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Ok, I'm sure I will regret this, but here goes. I'm opposed to crunch, as someone who has done a lot of it in the earlier years of my career in games. I think it's bad for people, it's bad for products, and it's bad for our industry. BUT...
...it's not nearly as shallow or one-dimensional problem as a lot of people seem to like to think it is. I see a lot of devs, who should know better, saying "well...indie studio X with 15-20 people doesn't crunch and makes world-class games...why can't triple-A studio Y?"
This is specious and, frankly, I think it hurts the discussion, because it distracts from the reality. Shipping an indie game (even a great one!) with a small team, small budget, small scope, etc. is an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT business than shipping an industry-leading triple-A thing.
I'm trying to think of one studio of 150 of more people who are making world-class experiences, or even "good" experiences, that aren't probably crunching at least some of the time.
I'm not apologizing for studios that crunch. I'm definitely not apologizing for studio leaders and managers who happily crunch the hell out of their teams. We don't do it at Hinterland. And also, we are less profitable than studios our size who crunch their asses off, as a result
I'm ok with it because I can more about running a fair company and taking care of my team than I do about money, and I don't have a corporate parent or publisher that is squeezing me for profits. I don't think the same is true for most triple-A studios.
When you have 200-300 developers and 300-500 outsourcers working on massive games with $100M budgets for years, there's SO MUCH going on, which means there's SO MUCH that can go wrong.
The debt that adds up for all those things that can go wrong -- and often they are small things, almost unnoticeable things -- adds up. And then you have to make massive corrections, and those massive corrections take time, which when you have massive teams means huge $$$$.
So you either cut scope, quality, people, move out dates, add people (and budget), or...get more work out of people in the same amount of time and for the same amount of money.
I think people are asking the wrong question, and all the "but indie studio X doesn't crunch people" discourse is useless and dumb. Those studios couldn't make giant triple-A games the way they make those tiny indie games. Just not going to happen.
So I think people are focusing on the wrong thing. The question isn't, how can large triple-A companies make great games without crunch. The question is, is it possible make world-beating triple-A games without crunch. My feeling is -- probably not.
But when you're up in those budgets and those team sizes and those project scopes and those player expectations, cutting corners, trimming, doing less, accepting worse -- those are not really real options. You know that the only way to recoup is to knock it out of the park.
It's not a coincidence that some of the most critically and commercially successful games in our industry are made by massive teams that crunch their asses off. This isn't a choice they are really making, IMO. This is an OUTCOME of an economic system.
You want a different outcome, you need to change the system.
