E3 is a huge event, and it’s one of the rare opportunities where you’re given direct access to the creative talent behind a variety of games. Game publishers hold individual marketing events for their tentpole releases—a preview event here, a review event there— but E3 puts everyone under the same roof. There’s a chance to have a broad reading of the industry. We wanted to take advantage of this opportunity, so in nearly every one-on-one interview we scheduled, we asked the developers sitting in front of us about a constant refrain at Waypoint: labor practices.
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Waypoint has written about labor numerous times before—here, here, here, here. While an ongoing dialogue in some circles is a welcome change, it’s a far cry from actual change. See: the unceremonious firing of two ArenaNet employees last week.You only have a few minutes with a developer at E3, and with rare exceptions, interviews are only 10 or 15 minutes long. By the time you’ve exchanged pleasantries, set up recording equipment, and tried to establish a flow with the person you’re interviewing, there’s not much time to have a meaningful back and forth. But given how little space subjects like unionization and crunch are given at a place like E3—gaming’s biggest stage every year—it seemed worth having everyone, at least, on the record.That way, we can hold them accountable in the future.What follows are 14 different interviews with members of the video game industry who run the gamut, from the head executive at Nintendo of America to a developer from a team with only a few people. Some people tried to sidestep the question, while others tackled it head-on. This is meant to be part of an ongoing dialogue regarding the way we, as a culture and medium, talk about how the people who build the games we love are treated. The status quo isn’t acceptable.(Note: Waypoint took more than 14 meetings at E3, but the moments where we brought up labor were instances in which a real conversation could happen. It didn’t happen at every meeting.)
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Reggie Fils-Aimé, president and CEO at Nintendo of America
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Do you think that there is as Nintendo, as a platform holder, some ability that… You know, Nintendo can't fix the world, I understand that, but as a platform holder, some ability to attempt to address this industry-wide problem?Fils-Aimé: Well, again, I believe the best way to lead the is through example. And so what we do is reinforce with the way we encourage our business partners to act with the way that we encourage, if you will, the community that we touch.And it's not only on work life balance. It's issues like diversity and inclusion. You know, with all of those tough conversations our mentality is that we're going to model the behavior that we want seen. So that's why I have a diverse senior management team. That's why as a black man leading a Japanese company, I feel good about the things that we do to deal with higher order issues and to deal with them in a way that models positive behavior.
Raoul Barbet, game director on The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit
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It's easy to say that, but…I think you can very easily—even people who are working on the team are really dedicated and they want to create the best game they want, so sometimes will stay.
Is that something where maybe you, as a creative lead, have to step in and manage people? Realize people might stay here, but sometimes you need to tell people, "Hey, we can do it on Monday."Barbet: Yeah, yeah. Maybe it's it's not there, but to spend a good weekend is better. I'm quite lucky because our team, we haven't crunched so much. Life Is Strange 1 was difficult but every game is difficult to create. Every movie, every comic. It's always difficult. This is one of the projects I'm most proud of, and I think the team was happy to do it. All the things you talked about in the industry is a problem because of all the reasons I've told. You've got a lot of passionate people, so it's easy to abuse.It's a tough balance. One of the reasons we're asking is getting people to recognize it, and one of the things you did here was acknowledge this is a problem we have to talk about and think about. That's the first step. There's no easy solutions to it.Barbet: For sure, I think it is possible to create games without crunch, and a lot of people say no. [laughs] So I say yes.
Matt Booty, head of Microsoft Studios
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And that's really how I like to come in and lead the studios. We want our game teams, we want the folks working on our game teams to be thinking about how is this personal to them, and how are they moving themselves forward and their careers forward. Back to the studios with games we announced today, it's like, what are the studios that are run by dedicated leaders who takes those things seriously. That's one of our criteria.
Adrian Ciszewski, creative director on Dying Light 2
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And I think that crunch isn't bad if it's occasionally during the production, like if there's a huge milestone. We had this created this demo [early] actually, because we've kind of advanced in the things we do in production and this system and stuff. We've done it in like two or three weeks or something. So it wasn't a big, whole year thing. I know some other companies will spend one year on a demo.And this [demo] was, no fakes, that's Dying Light 2. Over two weeks, we did certain improvements in term of the quality of graphics. For obvious reasons, we're not that far into development in terms of [visual] quality, so we've done certain new assets, but systematically-wise, that was [Dying Light 2].And if it's something like that, there is a punctuation. Like, at the end of the day, there is a reward—like, bam, I did it! So if there's something like E3 or a huge milestone, like a release date very soon, yeah, we should kind of think there will be a crunch, because it's really hard to avoid. It [the game] always can be done better, so that people really like it.And in Techland, we help people to have great work-life balance. For example, they can bring kids, we have a daycare, those kinds of things. You know, we're family, it's not a big company like Ubisoft or Activision. So we all know each other and help each other. You know, there are people who go into work very late because they have problems at home to resolve, because first thing first: Family is always the first thing. So no one will kill you because you have a problem at home, your daughter is sick, it's not like that.
