Do gamers really care about developer crunch and industry layoffs?

Not one bit. Gamers are completely amoral and like any other customer, they don’t care about how the sausage is made, as long as it’s cheap and delicious.

I guarantee two things about GTA6: there will be extensive crunch and once it releases, there will be layoffs from R* and T2. Not one person on this board or even on this planet writ large will say “the crunch and layoffs bother me so much that I will refrain from buying and playing the game!” Not one person will prevent themselves from buying a PS5 or Xbox because Sony and Microsoft cashiered 900 and 10,000 employees respectively (on a side note, that big delta indicates how much larger Microsoft is than Sony).

So please let’s stop the insincere virtue signaling and keep it 1000 (as the kids like to say). You all may yell, scream and gnash your teeth about industry misbehavior but like DLC/MTX/loot boxes, you all will end up buying their stuff anyway.

Agreed. If the whole industry wants to dig themselves out of the hole, why not just go back to creating the casual trash that sold like hot cakes 15 years ago? Yeah, you know. Crap like Wii Sports, other casual shit that didn't involve tank controls and 20 buttons like Elden Ring. Casual trash is probably easier to develop too but what do I know I ain't no dev.

Seriously though it's almost like Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony all went after the same "core" gamer and forgot about the casuals or new players. Every game out there is like on it's 10th iteration, bigger and badder than ever before and the result is -- games are more complicated and protracted than ever. It's supposed to be a game!

I care about crunch, yes. I've been around for the 2008 Great Recession and the COVID lockdowns, so I have seen time and time again companies reducing their work force, demanding more from those they kept, and never really quite getting back to where they were prior to that. Likewise, inflation is far exceeding pay increases so not only is more expected of fewer people, but those fewer people are technically getting pay decreases every year (for example, receiving a 6% raise over the past two years and inflation is 10%).

Such is the cost of infinite growth in a finite world...which brings me to my next point:

This is why I'm a big advocate for the 4-day, 32-hour work week. We are getting paid less and producing more, so we need to take what we are owed in one way or another and if that means more free time, then so be it. This also applies to "crunch" where, should it be necessary, I think it would be reasonable to increase weekly hours to 40 (from 32) and to five days (from four) for a set period of time.

But crunch, as it is now, is pretty unreasonable. I think the most unreasonable part of it is that it's routine, and not an exception to an ordinary schedule. I think it's just sort of expected like "Oh hey guys, game is set to come out in six months, get ready to work 60-hour weeks.

...Inb4 the "derrrrr no one wants to work anymore" crowd gets here...

*This is also why I am a big proponent of independent and small-scale games. Crunch happens in all industries to one degree or another, but smaller studios seem to have a more 'it's done when it's done" mentality and I like that. Whereas with AAA it's just "HURRY UP! **** QUALITY! WORK 60 hours AND GET IT SHIPPED!"

Except for Star Citizen. Hurry the hell up 😋😂

One thing about human suffering in the games industry is at least it scales well. Like if 1000 people have to suffer for GTA 6, but literally 10s of millions or even possibly 100 million people love it, it balances out. Also you buying the game doesn't cause marginally more harm to anyone; the damage is fixed in order to get the product to market.

Compare that with eating meat; every bite of beef is marginally more suffering for animals. Or using a car: marginally more carbon with each trip. I think it's worth worrying about ones actions when you consider the scaling factor. Eating animals for meat: suffering scales with consumption. Testing medicine or products on animals: suffering is a fixed value, go use products tested on animals all day!

I don't think you can really make that argument and be ethical, unless you were being sarcastic lol. Suffering isn't really something that's relative; there might be a million starving people in Somalia, that doesn't make the hundred starving people in Chicago any less hungry. Ideally we would resolve to eliminate all hunger.

I mean, we don't have to make anyone suffer if we wanted to. There's no reason you can't make millions happy as consumers and make thousands of people happy as employees when making a game. Waiting doesn't really make us unhappy, necessarily; there's so many games coming out these days, it doesn't really matter if GTA 6 comes out in 2025 or 2027.

Likewise, animals raised for slaughter don't have to be "unhappy" (not that animals really have emotions like humans do, but let's just say they do for this debate). They can live happy lives up to the point they're ready for slaughter, at which point theiur lives are ended quickly and painlessly. We can still have our steak and eat it, too 😋

Unfortunately there's not much we can do in the medical field; animal testing needs to be done. We can be humane about it and spare them pain and suffering, though. You have to break eggs to make an omelet, as they say.

I dunno I've been playing older games anyway.. most the new stuff I like tends to be indie and AA

These gigantic studios with crazy giant budgets making crap so yeah if your burning cash to make crap.. people gonna get fired

I find the gaming community in general to be extremely selfish with a lack of empathy for most people's situation so I don't feel there's much compassion for the staff in these situations.

