Splash Damage Lengthy Crunch Times Mean Buggy Games
Does not lead to good products.
Given the recent controversy over L.A. Noire developer Team Bondi’s working conditions, is it a good idea for studios to engage in lengthy ‘crunch’ periods? The opinion of Splash Damage’s lead writer, Ed Stern, is a resounding ‘no.’
Today’s Telegraph features a studio profile on the Brink developer, and during the tour Stern explained that a team that works day in, day out constantly will not produce good results. In fact, he goes further, adding “I don’t understand how you can work in an enormous team” in the first place.
“How do you work in a single business where you don’t know everyone’s name? We started off with this bumbling British amateur passion.You know, saying “Oh we’ll just work really hard and sleep under the desks and we’ll just burn through it!” But you just can’t do that, these are our jobs now.”
Stern admits that Splash Damage has had its fair share of crunches. “We were still doing 42 hour shifts as recently as three years ago. There are times when you do need to push through when things need to get done, but doing that for more than six months just isn’t a good idea; you don’t produce good work and the games you release are really buggy.”
While L.A. Noire turned out to be really rather good, it fell foul of another curse - the Australian studio is now finding difficulty in getting support for any of its future projects over the scandal which saw many of its employees take on unpaid work under stressful conditions.
Source: The Telegraph
Today’s Telegraph features a studio profile on the Brink developer, and during the tour Stern explained that a team that works day in, day out constantly will not produce good results. In fact, he goes further, adding “I don’t understand how you can work in an enormous team” in the first place.
“How do you work in a single business where you don’t know everyone’s name? We started off with this bumbling British amateur passion.You know, saying “Oh we’ll just work really hard and sleep under the desks and we’ll just burn through it!” But you just can’t do that, these are our jobs now.”
Stern admits that Splash Damage has had its fair share of crunches. “We were still doing 42 hour shifts as recently as three years ago. There are times when you do need to push through when things need to get done, but doing that for more than six months just isn’t a good idea; you don’t produce good work and the games you release are really buggy.”
While L.A. Noire turned out to be really rather good, it fell foul of another curse - the Australian studio is now finding difficulty in getting support for any of its future projects over the scandal which saw many of its employees take on unpaid work under stressful conditions.
Source: The Telegraph
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