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But still, I think the crunching for companies that crunch for three months, four months, without weekends. That's nonsense. That means they actually did something wrong when planning.So that sort of crunch you actively work to make sure is not part of your studio's culture?Yeah, yeah, yeah.Is that just about setting smart milestones and honest expectations?Yeah, smart milestones.Is it telling people you could work on this for another 12 hours, but it is good, it's great. move on to the next thing?Yeah, yeah. But sometimes it's really hard! Sometimes [on the weekends] I drive close to our office, and I see there are cars. And there's no crunch. But they're very creative and very engaged, and so like…Ahhh, can I do something? Then, on Monday everyone will see that the game is looking better. So, it's up to them. It's not that we're forcing them to crunch. They're really engaged with the company, the mission, and the goals.
Andrew Shouldice, designer of Tunic
Okay, so I have a follow up, then. One of the things we're doing this year is talking to everyone about the emerging conversation around organization and labor and crunch in games. I'm curious, as a solo developer, how do you manage your OWN time, how do you prevent burnout, how do you make sure that your own work-life balance is maintained--if it is at all?
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Shouldice: Right, so. I feel like I am, maybe a little—without bragging—maybe I'm a little bit better at maintaining this balance than other people. Because if it's 9PM and I'm tired, I'll just decide: You know what, I'm gonna be so much better at this tomorrow. And also, I keep maybe obsessively meticulous time logs about how I'm spending time, like on a minute-by-minute basis, which things have received attention and whatnot.So I try to be careful about doing much crunch. Obviously, for things like putting together a trailer for Xbox, there's gonna be some deadlines and some unexpected stuff. But by having treated myself well before that, hopefully I'm not going to just evaporate into ash when trying to get this game done.
Patrick Mills, quest designer on Cyberpunk 2077
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Is there for ways, as an individual, to make sure you have the resources available, that you're compensated for all that stuff?Mills: Absolutely.Looking back at your own history with crunch, how do you approach that going forward? Sometimes, things are out of your power. And it's so easy to be like "I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it, because I love it."Mills: I will say one great thing about this company is that I genuinely do believe that management cares. Whenever I have needed time off, I've gotten it. That's something I can say about that.
Magnus Nedfors, game director on Rage 2
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Then, you come back the next day and you're full of energy and you can be super effective eight hours a day or whatever the time period. That's what a human being is capable of doing in one day. I really appreciate the new style. It has been around for a while, but we have been growing as an industry. People are getting older. It's not that you get more tired, perhaps, but you get a different perspective.Life's not forever. You want to spend it doing a lot of different things.Nedfors: It's been a learning [experience] for me. I've changed from working 16 hour days to normal work days…almost. [laughs] It's a process. But I also have a unique situation compared to many others, where I work with ideas and I work with the team. So I can be working by sitting home and talking with my wife.In some ways, you can never totally turn it off.Nedfors: Exactly. It's in my brain.Are there specific steps Avalanche has taken as a studio to recognize when people are killing themselves? Over the course of E3 when I've talked to different developers about this, I've heard how certain people in management need to find people and say "Hey, this is good enough" or "You can do this on Monday" to stop people from letting the passion take them over.I think Avalanche is an excellent employer in that sense. They are doing many of the things that you said, like watching out for the employees and saying "Hey, man, you should go home." In the right way. [laughs] They really are trying to help everyone, to have a good work balance towards private life.
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[We have a] great HR department that supports everyone in a good way and looks out for injustices and so on—people doing stupid things without thinking about it. Things like, we have one studio in Stockholm and one in North America and there are cultural differences. When people move from one office to another, helping them to understand "Hey, in this nation, it works like this." It's like, it can be anything. We Swedes are relatively okay with English, but sometimes, you can use words that are offensive to American people just because we have learned them in the wrong way. Stuff like that. They're great at taking care of that.It's intriguing to see how they, as a company, help everybody to have a good time and be the best possible team. Of course, we do crunch every now and then, for an important thing. Like E3, for example. For some reason, they don't do E3 just because our trailer isn't done. [laughs] I don't know why. That's stupid, I think? So then you need to do a few extra hours, but keeping it short. Being honest with people at work. "Look, guys, you know E3 is coming up. Can you please just plan your life a little bit around that? Work a little bit extra here, and you'll get three days after E3 to keep everything fair."
Sam Lake, creative director on Control
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I'm really happy. I think we've managed to do that in a really nice way, making sure that [we] never go crazy with crunching and always planning, and learning from one project to another. I think Control is a really good example of making a really solid plan, going through pre-production, discovering what we've actually made.Also what's helped a lot is that Northlight tech is in very good shape. During Quantum Break, we were rebuilding many many things in the engine, so it meant we were creating content we knew that was not final content because we [couldn't] make final content. You are pressed to do a lot of content fast. Now, basically, the engine is in a shape where everybody can hit the ground running, and already started creating content that we know that this is the final content for the game. It also helps to make sure crunching doesn't go insane.But I feel it's a really, really important point. My perspective to this that this is a marathon, not a sprint. It might seem, at certain points, that "No, no, we need to push hard for this." Ultimately, looking back to it, three months after, it wasn't that important. We could have just taken it with the normal hours. I think there have been a lot of lessons on that along the way. I think Remedy's approach has really helped.Different developers I've talked to this week, one of the important takeaways I've had is that often the word "passion" is used in a good way and sometimes in a bad way, where people have these moments where they're just gonna work this weekend, gotta get this thing done. But then, sometimes that can go toxic. It can go too long. Does Remedy work to try and identify folks who are having a process, let them work through it, but also realizing that can go too far, we need to recognize and tell people "Hey, you should go home. We can do this on Monday."
