93
Larian Studios' CEO says, "we did have to do a bit of crunch" making Baldur's Gate 3 (www.eurogamer.net)
submitted 5 months ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to c/games@sh.itjust.works
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] dsemy@lemm.ee 41 points 5 months ago

but we did have to do a bit of crunch. And I think, to be honest, you will always have a little bit when you're trying to finish something, especially when there's so much complexity that needs to be brought together.

What does doing "a bit of crunch" even mean? Crunch means you're (practically) forced to work overtime, there is no excuse for this IMO. The game was on early access for a while, surely they could've delayed its full release by a bit to prevent this.

[-] Mad_Punda@feddit.de 36 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I agree.

Crunch is a project management failure. This is my professional opinion as a tech lead at a mid sized gaming company.

When I saw all the praise the game received at release, the level of detail etc. My first thought was, so what was the cost on individuals?
Don’t get me wrong, this is an amazing game. But I worry that a lot of overtime went into this.
And other projects will be measured against that. This might set another very bad example.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 months ago

Exactly. I can think of one valid reason for a crunch: production is down. That's it.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 12 points 5 months ago

Release windows can make or break a game, and they were counter programming Starfield, which they expected to be a bigger deal. I would interpret "a bit of crunch" to be a few weeks rather than the several month death march you hear about in game development all the time.

[-] dsemy@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago

IMO crunch has no excuse; it is a decision that benefits the business while hurting the workers.

"A few weeks" of crunch translates to hundreds of extra working hours.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

I agree, it does, and it does. In many cases it's necessary for the survival of the company once you've committed to release dates and marketing expenses. Larian ought to have enough cushion for their next project that requiring it makes even less sense.

[-] sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 months ago

Here's a video by Tim Cain that I think covers this topic well: link

[-] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 1 points 5 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

link

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

this post was submitted on 26 May 2024
93 points (95.1% liked)

Games

16751 readers
825 users here now

Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)

Posts.

  1. News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
  2. Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
  3. No humor/memes etc..
  4. No affiliate links
  5. No advertising.
  6. No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
  7. No self promotion.
  8. No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
  9. No politics.

Comments.

  1. No personal attacks.
  2. Obey instance rules.
  3. No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc..)
  4. Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.

My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.

Other communities:

Beehaw.org gaming

Lemmy.ml gaming

lemmy.ca pcgaming

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works