Studio boss raves about long, passionate work on a new SF shooter – immediately regrets it
The head of new survival horror shooter Callisto Protocol gushed in a tweet about extremely long hours and crunch at his studio. He received harsh criticism from other representatives of the gaming industry.
Who is Glen A Schofield? In game development, the founder of developer Striking Distance Studios is considered a veteran. He worked on about 50 different games from different genres, ranging from colorful children’s games to the worst survival horror games.
Notable titles Schofield has been involved with include Legacy of Lain: Soul Reaver, Dead Space, and Call of Duty: Black Ops. In June 2019, he joined Korean publisher Krafton as CEO of the newly formed Striking Distance Stidios, whose debut game is set to be the sci-fi shooter The Callisto Protocol.
12 to 15 hours a day – 6 or 7 days a week
Schofield said: On Aug. 3, Schofield caused a lot of negative buzz with a post on his Twitter account. In the tweet, the CEO spoke about the heavy work and long hours that go into his game:
[…] We work 6 to 7 days a week, nobody forces us. Exhaustion, tiredness, covid but we work. Bugs, glitches, performance fixes, a final check through the audio. 12 to 15 hours a day. This is gaming. Heavy work. Work during lunch and dinner. You do it because you love it.
The post and screenshots of it were picked up by other gaming industry giants and went viral. However, other developers and journalists did not share Schofield’s enthusiasm for extremely hard work.
Red Dead Redemption 2: Massive overtime for a massive game
“Crunch represents failure of leadership”
This has been criticized: Schofield’s crush was taken as bragging about crunch within his studio. Crunch is defined as extreme overtime during the development of a game, which can add up to 65 to 80 hours per week over the span of several months.
This leads to burnout among developers and can also lead to serious damage to health or even death. Accordingly, crunch has often been criticized in the past.
Commenting on Schofield’s tweet, journalist Jason Schreier said that the CEO uses the love and passion for gaming as a weapon against his employees. No one is forced, but people who don’t crunch have fewer chances of advancement.
Other journalists also agreed with Schreier. The journalist Paul Tassi von Forbes wrote in a tweet that “bragging about crunch” makes him more skeptical about a game.
Imran Khan from Fanbyte Madia even offered in a tweet that Striking Distance Studios employees can contact him anonymously and talk about the working culture at the developer.
Many other representatives of the gaming industry also had no positive words for Schofield’s tweet.
- “Crunch is unnecessary and represents failure of leadership.” – Tom FarnsworthSenior Design Lead at Bungie.
- “Do not normalize crunch. Don’t build unrealistic schedules on your team’s “passion”. Healthy, functioning teams make great games […]”- Carrie PatelGame Director and Senior Narrative Design at Obsidian.
- “I have friends who have been hospitalized for crunch on a video game […]”- Kolbe PayneLevel Designer at Crystal Dynamics.
Schofield’s remark that his team worked through the Covid pandemic also drew harsh criticism. However, it is not known whether the developers still had to come to the office or were allowed to work from home. That’s not clear from the original tweet.
This is how it went: Schofield has since deleted his tweet and replaced it with an apology. In it, he wrote that he originally wrote that he was “proud of the effort and hours his team has put in.” That is wrong. He appreciates the passion and creativity, not the long hours.
While some of the users in the comments sought reconciliation and wished Schofield every success in his game, others were less impressed by the apology. It would not refer to the gist of the original tweet at all.
Developers like Bungie and Grinding Gear Games are clearly positioning themselves against the crunch. The Grinding Gears boss spoke about it on reddit:
Path of Exile boss on crunch periods: “I don’t want to run my studio like that!”
Reference-mein-mmo.de