10 Gaming Industry Secrets You Didn't Know
5. "Crunch" Periods Can Result In 100-Hour Work Weeks
Perhaps the most prevalent issue in the video game industry right now is that of crunch, whereby employees are either encouraged or flat-out ordered to put in brutal overtime in order to ensure a project is polished and ready for launch.
In recent years there have been some terrifically damning exposes on companies such as Rockstar Games, BioWare, Treyarch, and Epic Games, whose employees have worked up to 100 hours per week in extreme situations.
This has reportedly led to some workers simply sleeping in their office, and to make matters worse, employees often aren't compensated with overtime pay for their dedication.
Unsurprisingly, this has led to developers speaking out about the physical and mental toll of working 16-hour days, which ultimately causes many to burn out and leave the industry within just a few short years.
Given that AAA video games are a massively profitable enterprise, it's clear that a few things need to happen - namely unionisation across the industry, and the possibility of longer development times to mitigate crunch.