Project 2

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Lopez 1 Cane Lopez Professor Donlon ENG 123 8/12/2023 Project 2: Persuasive Essay Video games have become a multibillion-dollar market that caters to almost every type of gamer, regardless of interest. With the global market hitting $183 billion in 2022 (Rousseau 1), it has become a worldwide phenomenon. Because of how fast the gaming industry is growing, many companies are taking advantage and trying to earn as much money as possible. Shareholders even have a say in how fast they want the company to release their games and at what time so they can maximize their profits. This can cause companies to create stressful environments that may include long work weeks, unpaid overtime, and rushed deadlines for their employees so they can finish their product. This approach to making video games, whether a programmer, designer, or a play tester, can be extremely damaging. Video game companies should implement better work practices because it can benefit the employee's overall health, create better quality games, and create a better working environment for everyone in the industry. A person’s work environment, whether stressful or helpful, can have impacts on their outside lives. Long work hours without any rest or sleep can have harmful impacts on a person. In 2011, Jean Simonet, a programmer who worked on the critically acclaimed game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, began having horrible stomach pains during production. After multiple visits to the doctor, they revealed “he’d been regularly staying at the office late and coming in on weekends… no matter how much sleep he lost along the way” (Schreier 1). After being told to

Lopez 2 take a hiatus, Jean said “eventually the pain just disappeared” (1). With massive video game projects that require labor from over hundreds of people, people will feel pressure to work those extra hours (1). This type of work ethic is unfathomable and destroys employees’ mental and physical health. Companies need to learn when an extra shift is necessary and not make it a constant in the workplace, otherwise the industry will never progress. Another thing that bad work ethics lead to is poor quality or rushed video games. It is common that some video games have been rushed out to completion. A game like Cyberpunk 2077 , a game that came out relatively recently as of 2020, could be a prime example of a game that could have taken more time. A game that was “delayed multiple times…” and was pushed back three times in the same year: from April, to September, to November, and finally to December (Cote 2). The game was released with a ton of glitches and game breaking bugs, with updates still being rolled out in 2023 to fix some of these issues. With all that crunch for Cyberpunk , people were “not arguing over whether or not crunch occurred, rather, they are arguing over whether it was mandatory” (Cote 2). This can be separated into either “bad crunch”, which is described as crunch that was not necessary, or “good crunch”, which is used when the game came out well received and justified the long work hours. This type of mentality is shared throughout the industry and is used to “Get the job done at all costs” if a game comes out critically acclaimed, like The Last of Us Part II (Brogan 4). After three years and many updates, Cyberpunk 2077 became a great video game that is well worth the money but imagine what it could have been or how much more it would have sold to the public if it was polished efficiently. Not everyone shares the mindset that games need to be crunched. In an interview with TIME , President of Nintendo of America Doug Bowser stated that “Nintendo, in general, we absolutely stress the importance of work-life balance… We think it’s important because that’s

Lopez 3 how we are able to produce quality games… We encourage people to take the proper amount of vacation, enjoy time away… with family, friends… et cetera.” (Fitzpatrick 1). These types of viewpoints create a favorable and healthy work environment for everyone. Companies who do not share some of those viewpoints can have issues within their company, from project mismanagement, closure of studios or even filing for bankruptcy. Having bad work practices can cause future employees to stay away from those companies, despite them being very successful. A tweet from Adam Orth, who developed a VR game called Adrift, said “They are the problem, not you. You can usually spot them a mile away before you even set foot in the studio” (Frank 1). Issues within the company can also lead to fallout with long-term employees such as Hideo Kojima, a veteran designer and programmer who worked at Konami. When word got out of Konami’s workplace issues “treating employees like ‘prisoners’”, Konami decided to disband Kojima’s development studio. (Hester 1). This caused all his projects he was working on to be cancelled, such as a new Metal Gear Solid game and Silent Hills , which led to him creating his own studio and make his own game titled Death Stranding . One of the reasons why many employees are fearful about speaking up to their employers about their awful work practices could be from what Kojima went through when calling his company out. Dylan Wildman, a man who worked on Grand Theft Auto 5 said “The only way to fix the problem is from the very top.” (Frank 1). There are some people out there who believe that these types of practices are a “necessary evil” to the industry. In the gaming industry, it is hard to keep up with demand and not capitalize on such a big market, trying to make video games for every type of “gamer” out there. Whether it is what is currently popular on social media or from fan favorite franchises such as Guardians of the Galaxy or Batman , there’s a video game for everyone. At least, that’s

