Crunch/Overtime
What do your studios do for crunch/overtime? Do you normally death march? Do you have 'scheduled crunch' where you schedule for a week every few a year or so out? When you crunch, are you required to stay or can you go when you finish your stuff or don't have something to do?
What were the results of the project? If you did scheduled crunch, did it eliminate or do you think it helped stop death march?
I don't have the experience with many projects and I'm curious what others experiences are.
Please don't tell me you like crunch (I don't care) or defend it (that is not the place for that). I'm looking for some qualitative statistics on studio time management.
What were the results of the project? If you did scheduled crunch, did it eliminate or do you think it helped stop death march?
I don't have the experience with many projects and I'm curious what others experiences are.
Please don't tell me you like crunch (I don't care) or defend it (that is not the place for that). I'm looking for some qualitative statistics on studio time management.
Replies
But that was specific to that project, and was expected. It was my first project with this company, but apparently was unusual. On our current projects the plan is a bit more for scheduled crunch I believe. We'll see how it works out.
And yea, dinner is provided for us as well if it matters.
We've certainly had our share of death marches, but we've gotten far better at predicting them and working a few later nights a week or two ahead of time (9-8's). We're not required to stay cause others are crunching, but I always promote it. I really don't like the mentality of 'well, my shit's done, I'm outta here!' Especially since it's inevitable that others have more or less work put on their shoulders. Another reason why bug lists drive me crazy... in a smaller studio where everyone is capable of similar qualities in enviro, character, ui work, etc., people should treat it as an art team's bug list and a code team's bug list, not an individuals.
What were the results of the project? If you did scheduled crunch, did it eliminate or do you think it helped stop death march?
Of course the additional work has kept us from staying ridiculous hours in the end... but it's also more subjective of material as the final vision of a milestone's requirements don't really come to fruition until the week of the build it often seems. We all know how much shit can come up last minute regardless of solid planning, though.
I don't have the experience with many projects and I'm curious what others experiences are.
Please don't tell me you like crunch (I don't care) or defend it (that is not the place for that). I'm looking for some qualitative statistics on studio time management.
Also, how many project cycles have you been through? Where are you in the project cycle? It is easy to say how a studio doesn't do crunch if you haven't been through the last six months before ship.
I've been through 3 projects final crunches (as well as pinch hitting a few others), and it's usually uncommon for too many artists to be on it till the end... being a TA though, you're screwed
Generally we try and schedule in time for error to avoid crunch, but it doesn't always work because certain work is underestimated or there are late changes due to design/publishers/time restrictions/tech/etc.
Like the others have mentioned, dinner is also provided for the team during crunch.
-caseyjones
I then came to realize this company just redefined the definition of overtime and that was just how they worked, lol. Who needs weekends anyway.... blah :P
Under one producer we'd usually end up with 3-4 days straight crunch just before build day (the last workday of each month). It wasn't uncommon to be there 'til 1-4am each day for a few days in a row.
Under the other producer, we'd be seeing maybe an hour a week extra working a bit late and then maybe 2 hours extra on the day before build day. If the shit hit the fan then it could be 9-10pm day before build (by ~10pm it'd basically get written off and we'd come back afresh and sort it out the next).
I wouldn't go so far as to call any extra hours we did scheduled crunch. Ultimately, just having a good producer who had a finger on the pulse and knew what to focus effort on was what helped things run smooth.
Same... sounds like the first time it would be new and exciting but after that it would be pretty stressful... haha
Crunch is a normal part of any scheduled project. Despite what an amazing schedule may suggest... no one is a machine and something is bound to go wrong. Even something harmless as taking vacation or being sick for an extended period can have an affect down the road on the productions schedule. It all adds up.
You always have to account for pipeline changes, unexpected slow downs in production (pre and post holiday times, vac/sic, etc), and most of all problem solving. Nothing will be done correctly the first time, through. There will always be iteration and re-work down the road.
The normal course of action to counter crunch time is cut features from the project. This happens everywhere. It's impossible to keep ALL the initial features in any project and still ship anywhere near the intended ship date. But having said that... you can only cut so much. You still have to provide a worthwhile product to your consumer. Answer? Crunch.
You can't ship 1/4th of a game just because you want to avoid having your team spend late nights.
My advice is to pick your poison. Either come in super early or stay late. Your choice. Both have their advantages.
Staying late is usually the option most people take. You get fed and get a lot of work done. The down side is that you come home late and don't have time for hobbies outside of work.
