The Crunch Culture Conundrum
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- Опубликовано: 1 май 2024
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Final thoughts:
I wish I had instead mentioned a company besides Nintendo at the end. Their track record isn't great... for god's sake, Sakurai hooked himself up to an IV machine to keep working on smash. Would've been better to mention Supergiant games or something.
I'd like to thank Marty, Chris, Alex, Skymen, and everyone else who was willing to share their experience and insight. Y'all are the best, seriously.
Considerable animation assistance was provided by Villa, a frustratingly talented freelance animator currently looking for work 👀
( hi_blnd/status/13...)
Goose voiced by Brendaniel (thank u beautiful boy xoxo)( / brendanielreads )
I'm on Patreon and Twitter also;
/ legitnoodle
/ noodlevevo
Chapters:
00:00 - Foreword
2:29 - Ad break
3:13 - Important Footnote
4:03 - Chapter 1 - Gun to the Head
10:23 - Chapter 2 - The Goose
13:42 - Chapter 3 - The Gamers™
15:47 - Chapter 4 - Passion VS Mandate
21:50 - Conclusion
All the Patrons who helped fund this video:
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#sponsored #cyberpunk #lastofuspart2 #gameawards 
Игры
The irony of the crunch at CDPR is that the game is all about suits exploiting the average people and how we should rebel against it
What's also ironic is during the time the crunch was happening, the ceo or whatever said they don't have crunch anymore basically
Only in capitalism you can exploit people to make work that's supposed to upend it.
Interestingly enough, this exact scenario is repeating itself with ZOM 100 anime.
@@Kage-jk4pj Thought the same when I saw it. Capitalism can twist anything
I'm missing the irony
“Sometimes, there’s nothing like a good foie gras.”
-A guy who knows he’s a real life villain and loves it
Almost like he knew what he meant and deliberately destroyed the whole conversation, what a guy.
This comment both has me cackling and in fear cause of how accurate it is
I didn't think I was going to hear anything new from this video.
Then I heard that line.
That sounded like a genuinely good villain line, he should get an acting job
And of course he was an Activision dev
When you think about how many "AAA" games in the past years have been bugged filled, rushed and crappy experiences, crunch proves not to work.
money comes first, not quality and especially not the health of labour
@@caramelldansen2204 I don't know if that is against the argument or with the argument, but it is true.
@@doodlizeddd It is an argument against the way we currently organize production
yeah... tbh it takes a lot of time to just implement a feature and then to have it work flawlessly takes even more time. Even it's a simple feature, still takes time, and the more you add, the more interactions and so on you need to make sure works. I suppose without those crunches, those games would either never have been released or been pushed back a lot, and seeing Cyberpunk, I don't know if the community would be happy with that... Oh, and profit too, the longer it takes to release, the more the company bleeds money. Games don't make money until they release or Early access.
Hell cyberpunk took like a full fucking decade of crunch and it still came out shit
"There's nothing like a good foie gras" is so cartoonishly fucking evil I almost can't believe a real human being said that
It was said by an Activision Exec, so it makes sense and is even more disgusting
its like the kick the dog moment in a cartoon to show how evil this next villain is.
@@Data-Expungeded Dio Brando moment.
@@FrostGladerit’s literally just duck liver I don’t get it why is everyone saying it’s evil
@@crunchybro123 did you not watch the video?
The “Goose” is a metaphor for the developers. The Activision Executive basically said they’re willing to cook that Goose.
"No one's got a gun to their head"
No, they're just threatening to cut their workers off from food, power, water, and housing.
So they have a gun to their head but it kills them slowly
Tooootally not threatening at all; the fuck you mean? /s
@@parencolonthree yes
It’s not a fun it’s a poison dart
exactly. at least if you had a gun to my head and i refused your demands, my troubles would be over the moment you pulled that trigger. this is worse than a gun to your head.
The only crunch culture I like is in my breakfast cereal.
what about nachos? and hard shell taco?
i like crunchy kit Kats :)
Screw Nestle tho
Well, crunch is owned by nestlé, which doesn't care about killing children. A 2018 report found that they promote their powder milk to replace breast milk in certain countries, but breast milk helps babies build their immune system; you should understand where the problem is. When they first started doing it in Africa (in the 80s? 60s? I don't remember) they even gave free samples lasting just long enough that the mother stop producing her own milk, so that they would have no choice but to buy artificial milk. Such practices were internationally banned (at least in theory), but i guess nestlé is going to toe the line as much as it can.
Uh greed
Mojang be out there delaying one of the biggest updates yet for minecraft to avoid Crunch, deciding to split it in 2 parts and I respect that
I'm completely fine with it however sort of disappointed with it as well
Waiting 6 more months to see bigger caves is definetily better then Mojang working 18th century coal miner hours
@@aitsu_nojayjay You shouldn’t be disappointed, it’s coming, don’t worry.
I'm Glad they are delaying it, I'd rather have a delayed game then a game made with slave labor
Aw man, as much as it kinda' sucks to hear that, I'm definitely glad they did it to make sure it was done right and avoid the human cost behind it.
As great as a game can be and everything it can make and foster within it's subsequent communities, people shouldn't have to sacrifice their whole lives and wellbeing in service of it, just to keep it going.
I no joke had a psychotic episode due to crunch. I was taking adderall to keep my brain alive after virtually no sleep for a week, then my perception of reality completely warped and I erroneously assumed my roomate/ best friend was planning to kill me so I attacked him and spent 3 days in the psych ward. Thank God my friend understood and didnt press charges. Crunch isn't some back ache, or mild inconvenience, it absolutely devastates your sense of wellbeing and for what purpose? For leisurely golfing executives to make more moola. They view their workers, people, as instruments in a plan who exist only to help fatten their wallet.
What kind of job do you have
@@unuks9731 during graduate school I worked as an acute intern therapist at a psych work
Dude, I've been thru psychosis, it's fucking hell
Holy shit that must have been terrifying. Sleep deprivation and psychosis is the fucking worst. I'm glad your friend didn't press any charges
You good and talented people do not and will never deserve the shit they put you through. Know that.
This is why it always makes me really happy when fans of a game are like "Take all the time you need, you're doing great! :)" to the devs
This. I want more of this. Death threats aren't gonna fix anything, like honestly, how fucking hard is it to just be patient and instead encourage the devs to seek their own creative image of their own creative work in freedom (as it *should* be, because it's *their* product), rather than force them to crunch out a half-assed game just so the so-called """fans""" can stop blowing up their Twitter feed with death threats and psychological torture?
That should just be human decency, honestly.
@@gaetanodepaola2ndchannel179 agreed
@@hyjinx1889 agreed +
The best thing about cyberpunk is that i see this all the time now, people asking for gta VI and god of war ragnarok have disappeared, and devs are listening (halo infinite)
To bad alot of it isn't up to the devs or the fans/consumers and the executives and shareholders.... :/
I'm in the US Navy and I thought it was pretty weird how familiar this all sounded, until you said "stress casualty." Then I laughed.
HOBBES?
THE ARMY? WHY?
@@xanderpostelwait2347 Calvin can't keep a job
Lol also in the US Navy and I was looking for this comment. SSN 775 says hello
Hobbes... man that’s a nostalgia trip
Also a navy lad a bit ago. Crunch defs was just the norm and it actually changed me as a person for the worse end of things. depressed and have no drive to do anything these days. Not even stuff I like to do
i wonder how many death threats team cherry has got for silksong
never really thought about that
Oh shoot hope not many.