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Lopez 4 what former CEO of Telltale Games, Kevin Bruner, believed in. On games that couldn’t get delayed, Bruner believed that “wasn’t something that Telltale could do… we didn’t have the budgets to delay production.”. Following their success in creating a game based on The Walking Dead , Telltale started to take on multiple projects to capitalize on and tried to adapt to a practice that called for constant releases of products that are relevant. With that mindset, he pushed for his games to be released during holidays and tried to stay under budget, and by doing so caused his employees to work massive amounts of overtime so that the company could stay afloat. “We tried to create an environment where you really had to do that to survive at Telltale,” says Bruner (Clayton 1). Telltale not long after filed for bankruptcy because, as the other paragraphs suggest, those types of business practices were not helping both the companies and the employees. A company that had initial success only to fall and become bankrupt should be understood as things needed to change for them to be successful. Video game companies need to change their business practices to be more successful. Promoting better work environments and practices can prevent things such as health issues for employees, buggy and poor-quality games, and studio closures with employees leaving. It has not been easy for other companies to change since it has become the norm in the industry to promote these work practices. Using the evidence found in these articles, it is strongly suggested that better work environments, leisure time, and quality product management can help reduce the stress and problems that are apparent in the video game industry.

Lopez 5 Works Cited Brogan, Rebecca. “The Digital Sweatshop: Why Heightened Labor Protections Must Be Implemented Before Crunch Causes the Backbone of the Video Game Industry to Collapse.” Texas Review of Entertainment & Sports Law, vol. 23, Spring 2022, pp. 13– 55. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=asn&AN=157938326&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Clayton, Natalie. “Telltale Co-Founder and Former CEO Kevin Bruner Calls Crunch a Necessary Evil.” Pcgamesinsider.Biz, 17 Apr. 2019, www.pcgamesinsider.biz/news/68864/telltale-co-founder-and-former-ceo-kevin-bruner- calls-crunch-a-necessary-evil/. Cote, Amanda C., and Brandon C. Harris. “The Cruel Optimism of ‘Good Crunch’: How Game Industry Discourses Perpetuate Unsustainable Labor Practices.” New Media & Society, vol. 25, no. 3, Mar. 2023, pp. 609–27. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1177/14614448211014213. Fitzpatrick, Alex. “Nintendo’s Doug Bowser Talks Switch Success, Video Game Industry ‘Crunch’ and More.” Time.Com, June 2019, p. N.PAG. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=136933253&site=ehost- live&scope=site. Frank, Allegra. “Rockstar Responds to Blowback over Red Dead Redemption 2 Team’s ‘100- Hour’ Workweeks.” Polygon, 15 Oct. 2018, www.polygon.com/2018/10/15/17979818/red-dead-redemption-2-crunch-dan-houser- interview.

Lopez 6 Hester, Blake. “Looking Back at P.T., Kojima’s Silent Hill Game That Never Was.” Game Informer, www.gameinformer.com/2020/10/14/looking-back-at-pt-kojimas-silent-hill- game-that-never-was. Accessed 29 July 2023. Rousseau, Jeffrey. “Newzoo: Revenue across All Video Game Market Segments Fell in 2022.” GamesIndustry.Biz, 30 May 2023, www.gamesindustry.biz/newzoo-revenue-across-all- video-game-market-segments-fell-in-2022#:~:text=The%20global%20video%20games %20market,amassed%20%2492%20billion%20in%20revenue. Schreier, Jason. "The 'Crunch' Problem In the Gaming Industry." New York Times , 26 Oct. 2017, p. A29(L). Gale In Context: OpposingViewpoints , link.gale.com/apps/doc/A511432787/OVIC? u=nhc_main&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=1e0e6bbf. Accessed 16 July 2023.

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