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Specter Von Baren

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hanselthecaretaker

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Hmmm…gotta wonder how the first will differentiate from Game Pass.

Also I thought this was funny -


…Yet what do they call themselves??
 

BrawlMan

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Hmmm…gotta wonder how the first will differentiate from Game Pass.

Also I thought this was funny -


…Yet what do they call themselves??
Nintendo!

I get not wanting to get other consoles and brands confused, but Nintendo kind of put themselves in that corner to begin with. The Nintendo and Super Nintendo did exist at one point. Not to mention Nintendo 64. Also Nintendo, you put your name in front of every new console that comes out. So what the hell are you all expecting?

Off topic, but I remember one Christmas in 2018 were a mother wanted a Mario game on an Xbox console. I had to keep telling her own by two different companies and show her pictures as proof. She didn't start to say that Microsoft should buy nintendo, and I say that's never going to happen. Different companies: when is Japanese one and one is American. Nintendo is too stubborn, so get used to buying multiple consoles or just the one. Make sure your sons share. Hint, the two brothers don't like sharing.
 
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Specter Von Baren

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You ever see a word so many times that it starts to lose all meaning and becomes a weird jumble of letters to your brain?
Sometimes. Usually this happens to me in a way that's like "The Centipede Dilemma" where a word shatters into pieces when I stop to think about how it's pronounced or what its root meanings are.
 
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So this news article is from Jan 2022, and I know it's probably old news to some, but it completely caught me off-guard when I saw it during Skill Up review of the game. Don't get me wrong, the game is great and I'm glad it's so successful, but I wouldn't have minded a bit more delay if it meant not giving the devs time crunch.
 
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CriticalGaming

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So this news article is from Jan 2022, and I know it's probably old news to some, but it completely caught me off-guard when I saw it during Skill Up review of the game. Don't get me wrong, the game is great and I'm glad it's so successful, but I wouldn't have minded a bit more delay if it meant not giving the devs time crunch.
Crunch has been an industry practice for so long, that now that it generates just ire from the public it will take a long time for publishers to pivot away from doing it.
 
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FakeSympathy

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Crunch has been an industry practice for so long, that now that it generates just ire from the public it will take a long time for publishers to pivot away from doing it.
Now that I think about it, crunch only seems to become controversial whenever the game release's hype gets hyperinflated, made worse if the said game comes out bad. Anthem, EA Battlefront 1, Cyberpunk 2077, etc.
 
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BrawlMan

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Now that I think about it, crunch only seems to become controversial whenever the game release's hype gets hyperinflated, made worse if the said game comes out bad. Anthem, EA Battlefront 1, Cyberpunk 2077, etc.
Good or bad, crunch is never worth it. The products you mentioned only prove that further.
 

CriticalGaming

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Now that I think about it, crunch only seems to become controversial whenever the game release's hype gets hyperinflated, made worse if the said game comes out bad. Anthem, EA Battlefront 1, Cyberpunk 2077, etc.
True, I mean when I worked with Activision in the late 2000's every game got crunch. EVERY GAME! And that's a practice that was basically universal in the industry. All your favorite PS2 games? Crunch! 360 games? CRUNCH!

It was just the normal thing. Even us at QA did it.

I also think there is a higher rate of hypersenstivity on the internet now. By exaggerating how bad crunch is, you get sympathy points on twitter, and those points get you dopamine hits and the cycles is amplified.

I never knew developers that complianed about crunch when I worked in the business. They all knew it was part of the process and when we were 6-8weeks from launch that was how it went. It was only ever near release and the rest of the development time was normal working schedule so nobody thought it was a big deal. Hell QA crunched longer than devs because QA would jump from one crunch time game directly to another depending on release windows. But it's also head to complain about having to go to work and play video games for 12 hours a day so.....
 

BrawlMan

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True, I mean when I worked with Activision in the late 2000's every game got crunch. EVERY GAME! And that's a practice that was basically universal in the industry. All your favorite PS2 games? Crunch! 360 games? CRUNCH!

It was just the normal thing. Even us at QA did it.

I also think there is a higher rate of hypersenstivity on the internet now. By exaggerating how bad crunch is, you get sympathy points on twitter, and those points get you dopamine hits and the cycles is amplified.

I never knew developers that complianed about crunch when I worked in the business. They all knew it was part of the process and when we were 6-8weeks from launch that was how it went. It was only ever near release and the rest of the development time was normal working schedule so nobody thought it was a big deal. Hell QA crunched longer than devs because QA would jump from one crunch time game directly to another depending on release windows. But it's also head to complain about having to go to work and play video games for 12 hours a day so.....
What was considered "normal" back then definitely doesn't work now. As many recent games from Ea, Ubisoft, and Activision have proven. Crunch should only be used as a very last resort. And I mean very last resort. Not use constantly or near 24/7. Crunch is not some positive virtue of the workforce, it's a failure of management. I am not trying to speak for your experience, but I gonna assume that you either didn't get it the worst or got super lucky at the time. Or you didn't get it as bad as certain others. Crunch doesn't automatically make a better product. As proven, 10 hour 4 day work weeks seem to do just fine. "Oversensitivity" is barely an issue.
 
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Specter Von Baren

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Crunch exists in all industries. We're never going to get rid of all of it, we can certainly do far more to reduce it and especially eliminate the many clear cases where it's unnecessary. But it's never going away. I think part of why it feels and is viewed so egregiously today is how clearly unnecessary it is when you look at what the returns are, games with mediocre or "underperforming" results.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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Crunch exists in all industries. We're never going to get rid of all of it, we can certainly do far more to reduce it and especially eliminate the many clear cases where it's unnecessary. But it's never going away. I think part of why it feels and is viewed so egregiously today is how clearly unnecessary it is when you look at what the returns are, games with mediocre or "underperforming" results.
What really sucks about that is the VG industry is merely entertainment products, but how about people with vitally critical roles in society working double shifts and shit. What kind of protocol is in place when Nurse Ratched is groggy-eyed on hour 18 and mixes up Jack’s prescription and he goes into cardiac arrest and dies? Woops, well sorry for not having fuckin bot-like endurance, alertness and efficiency I guess. Here’s a settlement check of $825,000 to piss off with fam.