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Lake: Yeah, yeah. The balance needs to be there. It's passionate people, and passion is absolutely required to make high-quality products, and people need to believe in it. They need to want to be working on it. But at the same time, yes, sometimes people have trouble understanding and seeing where they themselves are, how tired they are. When you are more tired, you lose the ability to understand that. Yes, we look after people in the company, and HR follows these things, and is on top of. Sometimes, it's not easy, but it's required.There's no red line. It's case-by-case, person-by-person.Lake: It always is, and it needs to be flexible.
Michael Gallagher, president of the Entertainment Software Association
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When you put all of those elements together, it’s created great opportunity for individual laborers, or the game makers, at whatever level, to make choices that empower themselves. So I think that’s why we've had less… it hasn't been a significant issue in the game industry for the last ten years.But is there any discussion whatsoever, because there have been discussions, especially in the last year or so, especially around GDC—I know this isn't about GDC, but just seeing those discussions, has it come up?Gallagher: I love GDC because I actually get to visit with people! It’s much harder…You get to have fun, you don't have to do these interviewsGallagher: I love doing these interviews! We are, of course, paying attention, and we are listening because these issues, we've learned, you have to pay attention to them when they're small because they can become big. And then when they're bigger, they're much more difficult to manage.But right now, the dialogue that's happening is at a level that is, I would say, in its infancy, to the extent that its going to grow, I don't know.[Another journalist refers to the crunch conversation in relation to this]Gallagher: What I hear about that is that, yes, where crunch is in effect, there's definite impact. But also I hear more and more publishers saying—and they're doing this for competitive reasons, for culture reasons, they're rejecting crunch, and saying “That's not how we operate.” And that is an attraction for the best and the brightest to see those opportunities and make those individual choices, to go to those companies.
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The marketplace that's very, very competitive, and remember, the marketplace for talent and labor isn’t just video games, it's all of tech. When you broaden it to the Internet, when you broaden it to tech, you look at the skillset it takes to be a great worker in our industry, other industries are pulling at those as well.I think there are different challenges in those industries and probably a lot less excitement, because our industry rules! So, that's what I would say: that there are other choices to be made and we'll see how it plays out. But yes, we're listening.
Lars Gustavsson, creative director on Battlefield V
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On that one you’ll never be—it’s like learning in the games industry. If you think you’ve learned it all, you’re probably doing a bad job. You need to be humble about it. The same thing for how a studio operates, especially when you grow. It’s something that’s definitely on the agenda. I wouldn’t say that we’re perfect. We’re doing our utmost to do constantly improve.OK. So regarding growth, I mean, I’m with a company that used to be small, now it’s grown a lot. And it’s weird, in some ways, the bigger it’s gotten the harder it’s gotten. I’m curious, when you were small team and you were getting this franchise off the ground, was it crunchier and harder back then when it was your baby? Or is harder as a massive, multi-million dollar franchise?Gustavsson: Personally, I shouldn’t even mention the hours I used on Battlefield 1942. It was our first big one. I wasn’t used to the responsibility of a crew that maxed out on 24 [employees], plus some part-timers. Probably we have a bigger UI group on this team. IT was a different world then. Coming in the morning, and making sure that the crew got breakfast to motivate them to come in after a late night. But we worked far too much, and far too late in those days. I wouldn’t recommend it whatsoever.There’s definitely pushes and hard work these days, but all in all we’ve come a long way both as a company in supporting pensions, benefits, uh, fruit baskets and massages and God knows what [else] in order to make it better from a work-life perspective.
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But as long as we go, it will be a journey. But I think it’s also about building an identity in the studio. We were a small studio, just 25 of us, when Red Faction games joined DICE and we became 50. How do you build a studio culture when you’re bigger? It’s down to the people at the studio. Building a sense of belonging within your team, within your franchise. It’s about being open, welcoming. Swedes sometimes they say can be less talkative but I think when you do get to know them, they open up.
Scott Phillips, game director on Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
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Julian Gerighty, creative director on The Division 2
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I’m curious, when you hear stories coming out of North America and other development houses—[PR: Rob, I’m sorry, we’re just trying to stay pretty focused on the game. Happy to follow up with an email at a later time, we’re just going to try and I will respectfully ask that we [stay on topic]]And again my answer was very personal, based on my impressions of Massive as a development studio.[PR: Not that we’re not happy to talk about the topic. But we’re just here with limited time.]