Coming in super early allows you get a get a lot of work done, too. You hit a good stride well before lunch and work through the afternoon. The nice thing is you get to go home at a decent hour and have time for things outside of work. Down side is you have to get your ass out of bed earlier than usual.
So yeah. There you go. For those that are saying they haven't been crunching lately... it's likely because they're in the early phases of the project. Or management believes in miracles.
You dont know what you are talking about,you shouldnt look foward to that. Crunch is a result of either bad management who does not compensate and change a scheduele to accomadate for changes in the project or an artist who doesnt work efficiently. Crunch is bad,it grinds people down and burns them out as well as cause mistakes when fatigue sets in.
One thing that pisses me off is artists who think that working insane amount of hours is a badge of honor and people who actually work efficiently or have lives outside of work feel pressured to stay and work extra because of artists like this. Avoid crunch its bad.
At my current job the managers are on top of their game,they plan a schedule and it does not mean it is concrete,they adjust on a daily basis to take all factors and delays into accomadation.
Im working with a team of 3 other environment artists building about 7 full 3d next gen levels and in less than a year i have worked 6 total overtime hours.
We usually stay late and hook a computer up to our theatre speakers and play music and sometimes we bring in beer and what not.
Its funny tho cause Monday night we stayed at the studio for 20 some odd hours and we remembered that at 6am was the free Dennys breakfast... So when we had stuff rendering out we went to Dennys at 6am :P
So yea my studio crunch time after the boss leaves is fun...
We're just wrapping up a project and we've hit a bit of a crunch period.We remodeled our office just before and after the holiday break, then it snowed like crazy shutting us down for another week. Even with all that unexpected down time we've managed to stay on track by working 2 weekends at home and putting in a few hours during the week. Its the worst crunch we've ever had, and its not likely to happen again, and it hasn't been that bad at all.
Not at my current lean 'n mean studio but when I worked for a 200+ staffed studio, there's usually a scheduled crunch prior to a conference (gdc, tgs, e3). Or whenever producer deems it necessary ('cuz Microsoft guys are coming to town, for example).
Who's affected by the crunch call varies between departments. But you can expect long hours between beta and release candidate.
Either your lead will tell to stay longer or you'll get a company wide email. But it really varies on the situation whether you need to stay longer or not. If it's just bug testing you can just borrow a dev kit and do it at home (for a weekend or holidays) or portion part of your work day doing this. If bugs involved your department then yeah, put in the hours necessary to take care of them.
a sharp reduction in the amount of crunch:)
working without pay seems to be a modern phenomenon which is a total disgrace IMHO.
Its essentially working for free and I don't count lunch or a bit of old pizza as payment
When I was working full time I often took work home or stayed back an hour just so I could
polish my work a little, but officially we never had any crunch on the two games I helped ship.
we did work bloody hard during the day though ie head down all day with no messing around
Some companies offer bonuses as payment at the end , but only if the game does well and
then they are discretionary.
I don't mind occasionally doing a bit extra if needed, but to regularly make people work long
overtime or weekends without pay over a periods months is something that belongs in the
victorian era
I have no issue with crunch since we are well compensated throughout the year, and the work environment is wonderful. The extra time spent is taxing, obviously...but the overall good outweighs the occasional crunch.
The only problem I see with making your team work consistent days is with burning them out. It becomes increasingly difficult to focus and produce solid art after day 16. It can sometimes be counter-productive.
edit: Totally not optional. if you're scheduled to crunch...you crunch.
Happy employees do better work, and I don't know anyone that would be happy to work a ton of hours with no compensation whatsoever, whether it's extra vacation time, higher salary, bonuses, a star on the board, etc. Hell, even genuine thanks for a job well done is something.
No, it isn't. Perhaps we can thank management when we crunch and they can give us the money they save from us working for free, instead? Let's not cut ourselves short.
Thanks for your answers. I also want to ask- what sort of compensation do you guys get? Thanks for those who have answered this already. Comp time, overtime (or regular hourly) pay, do you get royalties/profit sharing on your title, etc? Please don't include bonuses (they are irrelevant to crunch) or food (you are a fool if you think food is compensation for any significant crunch).
Actually food's not a bad exchange for more time at work for young, single dudes...who can't cook, no girlfriends (free porn!)...or paid high enough (yet) to eat out all the time (not counting McDs).
Overtime pay or immediate compensation for crunch? If you're paid peanuts like a warehouse worker... Damn! Demand time and half. If you're annual is in the hi tens of thousands, could be tougher to ask unless you've got an agreement beforehand.
