Video games turn on their creators

AMONG video game developers it’s called “crunch” – a sudden spike in work hours, as many as 20 a day, that can last for days or weeks on end.

During this time, they sleep at work, limit bathroom breaks and cut out anything that pulls their attention away from their screens, including family and even food. Crunch makes the industry roll – but it’s taking a serious toll on its workers. In late 2011, as he was finishing up production on the roleplaying game

the programmer Jean Simonet started feeling severe stomach pains. At first, doctors were perplexed. But on his third emergency room visit, he revealed that he’d been regularly staying at the office late and coming in on weekends to fix bugs and add features that he thought would take from good to great, no matter how much sleep he lost along the way.

He took his doctor’s advice and took the next few weeks off work, trying to relax and get used to a normal sleep schedule. With this hiatus from crunch, “eventually the pain just disappeared”, he said. Modern video games like

and cost tens of millions of dollars and require the labour of hundreds of people, who can each work 80- or even 100-hour weeks. In game development, crunch is not constrained to the final two or three weeks of a project.

A team might crunch at any time, and a crunch might endure for several months. Programmers will stay late on week nights to squash bugs, artists will use weekends to put the final polish on their characters, and everyone on the team will feel pressured to work extra hours.

Most game developers in the US do not receive extra compensation for extra hours. They may gaze with envy at their colleagues in the film industry, where unions help regulate hours and ensure overtime pay.

The occasional long night or weekend at the office can be useful and even exhilarating, but as a constant, it is damaging. No video game is worth burnout, brain damage or overnight stays at the hospital. - The New York Times