Crunch time: the Causes and Effects of Overtime in the Games Industry

Abstract: The games industry is notorious for its intense work ethics with uncompensated overtime and weekends at the office, also known as crunch. By studying postmortems and conducting interviews with employees in the industry we explore the crunch phenomenon. The aim is to discover what effects it has on different aspects of the industry and whether or not agile principles affects this. We have found four types of crunch which all have distinct characteristics and effects the product, employees and schedule in various ways. Crunch is a widespread phenomenon within the games industry that affects the product and the staff in mostly negative ways.