A recent report from Kotaku speaks of catastrophic conditions caused by the development of Anthem. Accordingly, the brutal crunch time caused mental problems for many employees. Allegations, to which the responsible persons of BioWare expressed themselves now.
In recent years, critical reports about the so-called Crunch Time made the rounds. Crunch time is the final spurt in game development, where developers are often forced to work overtime.
In the past, BioWare has already been confronted with a hard-core crunch time that has had a negative impact on the health of many employees while working on “Mass Effect: Andromeda”, which was created at the Montreal office , Similar reports are currently circulating on the development of the recently released action role-playing game Anthem. For example, Kotaku’s English-speaking colleagues report catastrophic conditions behind the scenes of BioWare.
Depression and anxiety through the Crunch Time?
If the statements in the Kotaku report are true, then “Anthem” has a brutal crunch time behind it, which is said to have left a lot of health and psychological traces on many developers. So is the speech of depression and anxiety in “epidemic height”. Accordingly, employees repeatedly fell out because they had to take time out because of mental and health problems or had to go into treatment.
But how far do the statements of Kotaku correspond to the facts? This remains to be seen. In the meantime, BioWare also spoke up and pointed out on the in-house blog that the studio takes the health of its employees very seriously. Furthermore, it is said that in recent years a new management floor has been established, which among other things should improve the studio culture at BioWare.
Furthermore, there is talk of the fact that the crunch time in internal surveys, in which the employees of BioWare could comment on the current conditions, in principle, played no role. “We spent a lot of time planning to avoid ‘crunch time’ and it was not a big feedback issue in our research,” said BioWare.
Working on a new brand is a special challenge
In addition to these statements, BioWare executives point out that working on a completely new brand is one of the biggest challenges facing developers in the world of the video game industry. Despite everything, BioWare is about making the work for internal staff as healthy and stress-free as possible.
“As a studio and a team, we accept any criticism that comes in handy for the games we make, especially from our players. The creative process is often difficult. The efforts and challenges of creating video games are very real, but rewarding what we’ve created to give into the hands of our players is great, “says BioWare.
“The people in this industry put so much passion and energy into creating something entertaining. We do not see the value in tearing each other down or the work of another. We do not believe that articles that do that will make our industry and our craft better. “
Bioware stated.