Pretty sure most of the HK community understand and appreciate the time team cherry is putting into silksong.
probably far more than you can imagine. I honestly hope they're taking their time and NOT crunching on it.
@@RPGgrenadei know i saw someone threatening to "spray water on the team's pillows" if they rushed it
which is fair enough, i wouldn't want my pillows to be moist :(
People are encouraging TC to take their time, and make sure the final product is great. TC themselves told a random fan at a convention that they are not crunching, and are trying to release something good over something quick
Can we all focus for a second how actually horrifying and villanesque "there's nothing like a good foie gras" is? Like, holy shit, that's an actual villain line. LITERALLY a villain line.
Felt like I was watching a disney movie for a second
Yeah, I even took notes.
Activision amirite
Never knew that lex luthor worked as an EA executive
I feel like companies purposefully hire sociopaths as their higher ups who manage the work force. You "have to" in order to make this crunch culture we're in possible. No reasonable human being is able to force that on such a massive scale
"You can't be creative if you're dead...Stay alive and stay healthy." That shit's so easy to forget but so important. Needed the reminder -- thanks.
Yes
hey I’m gonna keep the goose
High level companies' individuals are ignorant pieces of shit that think economy runs on fairy dust and artists are ammunition that they can pack into their shotgun, shoot at the wall of expansion and then just go find more bullets.
@@waxcutter9813 game designing
@@moss5356 It's not yours!
GIVE ME MY GOOSE BA~
Remember, we're not even talking about Japanese crunch culture. Because boy, it made the suicide rate super high.
japan is cool but not cool at the same time
@@tommyfroggyy_ their really just not that cool. Still haven’t apologized to China for what they did in WWII or anyone for that fact.
@One vibing cactus juice boi and his pet, lord momo is your brain in 240p
@Mr. Muhammad Iqbalyeah like a few years after the crunch culture had already established on that country
It also doesnt help that japanese men arent supposed to look weak, so they never reach out for help
Edit: Reword
Crunch culture being treated as a rite of passage reminds me of F1 fans who didn't like the halo-a safety device-when it was introduced, and one of the excuses was that "racers are gladiators" and _should_ face death.
We should get those people put in prison. Holy shit.
I feel like anyone who makes the argument that “because they aren’t forced by contract means it’s okay” has never worked an exploitative job before. this kind of stuff happens on the regular in minimum wage food service and retail. especially using the threat of putting more work on your coworkers as a way to get you to work more. I used to take shifts I couldn’t handle all the time because I knew that if I didn’t, there would be only two people managing the whole store for the night. it’s exploitative, manipulative, and uses a worker’s empathy and human connections against them. also, what about game devs who are disabled and physically cannot work long hours? are they condemned to purgatorial contract work and job hopping forever? honestly, the only hope is to make sure that developers know their rights and have a union to support them.
If they unionize, they'll pretty much just stop employing them if they raise the wages above what the margins would provide. Sure it would reduce their hours and raise their wages, but that's even more likely to bring shit products to the table.
I don't support crunch culture, but unionization will put a monopoly on the game industry and reduce employment overall, and severely diminish quality control.
I feel like you can shorten that statement to "anyone who makes that argument has never worked a job before". Even those like me who are lucky enough to work in places with excellent work-life balance don't want to be the a-hole dumping their work onto others. I feel bad for taking 2 days off when I'm on the edge of a full mental breakdown.
Video games are hugely popular with children. And I truly feel like people making arguments like that god awful "crunch vs no crunch" post just don't realise what a full time job is like. I don't think 25 year olds are throwing tantrums because a game they're hyped for gets delayed
@@AVdE10000 actually it's usually not children that do that stuff, its really just adults with no clue about game development or work, and usually they are too dumb to realize that half the problems/faults with a game, whether being delayed or having bugs/microtransactions, have absolutely nothing to do with the dev team, but rather the parasitic marketing/HR teams that are paid to suggest ways to squeeze more money out of players.
I remember trying to learn to dev for fun, only to realize how mindbogglingly difficult it was to make basic games. That made me respect devs a million times more than I did before, and it made me realize that nobody makes games for money, they do it out of passion and true devotion to the game. If I put years of work into a game, I wouldn't ruin it by adding petty microtransactions or worthless cosmetics
@@yesyes-om1po
I mean…if you’re disabled should you have even been hired in that type of job in the first place?
BRUH. CRUNCH WAS TAUGHT AS PART OF THE VIDEO GAME DEGREE PROGRAM AT MY COLLEGE.
thats fucking scary
Can you elaborate?
I did Game Dev at uni, and crunch was kind of just taken as part of the industry. There was no real pushback to the idea, the lecturers just dismissed any serious discussion of it as a necessary evil, paying lip service to the idea of "crunch bad". Very demoralising for a student.
@@wanderingrandomer This one speaks for me.
@@1theredrooster seems like game dev education is way too market focused
It’s insane to imagine that people actually think that spending literally all your time working can be healthy.
You can tell that people who say this are the same ones who want their video game to come out a few months earlier, and don't care if the developers are being overworked.
imo gamers are some of the most entitled consumer community around so most don’t even care about what goes behind the scenes, they want games gud they don’t care about the developers health etc.
@@amrilhaziq8114 Yeah lol remember 2013
Cough cough meet Japan cough cough
@@amrilhaziq8114 if you believe that you're very ignorant. IMHO make up users are way more entitled I'll just mention mica mining in India and the beauty industry. Last I checked, the videogame industry don't use child labour nor do animal testing.
The fact you actually got marty to be voice act being upset over the goose makes me laugh so hard.
+.
Earlier this year I left my "dream job" over burnout. I was doing AI research, but doing voluntary crunch to try to get models and code implemented. My manager was telling me that he didn't want me working that hard, but when I stopped crunching, I noticed that my reviews were becoming poor. I got more recognition and praise on projects after I crunched, and they'd call me things like "10xer." But eventually it all caught up with me and I had a mental breakdown, and my later projects started to fall to shit. I was pretty much done. After I quit, I tried to get my PhD at my old college, thinking the more free time and work to apply to what I wanted to do would help me out of burnout, but it only made it worse. I kept doing more of the same thing, training models, not getting the result I wanted, tweaking data and code, running experiments, averaging 80 hr work weeks, only to end up with trivial or bad results. I took a semester off from college, and just played videogames nonstop. Now I'm at the point where I need to return back to college, but I'm still burned out. I'm guessing this is that "stress casualty" that they're talking about.
Hi! It's been a year since then, and I hope you do better
Imagine being a "stress casualty" of a game that's as dead on arrival as Anthem... Christ, that's depressing
Happens more and more
They can’t blame the publishers tho, they can only blame themselves. They had seven fucking years and they didn’t do shit
@@caesarspeaks WTF is wrong with you did you even bother watching the video?
@@hurricanemeridian8712 This is what I've heard too. I feel the video conflated the usual conditions at the company and the conditions for that game, but maybe I actually heard this story wrong to begin with?
@@caesarspeaks uhm, no? Anthem was only actually develop for like a year, because management was just so shitty that they couldn't decided to even basic stuff. It is not the fault of the development, it is the fault of people management everything
I'm calling you "funny cartoon man" from now onwards
ill just stick wiht cartoon man
we
I'm going to remember your comment and look forward to your comments in the future
@@Sebastian-uq8xu Comrade?
I got the privilege of getting the like number to 1k
Crunch culture is like 50% of the reason I didn't continue my dream to join the games industry. The other 50% was my laziness and incompetence.
So i see this sentiment a lot, and it's a red flag you should be aware of regarding your own mental health.
