COGconnected Writes: George Broussard, the co-creator of Duke Nukem, had a scathing response to a Kotaku article about crunch, telling the author/site to 'f*** off.'
"It was so offensive to me"
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I don't understand why people keep trying to defend crunch in the industry when we've had articles here and there of the mental toll it's taken on some people, Nobody would want to work under bad conditions.
He made Duke Nukem Forever, it was in development for so long and went through multiple game engines so he really shouldn't be talking about game management.
Crunch is not a video game exclusive thing, but people think yammering on about it will ever magically fix it. People are attacking him under the pretense he's supporting it, and regardless if he is or isn't, just being against it does absolutely nothing for anyone. Complaints and boycotts can not fix this because it is connected to many different parts of a game. You either have a publisher with a deadline, a contract with a deadline, funding with limited budget, shareholders, or you have to time the completion to be at the perfect time. If all those aspects are altered and expectations from audiences are changed, then maybe we can talk about relaxing crunch only in the video game industry. It will still be in other industries because everyone needs to cut it close with work because otherwise you're spending more money and time.
People are too naive to think just complaining and protesting on Twitter or anywhere for that matter will just somehow fix it. Being indifferent to it is fine considering how ingrained it is. They are also complaining to one studio or publisher, instead of a collective. Which does nothing again.
What people are forgetting is that in an interview Naughty Dog mentioned they literally tried to bann overtime and staying late and their employees got angry and threatened to quit!! They hire OCD workaholics that pump out masterpieces.
Worker’s rights have improved over the decades and every time somebody says “that’s the job, get over it” before more rights are gained. well the rights weren’t gained by saying that shit. It takes the same energy to call for better and more worker’s rights as it does telling workers to accept what’s handed to them, so why choose the later? Especially when you aren’t even in a position to benefit from labor. YOU are also a laborer. Worker solidarity, people.
Try working in the health or restaurant industry lol. A good friend of mine is a paramedic, and she regularly works 24 hour shifts, and has to sometimes watch people die in front of her. Doesn't get paid as much as any dev. Or cooks/restuarant managers, where normal shifts are easily 12 hours on your feet with very few, if any breaks. Or manual labor in general, literally back breaking work. Someday, hopefully, automation will make it so humans have to work far less, but for the moment, you know what they say about death and taxes.