Most don't even know about that and it's kinda hard to care about things you don't know.

Ya that's the thing that really bugs me, is that the crunch seems to be for zero benefit. These bloated budget AAA titles have been 9/10 times pure crap, so why crunch? Just to meet release date I guess? Still, I think most of us would be like "No, please, take an extra few months, make the game good"

I think we are selfish and opinionated with final products, but as for demanding games come out regularly I don't really know about that necessarily. People on here tend to give developers flak for making crap products, not necessarily for delays. Unless the delay is due to mismanagement, then crap is given (and for good reason).

I mean, most of us have been through tough times at work at some point or another: that hopefully makes us sympathetic but I suppose it can also make people turn into the "well I had to do it, so can they!" grumps.

Hard for me to be sympathetic when indie developers made up of 1-20 people are making more fun games than gigantic mega developers with 300-500 people and 10s of millions or even 100s of millions of dollars for funding..

I look at stuff like Skull and Bones... and just shake my head..

The AAA space is boring right now.. even the successful stuff that's good.. is just boring.. not trying anything new.. no interesting mechanics or style.. it's just so boring.. typically rehashed of older successful stuff with better graphics and more cinematic cut scenes.. it's so bloated and not interesting..

So it really is hard for me to be sympathetic towards them.. you got all the money and resources at your finger tips, 100s of people working on it.. and make a Mediocre game people will forget about next week.. but then some dude and his buddy work on a game in thier free time out of thier house and it's excellent, creative, has tons of personality, is addicting..

Instead of feeling sympathetic.. I kinda wish more of these developers would make cuts if thier games fail.. they shouldn't fail.. if they did you have bad people with bad ideas making your games..

Listen, I care about total stranger's livelihood and job opportunities or employment conditions as much as that total stranger care's about mine. I.e., not one bit.

That's kinda harsh to generalize like that gamers do care, at least some of us. I want developers to have good work-life balance. I applaud delays that give developers more time to polish their game and fix bugs. I don't like crunch for more than 2 weeks, and I don't want developers to suffer.

The health and well being of the people that make your videogames should not be left to the majority of gamers, because if they had their way, games wouldn't exist.

Can only speak for me, but I think most gamers don't care about crunch at all. I'd say very, very few gamers care about what happens behind their games. And speaking of me, I don't really care either. Many jobs are much worse at that stuff than videogame making.

If I worked at, say, Nintendo or some other AAA company I like, I wouldn't mind a bit of crunch. And if I did, I would get some other job, which wouldn't be hard to do if my CV said I worked at Nintendo.

I do care about others and their well being, but I don't like acting people with good jobs are slaves that has to do whatever their job says or live on the street.

Layoffs are unfortunate, but it happens everywhere all the time.

@Realmjumper: virtue signaling 101. I've been told I'm somewhat psychic so I will make this prediction: you will buy and play GTA6 no matter what and you will not care about crunch or layoffs or even if R* sacrificed a bunch of puppies to get it released.

You used the word harsh. Let me impart a harsh truth: no one really cares about anyone else because we all are self interested solipsistic creatures. Our interest in and regard for others (including our own family members) does not stretch far beyond what value others can add to our lives and how useful they can be to us.

I'm waiting to see what new studios some of these laid of people will start in the coming years. Some of them will leave the industry or join other studios but some will decide to form their own studio and do their own thing. Personally I'm hopeful that happens but only if they develop something besides more coop shooters or Palworld clones.

I believe gamers DO care, but they are tired of seeing the same old excuses for everything. They are also tired of paying for the mistakes of developers. Years ago when a product shipped with defects or things that would otherwise affect the customer's experience the retailer or publisher would offer some kind of compensation to the consumer. Now the customers are being told every problem is their fault, and they have to pay more for less.

Quick update: my prediction is becoming reality. T2 announced about 600 layoffs. There will be more reductions once GTA6 ships.

None of this will cause any gamer to boycott GTA6. Because gamers just don’t care.

It shouldn’t matter. Let developers just do their jobs. They’re getting paid to do their work.

I do care...

I explicitly deleted both my Riot Games and Blizzard account over crunch and worker abuse.

@mrbojangles25 Crunch is usually the fault of the leadership. AAA lead devs not being capable of reading the room, is why the majority of AAA games are crap. Committee boards who may not even be gamers themselves push design choices counterproductive to the games vision.

Personally I care more about the need to stop chasing trends and visual fidelity and just release a good presentable game. Idk I am a very easy person to please I just need a good open world jrpg where I can explore the world, enjoy the characters and save the world.

Dont care for all these visual fidelity and incredible animations it just waste animators and devs time just give me a good game. its not like there much innovation at all, we play all these ubisoft tower open world games just fine. But if they do bloodborne 2 I crunch them to hell as long as we get the best game experience ever made. I am evil like that.