[Rhetorically asking] Are you exploited? Depends on your studio and what your deal is. You figure out what's the balance between what your giving the company and what it giving you (prestige status, decent pay, 3 weeks vacation, free tickets to out of state conferences, educational benefits, experience?).
[Rhetorically asking] Would you demand of your company a 50% bonus for nothing extra?
Why, then, should your company demand of you 50% more work for nothing extra?
Those things are there whether you are working 50% more or not. They are not payment for overtime, they are perks attracting to you a job. 60 hour workweeks are not written into a contract or discussed when someone is hired. The fact we get those things is entirely irrelevant to the question. Being treated like a human being doesn't mean you need to work like an animal.
Anyway, this is not the place for the discussion- my question was rhetorical, after all.
You don't have to if you know how to play or prep for crunch time.
But that's for another time and thread.
Try not to burn out man. :thumbup:
If you are going to argue just don't respond here. And yes this is a double standard, I didn't argue with people who agree with me on crunch even though they are stating an opinion like you are- I don't care, this just isn't the thread for it. Thanks.
So let me post again since the thread got derailed:
Thanks for your answers. I also want to ask- what sort of compensation do you guys get? Thanks for those who have answered this already. Comp time, overtime (or regular hourly) pay, do you get royalties/profit sharing on your title, etc? Please don't include bonuses (they are irrelevant to crunch) or food (you are a fool if you think food is compensation for any significant crunch).
These days I'm extremely jaded and much less enthusiastic about my work. But I still love it, and wouldn't want to do anything else.
Again- I'm not asking for perspective. I'm asking for your actual experience with crunch. How long, how much, do you feel it helped ship a faster or better game, how were you compensated, etc.
No, you weren't: That is an opinion, not a fact, and the rest of your post defended that opinion and offered advice on how to handle crunch, neither of which was asked for.
If you are going to respond with what I initially asked- your quantitative or qualitative experience of crunch- please feel free to respond. Otherwise, save your answers. Thanks for understanding.
i don't know why you'd assume that - our bonuses are largely performance based, rather than a set percentage of salary or time served or whatever. So if you're not performing, expect less. Crunch is one of those times where performance is laid bare - if you're not pulling your weight during crunch, it's going to be more plainly obvious to both those who figure out your level of bonus and all your co-workers.
Regarding scheduled crunch - we've done this a couple of times. Well, not "crunch" exactly, but a change to the core hours - two or three hours at the end of the day, or split between the start and end of the day, with communication so everyone knows when to expect everyone else in the office.
Did it help to avoid proper last minute crunch? I'm undecided. On each project that we did it, the core-hour change was instigated when the major milestones/deadlines were still a grey area - it could have been that we had to deliver soon, or we deliver significantly later (for various reasons, mostly market forces). Each time, the project extended and we ended up delivering later, so it's tricky to say what the extra hours achieved
You're right, it was a loaded thing to say contract/performance bonuses aren't relevant to crunch- they shouldn't be but I should have left the option open that some studios believe they are. Thanks for calling that out, as the information is definitely worthwhile.
sounds good assuming that this weight-pulling isn't just linked to 'time spent sitting on office chair' but much rather 'results'! my overall experience with project managers suggests they'd be leaning towards the former as a guide tho, especially in larger teams where the individual contribution might not be visible beyond the sub-team lead-level.
i've not really crunched at my current place in the last two projects. we do crunch from time to time tho but it has not been enforced on me. i'm normally able to meet my schedules without that.
to the OP: please don't be such a thread-nazi! forum-topics have the tendency to go sideways. if you want to keep people exactly on your track, answering exclusively your question, why not open up a poll instead?
sometimes you have to exercise self restraint
yeah, that's a worry. In my circumstance though, i'm refferring to myself and the AD, and i like to think we're well on top of it. But still, just occupying a chair during crunch or milestone hours is better than repeatedly fucking off, since it displays some degree of solidarity (i can't place work at this time that isn't intrinsically linked to everyone else's work)
another thing about crunch, even when things are going mental : i've never known anyone to be refused the hours they *need to take away from work, even if it's to escape to the pub or for a meal out. During the ridiculous crunch for one game years ago (80-100 hour weeks in many cases ... it was when we took on a huge project best suited to a team three times the size, and *really couldn't fuck it up, you might have heard of it) i demanded to be let out into town about 2 days before a major deadline. And they happily agreed. And i most definitely "went into town". Oh yes.
