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One thing I never see addressed when we talk about the Culture of Crunch in the games industry is the notion of what I’ll call Hidden Crunch amongst freelancers.
If there’s a golden rule drilled into the heads of freelancers, it’s the idea of “Always say ‘yes.’” to a gig. (1/x)
If there’s a golden rule drilled into the heads of freelancers, it’s the idea of “Always say ‘yes.’” to a gig. (1/x)
The general thinking behind it is that gigs commonly evaporate between being asked to work on them and signing a contract. Also, because of the nomadic nature of the games industry, you never know where someone you work with on one project will end up in the future. (2/x)
So freelancers are told to never turn down a gig. Toxically, freelancers are also taught that teams don’t want to hear about your other work. There’s a vague understanding that successful freelancers are busy on multiple gigs, but freelancers are trained to treat each... (3/x)
as if they’re their only client. Very successful freelance composers have to hire assistants and ghostwriters in order to actually accomplish all the work. As a result, health issues and divorces are all too common amongst professional composers. All of which we keep quiet. (4/x)
Even if we are only working on one project, unrealistic timetables and workloads are met with reassurances that it’s no problem to accomplish the actually impossible. And because we’re trained to keep quiet about it, clients have no idea that it’s happening. (5/x)
And thus, Hidden Crunch. But it’s a complicated thing to address. It’s not entirely the dev teams’ fault that composers and other freelancers are conditioned to say “Yes” to every project that comes their way. (6/x)
But it’s also not freelancers’ fault that dev teams deem certain creative roles as worthy of full-time employment with guaranteed work and benefits while other positions are “short-term” hires with no benefits, even if the nature of AAA development means years on a project. (7/x)
And because it’s Hidden Crunch, no one in the game industry even addresses the fact that it happens, let alone beings to try and have discussions about how to even address it, let alone prevent it. (8/8)
Feeling pensive this morning, I guess. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I probably should have added some hashtags to that so that people would actually read it. So, here: #gamedev #gameaudio #crunch
