Naughty Dog’s stance on the crisis is back under control as studio co-chairs Evan Wells and Neil Druckmann addressed the issue in an interview with Game Informer this weekend.
When asked about his personal experience with crunch, Wells replied, “I’ve definitely worked very hard over the years. I think a few things have helped me get to where I am in my career.”
He added that the study has post-mortem discussions after each project for each department, including production, with the aim of “finding the right balance between giving people the opportunity to … leave their mark in the industry and advancing in their craft in a way that they have never achieved, but they also find space along that spectrum. ”
Druckmann said Naughty Dog wants to avoid exhaustion in the studio and has created working groups to identify areas for improvement in the studio, while Wells stressed that he focused on increasing the number of directors and allowing better monitor employee well-being and get feedback.
When asked if unionization could be a possible solution, Wells said he hadn’t thought much about it and wasn’t sure he would solve anything.
“There are people who really want to put this extra polish on their own volition, and they would feel handcuffed.”
Evan Wells
“To the point of Neil making sure everyone can work as hard or as little as they want, we need to create an environment that allows for that,” Wells said.
“If we had some kind of restriction in which when the clock strikes 40 o’clock the servers would shut down and you could no longer work, that would frustrate endless people. There are people who really want to put on that extra polish on their own will. , and they would feel handcuffed. “
Druckmann said Naughty Dog has tried these measures in the past, banning work past a certain time or on Sundays, but there were occasional cases.
“When you try to have a silver bullet, as a solution, you always leave someone behind,” he said. “That’s why we believe we need multiple solutions. We need to approach it from multiple angles.”
Naughty Dog’s cruel problems have been well established over the years.
Uncharted 3 creative director Amy Hennig has said she worked 12 hours seven days a week throughout the decade she worked in the studio, and Druckmann himself said the central theme of Uncharted 4 of “passion versus settling down” was inspired by crunch.
More recently, Naughty Dog’s cruel culture was the subject of a Kotaku function last year, with an employee saying that when the studio hires people, it specifically seeks out those who have the drive to work longer hours to get marginal improvements to the game.
Months later, Druckmann told GQ Magazine that Naughty Dog is not “trying to babysit people,” but acknowledged that he should “put some railings [in] so that they are not injured “.
“I don’t think we can prevent them from working hard and still making the kind of games we do,” Druckmann said.