This is a really informative thread.
Typically since crunch is usally at the end of a project it is bug squashing. However it can be asset creation depending on how much work there is. If your project is really under-resourced crunch can be a normal way to meet your workload. Sometimes I'll do some overtime to put in some cool stuff I thought deserved the extra work.
Ideally crunch should never happen and one thing to keep in mind is that half of the time crunch won't get you a raise, or a bonus, or even keep you from being let go. But it can be a road to riches if you're on the right project so a bit of good judgement helps here.
Because I DO want to have a serious and worthwhile discussion about this topic. I know threads go sideways, I am always inclined to let them naturally develop. But for the sake of gathering some worthwhile data, and starting the discussion of crunch on the wrong foot, I'd really rather keep it out of this thread as much as possible.
Relic was very organized and i knew what i had to do before i did it. i can manage my time VERY well, and although we had periods of crunch time, i was almost never behind schedule. if i have a deadline and a target, i can generally hit it... unless the deadline is fucking retarded.
at Relic the crunch time was well managed. the asked people to stay late a few nights a week, and sometimes they asked you to come in a day on the weekend. if things went to shit, they'd ask you to work through the weekend, and usually give you some time off after the big deadline. things felt quite reasonable.
i'm working at a small company now and our schedule is MUCH MORE POORLY managed. we are moving into production without any preproduction. the timeline is so fucking short we dont have time to figgure out what we're doing before we do it. this, to me, is very stupid. crunch time here pops up out of nowhere, in no time, and goes away just as fast.
quite frankly, for me, it's all about knowing how much time i have to do what in. at the place i'm working at now, i dont know exactly what I'm doing.. so managing my time is difficult. a lot of crunch is unnecessary... and unnecessary crunch is fucking bullshit.
and as far as the bickering that's going on, I'm with rob. i dont really have much patience for people that tell me why something shitty has to happen either. people have really simplistic views of reality and they shove them at you as if it's all concrete truth. so far in my experience, crunch time is the result of band management or employees with bad time management strategies. if we take the belief that crunch time is unavoidable, we'll never find reasons why it's not.
That's going to be a losing battle if we're talking about triple A game dev with millions of bucks on the line and an untested code or an inexperienced team with a new engine. Simplistic view? It comes with the territory. Unlikely you'll hit your sweet spot shipping deadline if your studio's commited to normal 40 hr work weeks...and you're supposedly making the next WoW game.
But compare that experience of making a brand new game with making an expansion pack. Lighter work loads and faster turnaround, right?
All the Guitar Hero devs at the minimum, in my opinion, need to just to make new skins/head models, and upload new tracks. But shit man, I'm sure they crunched hard to make GH 1 a hit.
Also if you want 'cold' data I would suggest you provide a simple example bullet point list showing what you want to gather. If you put this in prose the replies will obviously contain opinions.
My opinion (hehe!) is to believe it is stupid to write down an 'D-day' time for release or major builds. Why not using some sort of adjustable scale, pushed little by little every week or so? Dunno. I find crunch stupid.
The workloads should be the same for a expansion pack or a hit game. If the workloads are lighter for an expansion pack then you should just shorten the schedule.
Lots of time isn't the same thing as hard work. The difference between an amazing model and a good model isn't usually extra time. Good decisions only take seconds to make. The hard part is having people who can make those decisions. Extra time can help. But not as much as people assume.
It doesn't have to always be a losing battle. The way productions are handled just needs to be tweaked a bit.
People crunch because there are deadlines that need to be met, and people run into unexpected problems that put them behind on schedule (or the deadline scheduled was unrealistic).
The deadlines are set by the people with the money who want to make sure that their money is being well spent. aka publishers.
In most cases, milestones are decided in the beginning of the production. Have a playable demo by this date. etc. However, studios can't be expected to be able to plan out every single aspect of the creation of a game. It's impossible to plan everything out to a T and still have a smooth production that never deviates from the schedule. There has to be room to add a new feature. Or throw out a shitty idea you implemented.
The solution is for the publisher and the devs to work together with a more close relationship/loose milestone schedule. Get together every month, or every three months with the publishers and show them where you are, what you're doing, and what you plan to have done by the next meeting. Make agreements during that meeting what you need to have done by the next one. Plan the future based on where you are, not where you planned to be 2 years ago when you started. Publishers gain a greater insight into exactly how well the production is going, and whether it is worth continuing to fund, and the developers are able to create and follow their own realistic schedules.