The last few years have seen quite a bit of pushback against crunch in video game development. A number of prominent studios have come under fire for their working conditions, and the backlash against those working practices has been significant.
Recently, The Callisto Protocol director Glen Schofield, who’s also the CEO of developer Striking Distance Studios, seemed to fail to read the room with one of his tweets, where he mentioned that the development team is working “12-15 hour days”, which he seemed to proudly glorify, saying, “you do it cause you love it.”
Unsurprisingly, Schofield was widely criticized for his comments by fans, media, and fellow developers alike, and he deleted the tweet in question not long afterward.
Recently, Schofield followed up with another tweet, apologizing for his previous comments. “Anyone who knows me knows how passionate I am about the people I work with,” he wrote. “Earlier I tweeted how proud I was of the effort and hours the team was putting in. That was wrong. We value passion and creativity, not long hours. I’m sorry to the team for coming across like this.”
Developers like Naughty Dog, Rockstar, CD Projekt RED, and many others have very publicly engaged in grueling overtime work, but recent years have seen studios beginning to make more of an effort to have more cohesive and better structured development pipelines. Rockstar seems to have adopted a new approach with the development of Grand Theft Auto 6, while the likes of Naughty Dog and CD Projekt RED seem to be turning a corner as well.
Such a weird coincidence how the guy bragging about how his team works 6-7 days a week for 12-15 hours a day because they love it also happens to be the guy who controls all their salaries, titles, and current employment status
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) September 3, 2022
Anyone who knows me knows how passionate I am about the people I work with. Earlier I tweeted how proud I was of the effort and hours the team was putting in. That was wrong. We value passion and creativity, not long hours. I’m sorry to the team for coming across like this.
— Glen A. Schofield (@GlenSchofield) September 3, 2022
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