The director of the game, Apex Legends, has revealed that Respawn studio always refuses to put the team in “overdrive” due to a “no crunch” policy.
According to Games Industry, Apex Legends director recently took a stance against the practice of crunch. He clearly mentioned that at Respawn, there’s no pressure on the team of game developers. And that the company takes time rather than making employees overwork.
The director emphasized the “no crunch policy” to avoid the situation of an overdrive.
How does the Apex Legends studio deal with crunch?
Recently, a few days back, the Apex Legends team conducted a Reddit AMA. It included several questions regarding the title’s newly updated battle pass system. Keeping that in mind, one user commented that Respawn is always “extremely slow with content.” In a way, he tried to accuse the team of being scared to implement limited-time modes.
To this, director Chad Grenier answered what their strategy is on the limited-time modes. He said that these modes remain popular for a short period only. And that it’s not the right format to do it this way.
“We also refuse to crunch the team, so we’ll probably be slower at making content than if we worked 15 hour days, but that’s not something we’re willing to do. We have nearly doubled our team size since launch to accommodate the content demands, so we’re really trying to bring you quality content at a healthy pace.”
Earlier this year, an unknown employee claimed that the studio was crunching due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Grenier came forward at that time and said he couldn’t spot a “crunch” scenario because everyone was working from home.
Meanwhile, he added that the Respawn team is connected closely, and there’s never been an “overdrive” in it.
“Our team is very close, like a family. There is no fear of losing your job and no crunch culture, and we are open and honest with each other all the time and never avoid difficult conversations.”
The problem of “overdrive” and crunch in game development
The issue of overtime among game developing studios is rising gradually since the last few months. It became a prime focus when CD Projekt Red announced that it sent its team in overdrive. Fans and gamers reacted harshly to this across all social media platforms.
Some said that it’s not right to put all the efforts quickly when you have missed the deadline in which the game was scheduled to come out.
CD Projekt said that it wanted to make sure that Cyberpunk 2077 is running fine on all consoles and devices. So it decided to go for “extra hours.” But it seems like not all the big game studios have a similar approach, like the Apex Legends developers.
Image courtesy of IGN/YouTube Screenshot