Self-professed laziness and incompetence is almost never
actual laziness or incompetence outside of those days where you think "i feel like being lazy today", and tbh even that is usually just your brain trying to coax you into chilling out and relaxing.
The lazy label could be unrealistic, unreasonable standards being forced upon you by pressures both external and internal, or it might be signs of underlying mental health concerns or even symptomatic of an undiagnosed, well-masked executive functioning disorder like ADHD or autism.
Self depreciation will only make it harder for you to figure out whether there's a root cause for the dissatisfaction you feel with your own performance,and potentially learn more about ways you can make the most of the brain you have without hurting yourself along the way.
@@OutbackCatgirl I know a comment by someone who the topic touches deeply and personally when I see it.
I hope your words reached the commenter.
But you don't have to work for big companies, you can make even índie games with more people, even with already known people in the internet so you basically promote your game around them.
The "If I take time off the workload would fall onto other people and no one wants to be that guy" quote was too real
In Asia, this thing is so so much worse. There is this weird romanticization of putting yourself through literal hell just for the sake of a few grades. Ive seen many of my classmates literally collapse out of exhaustion after exams
Ikr , ive heard people rather die than continue
Yeah my mom told me about this, in Nepal she lost many friends and family by the end of school.
@@derboe_thebeast6869 That's not surprising.
@@sanujakhanal8745 _we died idk_
Ugly pfp
I legitimately shivered at "there's nothing better than a good foie gras'"
The implications of that are so absolutely horrific
THID
*THIS
That's legit fucking evil.
Executives are actual fucking psychopaths, seriously.
I kinda expected it since it was an activision executive
I am disgusted by the fact that 2 years later this video still gets commenters trying to either make crunch not seem like a big deal or not needing to be addressed at all.
apparently just the idea of 100 hours a week for 3 months AND NO OVERTIME PAY isn't enough to make people thing "wow, that's bad".
that point about realistic graphics = good is just stupid, there's even a sentence that describes it perfectly:
"The pursuit for hyperrealism is a fruitless struggle that results in bloated file sizes."
That’s how we get COD games with updates over 100 Gigs.
And it’s still shite.
End bit with Marty is so good.
Chris Ray Gun Noodle collab when?
Yo, hey Chris. Have a nice whatever.
you and noodle need to have a rematch
I knew that clip was going to be important when he said it.
I wanted to see him take a fucking 12 gauge shotgun and blow down the door and take his goose back
The only animator for a whole season D: Jesus fucking christ
I wonder what the series is? It took me 2 hours to make a 1 second hand animation.
How does that even fucking work.
There's this old anime called Twinkle Nora Rock Me. "When you fire all the animators"
@@phoenixnight9237 On ones or on twos?
@@phoenixnight9237 Im not good at 2D stuff, so I wont say anything there, but I can do... about 30 secs of 3D animation in... 4-5 hours. And thats just like a gun showreel style animation
gamers that like crunch are insane, like seriously do you want good games or do you want more redfall and gollum?
we need more redfall=likes
"Crunch is not a triunp of the workforce, but a failure of the management"
-James Stephanie Sterling
(Thank God for Them)
I really need to think more about how I react to postponed deadlines in games.
In the last year or so I've oddly gotten more excited when I've heard of delays or postponements.
My prime example is Infinite. I was telling friends after that initial reveal that if 343 wanted to do the right thing, it would be to delay the game and take their time.
Then, they actually did it. I was so happy that more time and thought was being put into the game other than "we gotta get this out!"
@@WARSinRIOTS still, they should release a thing on time if they say they’re gonna, delaying games isnt good and let’s them know they can delay and make as much hype as they want, even if the game is a complete garbage heap mess. Ala Cyberpunk
@@babytricep437 did you watch the video mate? I'd rather the devs not die and they just postpone the game
@@babytricep437 i think you would be angrier to get a game that IS a hot pile of mess and garbage, and buggy as initial release cyberpunk was, than waiting so long upon multiple delays but actually get a fantastic game which came out almost flawlessly.
Cyberpunk had an issue due to how the hype building up to it was so overwhelming that it was almost impossible to delay it further, or the community would go berserk. Such a task like game development is one which is by no means consistent and easy to guess how long it will take. Its an unpredictable and grevious process, so its hard to blame them if calculating when they are precisely done is humanely imposdible.
Everyone does. Sending death threats to people just isn’t okay.
The problem with "passion crunch" that people take on themselves is that it still changes the culture. Now anyone else who wants to work and succeed at the company will be expected to work to the same level, regardless of the effect it has on their work-life balance or mental health. It's the job of regulations and management to make them stop.
Like, it's the same with performance enhancing drugs in sports. Sure, some, maybe even most athletes would take them to improve their performance if they were allowed. But if you just allow them, you're basically putting everyone who isn't willing to potentially harm themselves at a disadvantage. Even if it's not written down as mandatory, it's effectively mandatory for anyone who wants to succeed.
Passion crunch is how we get employers to bully the shit out of you for all you are worth combined with depressing wages in compensation. People need to wake the fuck up and realize that work isn't the be all end all of life.
FFS I see this stuff in education and especially my students, they are so buried into their work that they actually brag about how much work they are doing and it's demoralizing. Not to mention the abnormal hours I see some of my co-teachers put in and I'm just like, why? They're just abusing your generosity to afford to not pay you anything back in compensation.
Then you see how capitalism fits into this and you hate it, even more, you are passionate about what you do, employers abuse that and take your passion for granted, don't pay their workers what they are actually worth and the cycle perpetuates. After all, if you're in charge of all of your employee's wages, why pay them extra when they'll still do the work anyway? Might as well use their passion and grind it into the dirt for all they're worth.
Yeah if management is not great then the second 1 person does it everyone else is expected to even if there isnt a gun to their head
haha damn that's crazy good luck with that
Had a manger who saw me working harder than the rest of my coworkers. She tried to mandate my level of work ethic to everyone else. I told her that if she tried that shit I was gonna leave, needless to say she removed the mandate. It’s sad that it doesn’t always happen that way though, with people becoming more and more stressed as their coworkers turn against them because corporate or the manager decided that everyone should be able to work at the fastest pace possible. This work culture that has cultivated over a few decades is becoming increasingly unfair not only to those who are currently employed, but also, those who need to find a new employer. It took me over a YEAR to find a job out of high school that didn’t let me go within the first month because I wasn’t able to keep up with highly unrealistic expectations and even now my current job doesn’t even give me enough hours so I can earn enough money to live off of.
I bet Japanese death-by-overwork culture had that origin as well.
This is two years old but I have to share. Marty is 100% the kind of manager some software teams need. Personal crunch bleeds into a crunch culture, because once some devs start putting their lives on the backseat, it creates expectations from the clients and even other managers.
I worked with a lead developer who would set deadlines around his crunch behaviors. His goto deadline was "2 weeks." What the client and managers didn't know is that those 2 weeks included 20 hours on weekends, and an extra 2 or so hours each day of the working week at home doing more work. I didn't want to do that, I wasn't even expected to do that, but suddenly I couldn't say "this will take 4 weeks" without having to argue "why? he can do it in 2," because I wasn't trying to crunch my way through it, and my managers ultimately were more interested in the client being happy so they didn't really push back or fight for a longer deadline. This built an expectation in my products that I had to crunch, because he set a standard that was not feasible without putting in that extra time. It ultimately made me a miserable person and led to me being fired because the stress overwhelmed me and affected the rest of my work.
