In world of video game development, chronic overtime is endemic

Crunch is a situation that has existed in the gaming industry for decades. Many other game developers have also cultivated reputations for running flat out. — AFP

Video game makers call it “crunch” – the process of working nights and weekends to hit a tight deadline. But unlike other professions that might muster employees to work overtime in the final stretches of a project, in game development it can be a permanent, and debilitating, way of life.

Polish game developer CD Projekt Red, a subsidiary of CD Projekt SA, this week asked all of its employees to work six-day weeks in the lead-up to the November release of Cyberpunk 2077, one of the most hotly anticipated games of the fall, Bloomberg reported. But the new policy was just the formalisation of an informal code that has long existed at the studio. Various departments at CD Projekt Red have already been working nights and weekends for weeks or months straight in order to meet deadlines, according to people who have worked there.