Ok I have some issues with this. Three in fact. https://twitter.com/Kotaku/status/1337489214234009601

One, just because you haven’t heard about crunch with certain games doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Not all crunch makes headlines. Hell I’ve seen studio heads proudly proclaim they made a game without crunch, and rake in the applause when I know they fucking well did crunch.

Two, this punishes a lot of good creatives while putting ABSOLUTELY ZERO pressure on the industry. Awards are nice. Profits are everything. Buying a game and then not voting for it - guess which one matters and which is performative?

Third, direction and production are not the same. Directors are not budgeting, making schedules and timelines and arranging outsourcing. Producers do that.

LOU2 is an outlier in that the director is also co-president and so he probably does have a say in production decisions. This is not how the industry works as a whole. The directors say what they want, and Production agrees or says no. But the responsibility is with Production.

As a Director I asked for too much because my job was the best game possible. As a Producer I’ve told Directors, “Yes it would be good but no you can’t have that, there isn’t the time” or “I can see how it would be better, but its not worth bringing in people on a Saturday for.”

And yeah sometimes I agree with Direction, the change is necessary and I arrange OT. But it's my call to agree.