So, I'm glad you pushed back on that guy a little bit, in a respectful way of course, and I'm glad people like Marty are out there setting reasonable expectations for their employees to prevent that from spiraling. Sometimes passionate people don't realize how their seemingly personal toxic behaviors can become something that is no longer personal. It's fine to be passionate and want to work extra, but businesses are about results and it can transform into something much worse real quick because they won't see the human cost, either on purpose or otherwise.
Hearing that 'Stress Casualty' really clicked in what I had done to myself working some time ago. I remember my last day, how I couldn't do anything. I couldn't function. Any minute thing that would induce stress I couldn't force myself to do. I stood in front of the pile of branches and just kneeled and stared. Literally moving towards insanity was terrifying, and I almost did a lot of things that could've ended really poorly.
Onset PTSD also describes it well, and looking back on it, I let it get way further than I should've because I genuinely enjoyed what I was doing. I loved my work, but...
Yeah, thanks Noodle. This helped me understand what I went through a lot better.
”Nothing like a good foie gras.”
- The Devil probably.
So, Bobby Kotick then
It does taste really fucking good though... way less fucked up when it’s a farming goose rather than a human.
yes, EA
But that shit is hella good, the only thing that keeps me from eating it is that the procedure of how the make it is kind of f up.
-hannibal
This is why I respect team cherry so much
They have like a million people ready to explode from excitement, really, and I mean _really_ , badly wanting to know when silksong is coming
And they’re just like “It’s done when it’s done, now go before I slap you with a slipper”
Yeah, like even though people make memes about being disappointed when the Nintendo Directs don't mention it, we know that we'd rather wait in the darkness and be surprised when it's ready than beating them over the head to get it out asap
Exactly 🐛
God this is perfect
They’re like 3 friend so i wouldn’t be surprised if they’re really causal about it
Done when it's done used to be the norm, see Soon(tm) from Blizzard as the staple of this trope.
Psychonauts 2 was made without crunch. It is one of the most incredible games ever made. It's the epitome of video games being art.
As my dad always has told me: when you crunch you're not gaining any extra work/ value on the work you're doing. You're taking on debt and you'll eventually have to pay it back off + interest
I served 10 years and its wild how similar game companies treat their staff like military members (both should be read as slaves). The mental trauma and physical trauma i suffered almost killed me. Im sure its not far off for them. Corporate slaves. My heart goes out to them. Its our society man. Heartless
They must have chose the corporate culture civic in stellaris.
As a 20 year veteran, I can confirm this is the case. That's the problem with being an exempt employee with shitty management. And then they wonder why I walk into the office with a sheer look of complete apathy on my face.
Bruh marty ain't playin with that bat
oh shit hi drewski
Yeah, he should probably just give him back the goose.
*insert big smoke meme here*
Hello there
Ay isn’t this that dude from the scp overlord video
"Sometimes, there’s nothing like a good foie gras" is something you respond to with throwing a drink or spitting in their face because HOLY that is not a person
That’s something a super villain would say
I think team cherry has done an amazing job at stopping crunch culture while producing silksong. They didn't give an exact deadline and aren't hyping the game, so now they have as much time as they want without having to crunch.
Unfortunately their attempts at not hyping silksong by not putting too many trailers out only served to make someone make a youtube channel reporting silksong news every day because hollow knight fans are starved of content
Still good that they arent crunching tho
The bit with having Marty outside the window was hilarious, I've gotta say. And great sound design!
For a company with a really good culture when it comes to this stuff, I'd put forward Wube, the devs of Factorio. Obviously most indie games will not achieve their level of success - they had the freedom to put good practices in place because they had the financial stability to do so, right? But regardless, they still were very careful about giving their employees the time they needed to not only complete Factorio within their deadlines, but also give them plenty of time away from the game to recharge.
And it’s a very fun game to boot!
@@kawaiicrocodile1476 almost like happy devs with basically no deadlines make better games
Ironic that Factorio is the game that let people sleep
heart machine took time for hyper light drifter and only had to update the game to add more weapons they were thinking about
@Amoe Moth i think of the chocolate
Similar shit happens in heaps of workplaces, where the execs, concerned only about their bottom line, refuse to hire the amount of staff really needed.
This is the reason I'm fine with Silksong taking the "It's ready when it's ready" approach. I loved Hollow Knight so much that I'm willing to wait basically forever for it to come out.
Some time this century would be nice though.
In Asia it’s worse. A former classmate from my old school just died, crunching for the school for a competition and had a heart attack...
jesus.
Sorry to hear that. I personally heard stories from other college students that some foreign exchange students can’t get credit for a paper they helped work on (in terms of science ) because the professor just took the credit.
I believe the person was Chinese but I’m not 100% certain.
@@garybrown2039 I agree. There is this issue about how we value Asian productivity less than white people. We take not only Asians, but contributions made by people of colour for granted a lot of the times.
Edit: This is not to say it doesn’t happen to white people. Whenever there’s a hierarchy and systematic discrimination, this problem appears.
@@chardaranimations5981 I think you misinterpreted what I said. I meant to say that it happened a lot in China or Asia itself. Not here in the west because every foreign exchange student in person of color got their name on papers when they were here.
@@garybrown2039 Oh. That’s unexpected and even more unfortunate. Thanks for the info
I've been in the industry for over 16 years now, and I've done my fair share of crunch in crunch culture oriented studios. You mentioned how contract workers were overtime exempt? Well, I was an actual full-time employee, but I was also technically overtime exempt. The closest to compensation we'd get was called "Project Days", which were arbitrarily awarded additional vacation days (often kept off the books, you know, in case you tried to quit and cash them out) that our manager would hand out at the end of a project. Did you work 60+ hours a week for months on end? Your compensation would be 4-5 extra days off once the game shipped, or maybe just 2-3 if the producer didn't like you. Thankfully, I now work at a studio where crunch culture is explicitly banned: If a manager or lead implies you are required to work overtime at all, you can go straight to the CEO and he'll sort them out. I've been back to working normal weeks for years, and it's one of the most fantastic boosts to my mental health that I have ever experienced.
Would you happen to know any other companies like this? I am about to jump off into the industry and the crunch culture here in the US is making me think maybe I should work abroad...
If I ever ran a video game company in the future, what hours and what days off for the week I should give to the developers and designers to make sure that everyone is doing a-ok? Also, how many days of a break I should give after the game is released to make sure that everyone can return with a freshened drive to create another game?
I want to make sure that in the future when I do end up becoming a CEO or a head of a project that I don't overwork anybody, so everyone can have fun making great to good games.
@@theJ1B1A1 It's something that very much depends on the company. My advice is that if you are interviewing at a place, ask them directly what the policy is regarding crunch. How is it compensated? How many hours are people working per week right now? How many hours to do they work as a project is wrapping up? Don't just ask managers, ask everyone who interviews you and see if their answers line up. I once interviewed at a place where people were working 60+ hours a week TWO YEARS prior to the launch of the game. I did not take that job.
@@Tavdogg11 If your question is "How many hours can I expect my employees to work past a normal work week?" then my honest advice is to shift your perspective or just not run a studio. Planning for crunch is the absolute biggest failure that management can have, and it's guaranteed to burn out your team and produce lackluster products. You should expect developers to work 40 hours a week, just like a normal full-time job, and that's what you use when planning. In terms of breaks between projects, offering a competitive vacation package is the correct way to go. Most companies give 3+ weeks per year, depending on seniority. The main thing is to make sure people can actually take the vacation without being pressured out of it, or called in while on vacation (I have seen this happen first hand, it's insane. People vacationing out of the country and then being told they have to get back to the office, and they schedule earlier flights home, etc. I would quit on the spot if this happened to me.)
