I løbet af det seneste års tid har der været stort fokus på såkaldt "crunch" i spilbranchen, altså enten tvunget eller antydet overarbejde, der sjældent kompenseres på det niveau det burde. Dette har i flere omgange skabt debat om denne crunch-kultur bør eksistere overhovedet, og nu har folkene bag det kommende Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order givet os en ny vinkel på det.
I et interview med Eurogamer fortæller instruktør Stig Asmussen, at de hverken bandlyste overarbejde eller tvang nogen til at blive. I stedet var det muligt at valgfrit blive efter almindelig kontortid og arbejde videre.
We did something different on this game compared to what I've been involved with in other projects. Projects I've worked on in the past, they had mandatory crunches - basically everybody said "you've gotta work these hours", and we realised that wasn't a fair and sustainable approach. And we left it up to the team - it's like "look everybody I think carries their own responsibilities and their own tasks, and takes them very seriously, so why treat people like children, and say you have to be here at a certain time?" So if you're going to be here doing these extra hours, it's your choice, we're going to support you and make sure you've got food, we're not going to tell you there are certain hours we're going to be crunching at. You can make your own schedule, and the leads made a commitment to put in extra effort and extra hours as well to show that we're all in it together."
Det skal dog siges, at studier som Rockstar ofte er blevet kritiseret for netop ikke at direkte tvinge nogen, men kraftigt antyde at det er nødvendigt at blive ekstra for at komme i mål. Desuden er branchen også kendt for at fastlægge mål for hver enkelt ansat, der er umulige at nå, med mindre man netop bliver og arbejder over hver eneste dag.
Hvad synes du om Asmussens forklaring?
