10 Things Everyone Hates About Modern Video Games
4. Crunch Culture & Treatment Of Developers
While there are certainly many gamers who don't pay much attention to the inner-workings of the gaming industry, it's becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the flagrantly unjust working conditions inflicted upon many working in the business.
In recent years there's been increasing pressure upon AAA developers in particular to avoid subjecting their employees to brutalising crunch practises, whereby team members can be asked to work upwards of 100 hours per week in the lead-up to a game going gold.
The effects of crunch culture are far-reaching and extremely damaging to employees, ruining their mental wellbeing and potentially destroying relationships as they're unable to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
The decades-long expectation that developers slog themselves away into poor mental and physical health because making a video game is a "privileged" position is thankfully starting to die out, though the industry still has a long way to go to address crunch.
Ubisoft has claimed lately that they've been able to produce the recent Assassin's Creed games free of massive crunch, all while Rockstar and Naughty Dog have been thoroughly dragged for their brutal working conditions.
The real solution is the formation of a game developers' union, and while baby steps have already been made, it goes without saying that many publishers will actively do whatever it takes to prevent unionisation.
This is all without even getting into how horribly fans can treat developers, because of course, nobody hates video games more than gamers themselves.
Various employees working on Cyberpunk 2077, for instance, received death threats after the game was delayed last year, putting senior game designer Andrzej Zawadzki in the position of having to remind fans that such behaviour is unacceptable.