@@patrickharris7823 Yeah. I am not that knowledgeable on work hours. I am still in college and I haven't learn specifics on jobs yet. I am actually going for creative writing since I am not knowledgeable on work hours and what I should expect for work hours, plus I prefer creation of stuff on my own time rather than being forced on specific hours, so I probably need more training on leadership skills and work hours. However, that does lead me to another question. How many hours should I work on alone when creating works of my own pen? More specifically, as a creative writer trying to work on a novel or at least some short stories? I don't want to overwork myself, but I am unsure on how much effort is too much and how little effort is too little to get anywhere.
I remember starting to crunch in elementary school. I put my love of learning into homework and school and got praise and suddenly you have a fourth grader who doesn’t know the concept of not doing homework and staying up til midnight doing an assignment worth a couple of points. This lasted as far back as I remember up until I physically couldn’t anymore. Health got in the way and I became physically disabled. Crunching probably didn’t cause my disability but it sure didn’t help when I had to learn the concept of pacing myself by physically not being able to do it anymore. I had to learn not to care and it might be now I care too little but at least I can take care of myself.
I feel lucky that somehow I've stumbled my way into a healthy work environment, and I definitely think that a lot of it has to do with the producers at my workplace making sure I don't overwork myself, and genuinely looking out for me to make sure I don't crunch 24/7. I know I would, given the chance, because I simply love what I do. But I love it even more when I can have a life outside of it, eat, sleep -- generally take care of myself. They're able to make decisions about pushing things back, and have the sense in their heads that I lack about a work-life balance.
I know they won't see this comment, so I'm going to write them a really nice Christmas card to thank them for the health they've given me.
I've got the same kind of boss. I work catering, and multiple times I've come into work feeling unwell. Chef looks at me, points at the door, and tells me to piss off until I feel better.
I've worked twelves and thirteens, and every time he tells me to not do that. He'll stop us working to make sure we all eat.
I worked really bad places before, and have never actually felt loyalty to a boss before, be he's earned it time and again.
I’ve also managed to find my way into a healthy work environment.
We don’t really have to deal with “crunches” very often but when we do it’s at absolute most a Month but usually about a week or two.
I’m lucky as hell.
Rooster Teeth crushing the shit out of their animators and acting like a smoll indie company : "Don't be a meany to us, we're your fwends :D"
Uwu
CoMpaniEs arE PeoPle TOo!11!
H A H H A H H A H
"Letsy be fwendy!! Uwu! Me hooman twoo! Uwusy!"
Yeah, they're literally owned by Warner. They're not indie
The “gun to their head” argument is like telling a girl who was sexually harassed at her office “you could just get another job” without addressing the allowance of said harassment by the company
Riot Games is shook rn
Consensual isn't the same as tolerated, I'm guessing?
@@awesomemantroll1088
Yeah and crunch isn't something you consent to, but tolerate.
@@knavenformed9436 Or it's something you consent to, but later in life realize you really shouldn't have.
No it's not. Nice false equivalence.
Imagine how FURIOUS these neckbeards would be if game designers an workers would just say "fuck it, my life is NOT work an I won't be abused" an just all quit. You think NOT crunching is killing your precious games? How about no one to work at all. "Oh, but I'd KILL to be paid to design a killer game!" No, you wouldn't. In fact, you'd be MORE angry that what you think is best for the project is ignored. You don't get a say in the way the game is made. You just work...an that's a foreign concept to a lot of the people that send death threats to developers.
Had my mom watch this video after getting laid off from a creative-based job loaded with crunch. She was genuinely surprised when she realized she had been working this type of job, and now she plans to work using a self-hobby-based job with her own deadlines. Great video.
I like how Marty is now just another little character in the wacky Noodleverse
Hello papi
Hello papa
Hello dad
When are you coming back with milk
Hello dada
The best part of foie gras is that it's mostly known for being the product /of/ abuse. The goose is stuffed silly while it's alive to make sure the liver is put under as much stress as possible.
I both agree and disagree with you.
1 you are right, it suffers, but
2 you are wrong, it is not abuse, its an animal, it cant express or have an opinion.
3 even if it is abuse, think about it, every good thing has a darker side. Christmas, for example, which is comming in a few days, when you spend time with family, and if you are a christian, you will most probably eat pork, which is given a lot of food, so it gets big and fat over the year, only to be slayed 2 weeks before christmas. The meat is delicious. So is the foix gras. For everything, there is something to sacrifice, for every + there is a - and to this there are no exeptions.
@@zamfir2005 bro stfu
@@eyemaysin please try and use something called constructive criticism, or if your iq is not high enough for that, i recomand going to school, yes, its actually a thing even in 2020. Thank you!
@@zamfir2005 ok, what makes you think humans are the only animals with feelings.
@@zamfir2005 It's so unscientific to say animal abuse is not a thing that it's hard to answer properly, that's all. Next time tell us of the moon made of cheese. We can't compensate for your shortcomings.
“Sometimes, there’s nothing like a good foie gras” is the most overtly evil thing i've ever heard someone say
I have done 8 minute sprints that leave me exhausted for 8 hours. But when I did a 10 hour walk I couldn't walk right for 10 weeks.
I use this as a comparison to crunch, that brief 5 hour crunch that leaves you exuasted but you can go 'I DID IT!" at the end is great. What isn't great is when you spend 50+ days crunching yourself, constantly tired, sore, mentally and physically unhealthy and you're not even doing your best work anymore. Then when you're done after that time in the trenches, you still have the pain, the physical issues, the deep phycological issues and now the horror when you realise that it happens to others.
That goose liver comment sounded like it came from a villain from a well written series
Sounds to me like the Exec wanted to crush dissent so he came up with some cold-blooded line the night before.
Why are people so corrupt that they can't put a line between free time and availability?
@@zynski3451 Oh yeah, it was totally a setup... and kind of a threat maybe. Total psycho
Welcome to corporate assholes, and why I as an animator/illustrator intend to never intentionally work under a bigger studio.
The scariest thing in my opinion is that to convince them to not destroy their employees, you have to explain them that it's more profitable that way
Fans: "C'mon, it's not like anyone's holding a gun to your head!"
Developers: "Y'know what, you're right, we're gonna take some time off and push back release by a day--"
Fans: *Cocks gun* "I will literally kill you"
Not really it's mostly draconian tyrants that are detached from actual work in the top management that are the issue, faster they push the game more money they make at the end, since there hopefully will be less competition and more microtransactions at the end, of course draconian tyrants in the top management have their ditched servants at middle management to direct psychopaths and sociopaths at lower management who actually do all the whipping.
@@lordhater4207 And you don't think the absolutely insane, rabid fanbase, who are known for sending mass death threats to the developers of a new release have any involvement with that?
It may not be a root cause, but it most certainly promotes the culture. Guarantee it was a part of why 2077 was such a shitshow. The problem (and very large) cluster of companies who turn their developers into slave labor already don't give a shit about them, so what's a few death threats if not "encouragement" to continue the overtime crunches?
I mean, the consumer wants their product out faster, and their wallet is our bottom line, so of course we'll keep churning shit out to an ever-increasingly impatient audience than ever think to treat our workers with a shred of dignity in regards to their mental health! That'd be outlandish, surely.
@@kimi7396 tru tho.
