ABSTRACT
The game industry is notorious for the pressures it places on its employees to meet grueling deadlines while maintaining high standards of excellence. Within the industry this is euphemistically called “crunch time.” This chapter explains the production and economic reasons that make “crunch” a likely occurrence. Nonetheless, crunch time can also have detrimental effects on the member of a team, which can affect those individuals, the final game, or even the fortunes of companies that intentionally force teams to put in excessive crunch time. The chapter concludes with a discussion of “quality of life” issues, through which the game industry, responding to several high-profile scandals, has moved to adopt more reasonable work weeks.
