Crunch has been a hot topic lately in many industries, but especially in gaming. With less-than-flattering exposes on studio behavior that puts a vast workload ahead of its employees, it’s refreshing to see which studios put their teams first. There are many out there, the latest being Bungie who is pushing back an upcoming Destiny 2 update in order to preserve the work/life balance of the team.
“We could take the patch off the… off the ‘patch factory’, more or less, and ask people to work super long [hours] and add this thing in,” said Destiny 2’s creative director in a recent interview with GameIndustry.biz. “We’re having the conversation about, is it worth doing that? Or is it worth preserving work-life balance and ship it later, in July?
“That’s the 100%, god’s honest truth. It’s always a cost-benefit analysis for people who are working super hard.”
With so many horror stories filling media outlets of imposing crunch time and almost abusive-like work environments, it’s humbling to see studios not unlike Bungie opening up about how they are balancing the demands of the player base with that of the team that provides those ongoing content drops. A small delay may not seem like much, but if it helps the team ensure a healthy working environment, it could mean so much.
Though the upcoming Destiny 2 update has been postponed, the game itself is available now on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. You can learn much more about the online game with our hub here, including how it’s completely changing when September rolls around later this year.