@@kimi7396 There is some truth in that as well, however which of the two is more likely : 1. That 100% of management acts in the way i've described in the comment above, or 2. that 100% of gaming audience are impatient little brats? I'd say number 1 is more likely and i would further reinforce that with fact that ditched morons in top management make deals with shareholders or lacking those by themselves or amongst themselves in advance, they make their "perfect" plans despite not having ANY experience nor knowledge on how long and how hard the discussed project would be, nobody of the people who do the actual work is involved promises of time and profit are made then and there, a budget is made for the project that only exists in the fantasy land and "perfect" planning of degenerates that shouldn't be in charge of anything let alone a software development company not to mention gaming company, the demands are made of lower management to push the teams to their limits to complete tasks as fast as possible before the budget is spent, and all so that little shits in top management running a company whos inner workings they do not know don't have to spend few bucks more to improve the quality of life of their workers, i say issue lies in worthless and useless management from top to bottom, you say rampant murdering fan-base, i'd say that incompetent management is the issue, and that a person with IQ in double digits cannot hope to manage those with tripple digits IQ, all software engineers eventually leave their jobs and start their companies that are either related or totally unrelated to their previous work, and there is a reason why, nobody wants to have idiots above them, it's humiliating to a software engineer and it demeans the profession as a whole.
Fans aren't the big issue for most games.
Fan pressure is a thing in the AAA game space, not so much for games like Barbie's Horse Adventure, but those developers crunch too.
Few fans push for the timely release of mobile game milestones but, guess what, crunch also happens in that space.
Even in the AAA space it's management and marketing spurring fans into action by promising fixed release dates while the game is still in alpha.
Whenever I bring up "entitled gamers" in any argument about games coming out unfinished / buggy or release date being delayed, there is a swarm of said entitled gamers ready to point their fingers at anyone else but themselves while spouting crap like "devs are greedy liars", "devs are lazy" and "you're a [dev studio name] simp". It's unbelievable how oblivious to their own toxic behaviour a lot of these people are. That combo of extreme entitlement and complete ignorance of how the games are actually developed makes for some of the worst human beings I've met in my life. I used to be proud to be a part of this cool nerdy underdog community of gamers back in the day, but nowadays that one word "gamer" carries so much stigma I don't want anything to do with it. Even though I still play games, so technically I am a gamer, I want no part in this new toxic gamer culture.
Same here man. It's exhaustingly annoying of these Entitled Gamers, especially spouting "Devs are Lazy" like bro! Y'all don't know crap about Game Development in general.
When I was younger, I used to want to work as a video game dev, and over time, I realized how much of a nightmare is
I always hated the places where I worked and they say stuff like "we are basically family. We spend more time here than with our real families so we want to TREAT you like family." Idk, it's just disgusting.
It really just sounds like a red flag instead of a pro for working there.
Prisoner of love and war
"This isn't a business, I always thought more of it as a source of cheap labor, like a family" -Hubert J. Fansworth.
Bro, I wonder WHY they're there with other devs than with family
IDK MAYBE IF YOU CARED ABOUT YOU"RE WORKERS THEY COULD HAVE A FUCKING SOCIAL LIFE
it's worse when you're actual family. My dad is a farmer, each time i try to have a peaceful day for myself he goes on about all the work that I have to do and how he buys me nice things so I have to return the favor. Even when i'm working all day he tells me that i had all these things that I didn't do. When I came back from my other job he always needed me for something. having your boss follow you home for dinner isn't great.
literally all of my friends were all complaining about the new among us update but there’s literally only FOUR ppl that work at innersloth
Jesus. But the sign in thing kinda messed it up and is now annoying to change name.
I do complain about it and I understand they weren't sure on a deadline (probably bc once again the 4 workers) I just wish they didn't say early 2021. But, this video definitely gave me a new take on it
Re your frienda also lobotomites?
Look at all the comments for Valheim, five person team and people act like the 3+ years they spent making what we have now just isn’t good enough. They can’t believe it’s been three months and they don’t have every single expansion that was planned out right now it’s crazy.
bruHuHuHuHuHuH
As a gamer who actually has the patience and attention span to wait for games to be polished before release, I apologise for the degenerates in the community who make death threats to developers.
Tears of the kingdom took 6 fucking years to develop, they delayed it by one fucking year to polish it.
And its one of my favorite games and I have 300 hours and counting on it.
I once told my work colleagues that they shouldn't work after their shift had ended as they didn't get paid for it and I was concerned for their well being and potential culture it can create. This later factored into how I lost that job.
Fans : "no one's holding a gun to your head!"
Devs : _(delays game because it's unfinished)_
Fans : _"oh my god, how could they do this ?_
_Let's send them bomb & death threats, guys"_
more like cancel them in life. Did you not read the death threats the CDPR dev got?
“You don’t know how shit lego shoes feel until you actually wear them”
If they people sending death threats had to make a game in a limited amount of time and not wanted to take a break because it will effect everyone else and to throw on the pile random people sending death threats for just doing your job, maybe they would think twice about sending them
That's a different type of people. Yes still "Fans", but the bad version
@@Steven-nq7fx "The bad version" is shockingly common. At some point, ya gotta wonder if there are only a few bad apples in the bushel, or if it's mostly bad apples.
That's because it's what Twitter does :)
“Sometimes, there’s nothing like a good foie gras” in context sounds like a line a super villain says to make you realize how fucked up they are. Gave me shivers
I probably would've shot the guy right then and there or at least threatened.
I've returned to this video multiple times and I'm still deeply descasted and disturbed about his line, it is really fucked up and, mostly because the goose here is a human being, sounds like *actual cannibalism*
rich people and their ignorance amiright
Ah yes I too love the cooked kidneys of my severely overworked employees
Actual psychopath
Well they're right.They aren't pointing a gun to the employee's head, they're pointing a shotgun to the employee's head.
They had me in the first half not gonna lie
The funny thing about crunch is that just because you're making employees work more hours doesn't necessarily mean they'll get more work done. NASA learned this the hard way: They used to make astronauts conduct scientific experiments non-stop, so that they could make the most of the time spent in space. Then, during one mission, astronauts were so stressed that they went on strike. After that NASA tried letting astronauts take breaks between experiments, and to their surprise, they got more experiments done during the same length of time. Since then, NASA lets astronauts take breaks, get plenty of sleep, and work out.
I am sexually attracted to the idea of devs just going "nope" and everyone getting up and leaving the company leaving the boss to be like "haha I'm dead"
The workers would also be fucked more so then the boss.
Since not many game companies are unionized the workers would most likely be blacklisted from the industry on account of being "rebellious & undisciplined"
@@almalone3282 Scary stuff right there, the fact that you can go jobless for defending your rights.
@@MrMoon-hy6pn hence why unions are a double edge sword
On one hand worker rights are guaranteed on the other hand business have no true authority over employees
I forgot to add "fantasy" in my comment. How deceitful of me
One huge red flag of an abusive workplace culture is if the bosses refer to your coworkers and themselves as family. If it feels like a family then it doesn’t need to be said, otherwise it’s a guilt trip to take shit.
To be fair, people also abuse / kill their literal families.
Where’s my mom in this office
@@UrMom-bp2bu You get Asian mom instead. If you're not a doctor, you'll get disowned.
@@UrMom-bp2bu you know who else is in this office?
MY MOM
@@river.retrismuscle man, that you?
It's a little interesting to me how similar game companies are to something in Japan called a "Black Company".
They function in very very similar ways purposefully set up to abuse their workers and ensure they feel guilt for standing up to it.
What's the point of a black company?
@@Abyssal._. They can be *for* anything, What makes them a "Black Company" is the specific manner in which they abuse and manipulate their employees by over-working them, giving them little to no time off, building a crunch culture that makes you feel guilty for not engaging with it because "It puts more stress coworkers", etc.
