Swen Vincke, founder and CEO of Larian Studios, says that the crunch on Baldur's Gate 3 was "certainly less" than the developer had experienced on its previous games, such as Divinity: Original Sin 2. Crunch, or "crunch culture", is the colloquially known overtime many developers are required to work as production deadlines loom.
As reported by GamesRadar+, Vincke was asked during a Q&A session following his talk at last week's Digital Dragons conference whether the difficulties that arose during the game's long development required the studio to crunch. In response, Vincke said: "Certainly less on BG3 than we did in the past. It would be a lie to say that we didn't. We had things happen that we didn't foresee."
Vincke points to Larian's worldwide studio structure as one way the developer eased the strain. This structure was set up to ensure 24-coverage, designed to prevent anyone from doing extra work to fix a late-night problem. The Belgian developer recently opened a seventh office in Poland.
Vincke says that employees required to crunch were paid overtime and that beyond 8pm, offices would be almost empty, and it was only "very, very, very, rarely" that weekend work was required, the studio head said. Elaborating, he explains: "We didn't overly crunch, but we did have to do a bit of crunch. And I think, to be honest, you will always have a little bit when you're trying to finish something, especially when there's so much complexity that needs to be brought together."
Are you surprised to hear that a game with the size and scope of Baldur's Gate 3 required developers to crunch to get it out the door? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source gamesradar.com]
Comments 11
@Malaise you work 16-20 hour days for months on end? Are you on a chain gang?
I enjoy divinity 2 definitive edition.easily one of the best video games ever made.and Baldur's gate 3 is another one of the best video games ever made.word up son
'Crunch' is not just something that happens in the gaming world, it is just the word that applies to that particular industry. I'm an old boy now, and served in Bomb Disposal in the Army during the Falklands War, and I can promise you that we often had little idea of what time it was, we just did our job for countless hours on end.
I then joined the Police, and overtime was a regular, and usually unexpected, occurrence. Crime and incidents don't happen 9-5 and if you were sent to an incident 10 minutes before the end of your shift, you saw it through to it's conclusion, whether that be a further half hour or even 4 or 5 hours, whatever it took.
As a Detective, when I was assigned to a murder enquiry, I would work 16 hours a day for a month straight, and that is no exaggeration at all. I had one incident where I had finished my shift a 10 p.m., arrived home, showered, and got to bed at about 11, only to be woken up at 1 a.m. and called in for a murder enquiry, worked through to midnight (that's 23 hours!), and then had to be back at 8 the next morning.
My longest shift in the Police was whilst working with the Drug Squad, where it lasted 24 and half hours. These are exceptional, but I worked between 50 and 60 hours most weeks in what I found to be extremely rewarding employment. It seems to me that at least in the gaming industry, the overtime is usually planned. I often had no idea when I would be required to work on, and it wasn't the kind of job where you could just say no...
Obviously no one wants people to work too much in an unhealthy way but if you wanted a typical 9-5 job, I wouldn't pick a creativity driven industry like the video game industry. Especially at a AAA studio.
The only way the lights are kept on is by getting products out in a timely fashion and said products take a long time to develop already. It's unrealistic to expect absolutely zero crunch. Cut down on it where you can but when it does need to happen, make sure the employees doing the crunch are compensated fairly for their extra work which is exactly what it sounds like happened here.
Seems completely reasonable for extra hours to be needed as a deadline approaches. Happens in most industries so not sure why all the focus on developer's...
Amazing that they got overtime pay. That’s the salary trap, usually; salary = no overtime.
I think crunch is just kinda human nature.
I work in marketing and work on various publications. Whenever a magazine deadline is coming up, it’s always crunch time.
We work for weeks beforehand doing the lion’s share of the work, but the last bit of final edits, last minute changes in design, all the different people coming together at the final bit adds to the pressure and we always just make it to print.
It’s not because we didn’t work hard beforehand. But we didn’t have the urgency, and as soon as it goes to print. That is it. No more changes. The public will see and that’s always more stressful.
So I can understand it the same with games. They might have a deadline set for a year, but those last few weeks are the most intense.
@Kienda For a lot of industries it’s unavoidable and many times preferable. People complain about crunch a lot, but when they hire a lawyer and have a lot on the line… how many clients do you think tell their lawyer not to crunch?
@Fiendish-Beaver
Well that is an impressive resume. Yes, some industries - law enforcement in particular - pay no heed to your time or work-life balance.
I enjoyed reading your comment. I was an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technician for the US Air Force in the 2010s, after that I became a police officer. I have about 7 years in the profession at this point. I can back up everything you say, including the unexpected 16-24 hour shifts being fairly frequent. I just worked a 16-hour shift the other day due to calls piling in (I just work patrol, nothing special). Throw in specialty position on-call duties, like SWAT, K-9, dive team, hostage negotiator, death investigator, and you can kiss your personal life goodbye.
While I understand working insane hours is not exclusive to law enforcement, I believe about 95% of people, especially those working 9-5 jobs, have no conception of how many man hours first responders and not only expected, but required, to work. There is a reason about 80% of LEOs die before 60 due to general health issues. The issue is compounded by the fact that, here in the US, there is a work-your-butt off culture across the board anyways. If you aren't putting 50 hours in a week or more, you aren't really working or you are lazy.
I thought I'd never meet anyone who outworked me before LE. Oh how naive I was. I'm just average by that standard. The culture is you just work until the job is done, and nothing else matters.
Hey, @UnlimitedSevens, nice to meet someone with a similar career path to myself. I was in 33 E.O.D. Engineer Regiment here in the UK in the early 80s. I say Bomb Disposal simply because people instantly know what that is. E.O.D. means little to most. 😉
I'm retired from the Police now. I did 28 years in total, and for the most part, enjoyed the absolute chaos of it. Not knowing from one day to the next what events I would be caught up in meant that work was rarely dull. I look back at my career very fondly, and always say that were I to have my time again, I would most definitely follow the same path. I have no regrets accept that it came to an end!
Obviously, there are parallels between our jobs, but there are also major differences too. Gun crime being the big one, wherein in the UK, it is something that we face on only the rare occasion (and when we do, it is all over the media), whereas in the US, it's an all too familiar occurrence. But the basics of what we encounter are the same.
Anyway, I wish you a long and enjoyable career in law enforcement. If you leave, as I did, with pride in what you accomplished, then there is little more that you can hope to achieve in life, except maybe prosperity! 😂
@Fiendish-Beaver
It's amazing seeing an EOD technician from the UK, considering our profession originated in WWII and that knowledge was essentially passed down to us from what the UK learned during the Blitz. You guys were the originals! I was in the 420th Fighter Squadron.
I imagine the work is more or less the same. Thanks to our gun culture, we have that extra wrinkle, but the vast majority of it is just wading through people's problems on their worst days. I've only been shot at once in LE, and the guy missed (drunk). I'm always much more concerned about knives.
Anyways, congratulations on your well earned retirement!
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