[ad_1]
CD Projekt Red’s (CDPR) Cyberpunk 2077 It is one of the most anticipated games of 2020, but its development has not been without controversy. While the game’s release was initially scheduled for April 16, 2020, the release was delayed, first until September 17, then until November 19, and now suddenly until December 10. At the same time, the company has been criticized for facilitating a “crisis” culture.
In late September, the CDPR study director imposed a mandatory six-day workweek and reportedly applied additional pressure for developers to work additional hours during the week. CDPR had previously imposed extended crisis periods prior to the game’s 2018 preview at E3 and prior to the release of the studio. The witcher 3 in 2015. While crisis reports are bad enough on their own, things are even worse for CDPR as the study expressly promised it would avoid mandatory overtime. It didn’t help that the company’s chief executive told investors that developers are “happy with the three additional weeks” of crisis and said the crisis “is not that bad.” (The He apologized for those comments the next day.)
Crunch culture is relatively common in the video game industry, especially in relation to major releases like Cyberpunk 2077 Y Red Dead Redemption 2. This week, I will consider some of the legal issues surrounding the crisis and consider what could or should be done to resolve the problem, if anything can be done.
What is Crunch?
First of all, there is no single definition of “crunch” or “crunch time”, but for the purposes of this article, we can say that crunch involves two components: mandatory overtime and a culture that pushes employees to work longer. or more than is reasonable. I recognize that this definition is not perfect; in particular, there may be (and is) considerable disagreement as to what constitutes “reasonable” work. But the law regularly applies reasonableness as an objective standard, and I see no reason why that standard shouldn’t work here.
Is Crunch Illegal?
Whether the crunch is legal is a more challenging question than it sounds. Video game development, especially when it comes to big-budget AAA titles, often involves international developers. Cyberpunk 2077 it is being developed in Poland. Square Enix is based in Japan. Meter The developer of the 4A Games series is based in Malta. Rocksteady Studios is based in the UK. The list goes on. As a result, there is no definitive answer to the legality of crunch. The legality of the crisis may vary depending on where it takes place.
As far as the United States is concerned, the crisis is legal, but with a few caveats: First, companies can require employees to work overtime, and for video game developers, there is no limit to the amount of overtime that an employee can work. The only requirement is that, depending on the circumstances, companies may be required to pay overtime for overtime. In particular, employees who are paid by the hour, or who have a low salary, are generally entitled to overtime pay.
This requirement may seem simple, but it is not always met. For example, in 2006 EA settled a class action lawsuit alleging that the company owed developers millions in unpaid overtime. According to a survey, about a third of all developers are not paid for their overtime. Without knowing more details (mainly, in what state they live and if they are salaried), it is impossible to say if these workers are entitled to overtime pay, but the final conclusion is the same: mandatory overtime is not illegal, but you have to do what. Do it well.
The answer is the same when it comes to workplace culture: There is nothing illegal about a culture that pushes employees to work more or more than is reasonable. However, using the crunch culture would almost certainly expose employers to additional and avoidable legal risks.
From the perspective of responsibility, the downsides of the culture of crisis are too numerous to list. But to identify just a few: Employees will not respect an employer who treats them unfairly and is therefore more likely to sue employees in times of crisis. Employees who are treated unreasonably are more likely to misbehave or treat others unfairly, increasing the likelihood that an employee will experience discrimination in the workplace. (This one hits close to home in the video game industry, which already has a relatively high rate of gender discrimination.) Employees who are overworked tend to make mistakes, which could expose the company to malpractice lawsuits later on.
It should be noted that these risks increase with the intensity and duration of the crisis culture. A short crunch-like sprint in the week or two before a product launch is different from a culture of systemic shrinkage built into a company’s DNA. Therefore, whether the legal risk is worth the increased productivity of the crisis depends on a variety of factors. But regardless of those factors, the culture of crisis itself is not illegal.
Is Crunch Culture Bad?
Given that I consciously defined crunch culture as “a culture that pushes employees to work harder or harder than is reasonable,” I can definitely say that crunch culture is bad. After all, by definition, it is unreasonable. The definition works a lot as it shows that a debate about crisp culture is actually a debate about what is reasonable. And as with most legal questions, determining what is reasonable depends on the facts in question.
If you’re a single developer working on a self-produced title and need to finish the game next week so you can pay your bills and keep the lights on, it’s absolutely reasonable that you spend every moment of your week being awake. to end the game; in fact, you have no other choice. On the other hand, if you are a low-level bug checker working for a large company, you are assigned the role of debugging an expansion pack for a two-year title that won’t be released for another four months, and you have obligations important family members, then it would be totally unreasonable for your employer to pressure you to work more than 40 hours a week. Context is key.
When it comes to big-budget AAA games, much of what we hear about work culture seems unreasonable. Encouraging developers to work harder and harder for the last stretch of development is one thing. But when that “last mile” starts to go from “weeks” to “months”, you have a problem. Deadlines are not unique to the video game industry. But most organizations avoid the culture of crisis by identifying deadlines in advance and planning accordingly. Game developers can and should do the same.
What can be done to end the culture of crisis?
Like it or not, the law does not control how people feel and it cannot remove problem cultures from the workplace. When it comes to ending the crisis, cultural change must start from within the gaming industry. And there are good reasons to think that cultural change has already begun to take hold.
As explained above, after a particularly exhausting period of crisis for The witcher 3, CDPR made an effort to avoid the crisis in relation to Cyberpunk 2077. While that effort ultimately proved failed, the fact that the CDPR recognized the crisis as a problem is a first step in the right direction. For another example, consider Team Meat, the developer behind the next Super Meat Boy forever (SMBF). SMBF It was supposed to launch in April 2019, but Team Meat delayed the launch, explaining, “We could have sacrificed our minds, bodies, and social lives to make April 2019, but that’s stupid.” While we still have a long way to go before we can overcome the culture of crisis, the basis for improvement is real.
But is the law really powerless to help? The answer, unfortunately, is “probably”. Sure, states could pass laws limiting the amount of overtime that video game developers can work, but that solution ignores the fact that it is sometimes reasonable or necessary for developers to work long hours. Even if those laws were effective, they would only encourage developers to move to states without those restrictions.
But what about the unions? If developers formed or joined a union, they could demand that their employers treat them with greater respect. That’s true: unions can be effective, as can be seen with the recent unionization of Paradox Interactive in Sweden. But unions don’t grow on trees. Instead, unions require the participation of both video game developers and their employers, and that kind of participation requires the exact kind of culture change described above. In fact, if it was easy to form a union, the developers would have done it by now.
Where do we go from here?
History teaches us that cultural change begins with people before it is recognized by law. We saw this with the civil rights movement and anti-smoking rules, and we see it with a crisp culture. Unfortunately, cultural change takes time; As much as we like it, we can’t snap our fingers and make the crunchy culture go away. The positive side, however, is that need snap our fingers: we have all the time in the world and we should take all the time we need to end crunch culture once and for all. For those who disagree and who think we should act more quickly, they may be part of the problem without realizing it.
[ad_2]