Very similar in terms of the ways they take advantage of their employees to wring as much money as possible out of them.
@@ClaireSunshine Ah, thanks
This isn't just a problem in the gaming industry. I experienced this in the finance sector, too. I was a commercial real estate analyst. It was my job to analyze commercial real estate loan requests and make a recommendation of approval or denial based on my findings. One of our department's main sources of revenue was loan origination fees, so there was a massive incentive to try and process, and approve, as many loan requests as possible. Of course, I didn't receive any portion of the origination income, yet I was constantly under pressure to push through as many approval recommendations as possible by the loan officers, who did revive a portion of the origination income, and the department heads. I felt like it all fell on me, and I was constantly behind. The stress got so bad I started having panic attacks. This culture is so pervasive in the US, it has got to stop. It's not healthy, it's toxic.
How to not piss off the majority of gamers: you can't, they just shouldn't know you were making a game until it's done
see um, that's kind of "A Problem™"'. In a perfect world you could just do that, but we don't live in a perfect world.
If you don't market the game both before AND after release, then you're not getting the fanbase as large as it realistically should be, and your game will end up rotting away unnoticed. There's many stories of poor marketing ruining entire franchises and even studios, to prove this ain't a good idea.
This is double as important for indie devs where their funds prior to development come from things like Kickstarter and Patreon. People only invest in that kind of thing if they know their investment is in good hands, so they need to generate hype quickly so more people are willing to get invest. If they can't do that, the game is dead in the water at worst, and shoddily scrapped together at best.
@@exyzt9877 if that's the case then how the fuck did apex legends survived
@@heistingcrusader_ad3223 they literally made both titanfall games, i think they had a bit of a community before hand, this is something that devs don't have on a first game, unless they try to advertise and market it properly
Team Cherry, on Silksong: *So i took that personally*
@@GlenJHenderson then market it with a no release date and put a statement to be patient. Pretty sure in this day and age the majority would be patient to wait as rushed projects have proven to be bad and inferior
I am alone, in my apartment, on the second floor of my building at midnight with my pants off and blutooth earbuds in. Then your fucking knocking happened sound happened and I had such a fucking heart attack.
I literally jumped out of my bed to answer the door
I kept asking who who and nobody answered I was so confused I feel so stupid
You know, this isnt at ALL where I thought your comment was heading, so I just gotta say, I'm definitely relieved it ended up where it did.
Practically the same situation happened to me right now. I am still shaking from the brief panic attack I just had. XD
Did you at least have time to wear pants?
one of the worst appliers of crunch are gamers
gamers will cry to stop crunching employees but then cry harder when they get less content, theres a reason companies crunch, its because it gets results
makes me wonder about a hypothetical workplace that isn't just anti crunch but anti overtime. where you literally get kicked out of the building if you stay past a certain time
It's a thing. Some studios now have started requiring their employees to clock out after their weekly hours and to have overtime **authorized**.
Yep, I have been thinking about this for awhile. Close the building and shut down server access etc.
Its hard in the gamimg industry. You wanna have games ready by certain times to announce at big events. The more you keep your employees on a payroll the more momey you have to spebd and obviously the game does not promise a return on that cash
The fact that people are genuinely defending crunch makes me want to throw myself into a blender.
makes me wanna throw both them and me into a blender
dew it
Yeah its definitely baby mentality. It really reads as i dont care if these people are suffering as long as i get my game and if i dont ima throw a tantrum.
Can you fit in the blender
@@sink5321 I’ve been able to fit 3 people in a blender. It’s not that hard.
"People don't wanna actually kill the goose." After the foie gras metaphor, I'm not so sure anymore.
Nah, the exec implied that they don't _want_ to kill the goose, but if it dies, they could still get the foie gras from it anyway, so who cares? Not to mention they can easily buy another one to replace it.
@@this_is_patrick You make foie gras by months of preparation force feeding the goose beyond its normal limits. If you're eating foie gras, you know it well in advance. The exec is definitely implying they'll gladly work the goose to death and strip it for parts before moving onto the next goose. They know they're killing it, they just want to sometimes.
While Marty never named names, I can only assume the exec in the story was the devil himself, Bobby Kotick. Seems 100% in character for him
@@thewerdna "In another incident, Kotick has stated during the 2009 Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference that "The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games." Kotick continued to say that they "have been able to instill the culture, the skepticism and pessimism and fear that you should have in an economy like we are in today. And so, while generally people talk about the recession, we are pretty good at keeping people focused on the deep depression."[52][53][54][55] Following the backlash on the statement, Kotick has commented that "Sometimes that commitment to excellence, well, you can come across as being like a dick. And when I say things like 'taking the fun out of making video games,' it was a line that has been often-quoted lately, but it was a line I used for investors."[56]" Source Wikipedia.
HOLY SHIT. I had to read that thrice to make sure I didn't misunderstand this. Wow. I'm absolutely against torture, but I find it difficult to argue against force-feeding this person with foie gras until he dies (even if it's not the same person, who cares, deserves it anyways). Oh btw, he voted for Hillary, this just for all the people who think she's the lesser-evil alternative.
@@wawawuu1514 bruh don't bring politics into this. I don't care who one bad person voted for. The KKK supported Donald Trump, and that doesn't instantly make him more evil than any other.
i’m so hung up on that tweet comparing the last of us 2 and animal crossing as if they are even remotely related
I like to think this video idea got Martin's attention when Noodle dmed him "What if I stole your goose?" and Martin was all "You are the chosen one, let us begin."
Noodle: I still have much to learn *bows*
Knowing more details about how foie gras is made makes that metaphor SO much more abhorrent.
Yeah and it’s also illegal in many countries for being animal abusive
Oh God damn, I just learned the truth and your right that quote is stone cold.
@@tehynprk this is pretty graphic but for those who don't know, foie gras geese are force fed until they contract liver disease. it tastes good because of the fatty buildup that results from the disease (hence "foie gras" literally translating to fatty liver). it's horrendous, and in my mind is absolutely animal abuse.
@@InternetKilledTV21 excuse me what the fuck, why don't they fry it with extra grease or something, seriously, what the fuck.I'm all for eating meat but that's just fucked.
@@alibouk227 no amount of grease could create the amount of fatty deposits that foie gras has (or if you do use enough, it'd wreck the whole plate)
Wow, I was forced to crunch to be in Noodle's video.
He's a slave driver.
(Added later)
Ok, I’ve read enough comments that discuss my bad mic or recording. Not true. Julian actually did some cool sound design and post processing to make it sound real.
Is that hard to believe?
Hey check this out. Noodle got this cool pet goose. It's pretty cute.
Love seeing you round here Marty!.
Before you know it you are gonna become his own personal audio director (not that that’s a bad thing, your work is legendary)!
OMG
Did you get your goose back?
I really like how you managed to do something creative with Marty's bad audio quality by putting him outside a window, because that's how he would sound if he was actually outside the window.
Also "nothing like a good foie gras" is literally the most villainous line I've ever heard
The foie gras comment is even more sinister when you know how it's made. Foie gras is expensive, but most importantly it's made by forcing a tube down the throat of a goose 3 times a day, pumping 3 to 4 pounds of grain, and fat into their stomachs. An amount they would never eat otherwise. Essentially it's torturing through force feeding to get the liver fatty enough, and produce the best product. This fits disturbingly well with how developers are treated. Put into this context, it's like saying "torturing these developers with unreasonable hours, and having them sacrifice their quality of life is necessary to make a good product for consumers. Think of the money." It's already fucked up not knowing that information, but the fact he used foie gras specifically is beyond disgusting. It's an immensely cruel thing to say about human beings who are the only reason for their company's success in the fucking first place. They should be treated with basic respect, no argument.
