A new report on the development of The Last Of Us Part 2 indicated that Naughty Dog, the studio behind the game and its predecessor, might be problematically encouraging workplace crunch culture to get the game completed in time. Crunch culture is a video game industry-specific reference that describes the practice of developers working incredibly long extra hours in the buildup to a title's release in order to ensure both its quality and that it meets the target launch window.
Crunch culture is something that has existed within the industry for a long time, but has recently come under fire after reports exposed just how brutal the practice can be. Rockstar Games was infamously the subject of a report on its own crunch practices while developing Red Dead Redemption 2, a game that apparently sometimes cost developers upwards of 100 hours of work a week to push out on time. While many against the practice of crunch hoped that exposing the details of it would make an impact, Red Dead Redemption 2 went on to sell extremely well and review even better.
According to a report from Jason Schreier at Kotaku, Naughty Dog has been using crunch culture in its development process over a span of multiple games, culminating in The Last Of Us Part 2. The report suggests that Naughty Dog is by no means a bad place to work and that many are happy with the way management treats them overall, but that there's a duality between that and the crunch time practices that don't outright tell employees to work overtime but essentially subtextually do. A former developer stated in the report that "The implication is: 'Get the job done at all costs,'" even though the studio provides food and encouragement to those working hard.
Apparently, crunch culture at Naughty Dog isn't even something the studio plays coy about, as the developer specifically looks for the kind of personalities that would want to work extra on something to ensure it's as close to perfect as possible. The report also details what's described as a cycle of hires and departures, where employees crunch hard until a game like The Last Of Us Part 2 comes out, inevitably scoring well and generating bonuses after release. Once the bonuses come in, they leave, leading to the studio needing to hire more junior developers, who then stick it out until they experience the crunch themselves. This thread, in response to Schreier's story, highlights some developers indicating how brutal the sacrifices at studios can be when crunch time comes:
The report even states that some developers - even a few who still currently work at Naughty Dog - want The Last Of Us Part 2 to fail, in part because they hope it would prove that crunch culture doesn't produce results. While that seems unlikely given the pedigree of the studio and the rave reviews stemming from preview events earlier, perhaps it's time for consumers to seriously begin interrogating how their favorite pieces of art are made. Crunch culture isn't going away, and it's possible it will need to be battled from outside - by people paying for games or discussing them - before serious changes can be made from within.
The Last Of Us Part 2 releases on May 29, 2020 for PlayStation 4.
Source: Kotaku