More holistic goals around sustainability, mastery, innovation and work-life balance should factor into assessments and rewards.
With these types of authentic culture changes, studios can unravel decades of excessive crunch. However, leaders must back up any public commitments with lasting transformation, not just gestures.
The Bottom Line
Crunch takes a drastic toll on video game developers in exchange for faster release turnarounds. As pressure builds for the industry to address engrained issues around unhealthy overwork, positive gestures toward balance indicate a turning tide.
However, studios must back up public commitments with lasting culture change rooted in realistic production planning, sustainable pacing, and workforce health prioritization. Without genuine transformation, reliance on crunch will persist due to the structure of incentives and deadlines. By taking accountability and implementing both policy and culture changes, studio leaders have an opportunity to make the AAA game industry accessible, equitable, and creatively sustainable.