I'm so sad that we have told the games industry that we don't want crunch, but we also demand games when we want it causing crunch and broken games.
Games journalists bemoan crunch and its effects, then hand directing awards to studios that are known to do it. The product's success is so tied to the people being harmed that crunch cannot negatively impact a game's performance - because then, uh-oh, those poor developers ain't gonna get their bonus and all that abuse isn't going to "pay off"!
TLOU2 sweeping the awards speaks its message loud and clear from the gaming press: To them, crunch is a-okay.
@@HolyDeviant1 Wouldn't it be interesting if there was some kind of factor in the rewards that brought crunch and its consequences into them?
@@tokiWren "And for the crunchiest of studios, the most abusive of directors, and the most predatory of HR, we give you not a trophy, but a single golf club."
seriously. Honestly with cyberpunk if i cared about that game id have said "just dont tell me when you think it will be done, tell me when you know its going to be done, and take your time." at least to in a small way get that message out there.
Why don't we go a level deeper? After all, capitalism is the reason for all of this, if we would have a BUI and if we democratised the workplace we could have SO much more productivity and health in the game industry...
I WANT MY GOOSE BACK !!
-Marty O'donnel
“Julian!!!”
as an illustrator who's new to the industry my coping mechanism is "Keep working then the thoughts won't hurt" I'm aware that due to this a company could easily take advantage of me, thank you for talking about this
My partners have slowly been helping to nudge me to take breaks when they see me getting frustrated with my art. I work on a lot of pieces at once, do animatics, and do official designs for my book. There's always a lot I feel like I have to do, so I forget to do a lot of important things.
So it can be really helpful to have someone supportive telling you "Go the fuck to bed it's 4 in the morning."
Thanks for this. Talking about it matters.
Did you have to deal with crunch during the development/updates of Minecraft?
Hello c418
wow, it's c418! *tell us all the features in the new minecraft update now*
I love your music!
Same, I'm not even a game developer but is very relatable to me. Right now I am working for Amazon and there is just too much work that wants to be done.
a quote from one of my co-workers: "self-care is about giving the world the best of you, not the rest of you."
That ain't self-care, that's caring for everybody but yourself
@@cateyedboy4168 i think you misunderstood the quote. You cant give your best unless you take care of yourself first.
@@cateyedboy4168 it's a quote for people who work too hard, like giving their best, are inherently too selfless, to tell them you're not achieving your goal by neglecting yourself. I guess it comes off as confusing to people who aren't like that.
@@this_is_japes7409 I get what the quote is trying to say, but I agree with CatEyedBoy. Self-care is self-care, period. Trying to convey what self-care is by saying that, if you don't take care of yourself you won't be able to take care of the world is non sensical...
What if I don't care about the world? What about people who do good for the world at their own expense?
@@-Zakhiel- then this quote is not for you/them simple as that. quotes like these aren't meant to be universal. no one can summarize a complex issue for everyone in a single witty sentence. language is limited and we're not spartans. this quote has a target audience, people who do too much for the sake of others in neglect of themselves i.e. the people who tend to suffer from overworking in the first place, the victims of crunch culture, the topic of the video, the relevant subject. everyone has different values, this quote seeks to appeal to the values of those type of people in order to make them realize their self destructive behavior is working against them. also saying self-care is self-care is reductive (i mean so is the quote, but I digress). everyone has different ideas for what self-care should be, self-care isn't just self-care, because there isn't one definition. like you say, not everyone cares about the world(sadly), someone who is self-indulgent, and ruins their health in overindulgence likely needs a different motivation to stop their self-destructive behavior, so they need a different quote that appeals to their values, but they're typically not the victims of crunch culture i.e. they're not who this quote is for, they're not the reason I commented this on a video about crunch culture, and they're not the reason I was told it.
I am a prior drill instructor for the marines. 100 hour or more workweeks are essentially your life. To hear that people are doing this for shit like video games blows my mind.
Thanks for your service!
I have never been a hardcore gamer, I have never played a real call of duty title. Or played GTA, or tomb raider, or really almost any of the AAA games. And the more I find out about their culture, the less I want to play them. Imma stick with indie games that's all I'm saying. I'm not saying it is easier to make an indie game, but at least you don't have management forcing your hand.
Also indie games are good. Made for passion not money.
“Crunch makes games better“
Sounds as just as ignorant
“If your homeless buy a home”
*sounds just as ignorant
and yes
@@theraginginfernape9496 \*sounds just as ignorant *as*
If you're gonna play the grammar Nazi, start on yourself.
@@the_dark_jumper2211 How the fuck did you draw that conclusion?
At OP -- Absolutely god-damn right, though. All people who Rent are effectively Homeless. GO BUY A HOME. :D
@@jamespfp no
It goes to show how the majority of gamers are extremely impatient and selfish.
One motivator that isn't really addressed here is the concept of 'prestige' in the entertainment business. We want so much to be important and to be able to say "I helped make Avengers!". Entertainment corporations get so much free labor on the backs of regular people desperate to be associated with popular culture. If you decide you're fed up and not going to take it, there will always be 100 people right behind scrambling over each other begging to pick up that torch. Basically no such thing as bargaining power when, if we're honest, studios could almost say, "work for us for free and you'll be in the credits of Iron Man 4: The Resurrection of Tony Stark" and get thousands of eager young applicants. At least in terms of games, if it were me, I might set a (very important) release date deadline, then ensure every team manager from the start is laser focused on tracking progress in relation to the deadline and important milestones. Unforeseen setbacks always occur - so my studio's strategy would be to just drop game levels off the tail end if we're behind and the release is looming. If things are looking grim, shunt all resources to polishing overall mechanics and gameplay and as many levels as possible to hit the deadline without excessive crunch. After delivery then everyone applicable shifts gears to the unfinished portion during regular work hours and they get released as updates one at a time if necessary. The days when a game needs to be 100% on release should have been over when the internet became the delivery medium. (As long as it's playable. CDPR learned that lesson with Cyberpunk)
Jesus Christ that Activision executive talking about foix gras is cartoonishly evil.
It's like that exec was waiting for someone to bring up that metaphor. What an absolute psychopath.
@@graya.d.957 My thought is, does he hear himself? Whats the expected reaction from that? Does he want a chuckle or applause? He clearly couldn't have expected anything remotely positive in that statement, especially telling that to the person advocating for the halt of the exploration of game developers. It's like he was raised in a cult of lawyers, politicians, and business men.
@@hahaisntitfunny5579 Ding ding ding! It's a culture of insular assholes. Born rich, die richer
Would be cool to have a “certified crunch free” on the game case. Kinda like certified organic or gluten free
I bet game studios would find an easy loophole to get that falsely
@Scinary publishers.
@@scinary7052 Oh 100%, they'd just use the "We don't _formally require_ crunch" argument to make it the Milk Chocolate standard of games.
I actually really want this
@@tracyblanchard7663 it could work if it wasn't just a calculation of maximum hours worked per staff member, and if studios/publishers weren't the ones deciding (which should be the case with any certification). There would have to be a third party (maybe... perhaps... a game developers' union?) that individually reviewed studios/projects and made it possible for staff to safely and anonymously report issues and concerns and have those reports reviewed by human beings with compassion and critical thinking. It wouldn't be perfect, because people aren't perfect, but it would be _something._