Frontier - Please don't make your developers crunch

[Promethien]

I honestly didn't know, as I said several times, whether or not Frontier used crunch time or not. I am a creative person myself and had been reading about this crunch issue and was horrified at how bad it is and how widespread the problem is. I honestly don't think I could have enjoyed the game if I knew that was going on at Frontier. I just wanted to bring some awareness to the community and let Frontier know about my concerns. I didn't at any point accuse Frontier of anything.

The thing is you are saying unless it was confirmed you wouldn't have been able to enjoy the game. That means you were starting from the assumption that they were doing something you considered horrible. You started from the point of insulting the dev's integrity. Do you do that with everybody you meet? The only way you could justify this awful assumption at baseline is if you start at that point with every person you encounter.

 

[Swjosdotschka]

Phew... really, I'm sure Imagin had the best of intention with the inital post. There is absolutely nothing wrong with worrying for the health of people and to mention that over-working is often a problem these days.
While for me the thread went a bid too dramatic in the long run, attacking Imagin now for the initial idea and intention of this thread is a bit over the top as well. The only thing this thread tells us about him / her is, that he/she cares for the well-being of people. I'm sure for people around him / her as well. Nothing more and nothing less.

There was no harm done to Frontier with this thread at all. All what was done is showing that some of us do care about the humans behind that game and not only about the product.

That said: Personally I trust in Frontier being respectful with their employees. Crunch-time and deadlines are hard. In every job, mine included. I can tell you, as long as it's not for the rest of your work life, it isn't always problematic and in some cases can even be healthy and fun.

 

[Imagin]

The thing is you are saying unless it was confirmed you wouldn't have been able to enjoy the game. That means you were starting from the assumption that they were doing something you considered horrible. You started from the point of insulting the dev's integrity. Do you do that with everybody you meet? The only way you could justify this awful assumption at baseline is if you start at that point with every person you encounter.

I was actually championing the devs. I was questioning upper management asking them not to make the developers crunch - the very title of this post. The reason for my concern was the numerous articles and videos I posted showing the prevalence of brutal crunch time in the gaming industry.

 

[Redoran]

It sounds like your father has it better than most. If you read any of the articles or videos I posted about it you'd know that it's a heck of a lot more than like pulling an all-nighter studying for a test. It goes on for a lot longer than one night and it's not paid work. Game companies shouldn't get away with it and customers shouldn't support it.

I agree with you, I would also rather wait a bit longer for a game - especially one that I already know I'm going to love and play for years like Planet Zoo - than have the developers - the people who there would be no games without - abused with crunch time.

I know that crunch is worse than just an all-nighter, I’ve seen the months and months of crunch and the toll it takes. I’m just saying that it, like an all-nighter, is sometimes needed to get a project past the finish line. Usually it can be avoided by careful planning. And it shouldn’t be relied upon or planned, just like how a teacher shouldn’t assign work expecting all students to be able to pull all-nighters to finish it. In my hopes crunch would be abolished for all game studios everywhere. I don’t care if I get a later game as long as I can be sure the people working on it are treated like human beings. Many game studios have a toxic work culture where overworking is seen as a badge of honour, a kind of macho “I survived this crap” thing. I hope Frontier isn’t one of them.

 

[Imagin]

I know that crunch is worse than just an all-nighter, I’ve seen the months and months of crunch and the toll it takes. I’m just saying that it, like an all-nighter, is sometimes needed to get a project past the finish line. Usually it can be avoided by careful planning. And it shouldn’t be relied upon or planned, just like how a teacher shouldn’t assign work expecting all students to be able to pull all-nighters to finish it. In my hopes crunch would be abolished for all game studios everywhere. I don’t care if I get a later game as long as I can be sure the people working on it are treated like human beings. Many game studios have a toxic work culture where overworking is seen as a badge of honour, a kind of macho “I survived this crap” thing. I hope Frontier isn’t one of them.

Exactly. The people who make the decision that devs do crunch time are not the people who actually have to do the crunch time. Months of crunch time is never needed to get a project past the finish line because you can also choose to move the finish line. That is my point in this thread - that it is better to delay a project than to make the devs crunch. I feel the same as you, that I would much prefer to get the game late and know that no one was forced into crunch time, or felt that it was expected of them and they had no choice if they wanted to keep their job.

I stumbled over this on Glassdoor trying to find out more about Frontier's policies about crunch time. There will always be a few disgruntled employees, but overall I think Frontier isn't the worst out there, although there is mention of scheduled crunch. Still, they come out pretty good overall in these actual employee reviews:

Frontier Developments Reviews

38 Frontier Developments reviews. A free inside look at company reviews and salaries posted anonymously by employees.

www.glassdoor.ca