Schofield wisely deleted the tweet after it was harshly criticized by those among the gaming audience and press who support better labor practices in the industry. It’s evident right through the tweet boasting about it on a social media platform how Striking Distance Studio is one such company. Instead, team and company leaders create a toxically competitive environment wherein the most diligent workers, defined as those willing to dedicate a significant portion of their free time to their jobs, are rewarded. Beyond how no one could force the literal founder and CEO of the damned company to crunch, developers aren’t exactly forced to do so in the first place. Schofield’s mention that “nobody’s forcing us” to work these long hours egregiously stuck out in the tweet. Imagine doing this on Labor Day weekend, the precise time when practices like these would be highlighted. Imagine making a tweet boasting about this after the practice has been scrutinized for several years, through many articles prominently shared. Schofield didn’t outright say the team was crunching, but a team working nearly every day of the week for around 70 to 100 hours is the definition of it. “U Do it cause ya luv it,” he said his terminology, not mine. In the tweet, Schofield boasted about the team working “6-7 days a week” for “12-15 hr days,” including through lunch and dinner times. Schofield posted a tweet on Saturday morning discussing the rigorous process the development team is undergoing to finish The Callisto Protocol, a horror game developed by veterans of the Dead Space series from the defunct Visceral Games, in time for the December 2nd release date. That someone, it turns out, happened to be Glen Schofield of Striking Distance Studios. This recent time and this particular weekend would be a horrendous opportunity for someone to boast about utilizing the practice. It got to the point where companies started highlighting how they didn’t engage in the practice, though most of them were noticeably indie developers. The practice of crunching has been viewed with a higher level of scrutiny in recent years, as features from sites like Kotaku, Bloomberg, and have highlighted how ingrained the practice is in video game development. It’s a common practice in both the video game and tech industries, and both could use stronger work protections and regulations. This occurs when developers on a certain video game team are either forced or coerced into working long hours for six or seven days a week, particularly when a game needs to be finished by a deadline set by the publisher. The video game industry is rife with labor issues, the biggest and most discussed being crunch time. It’s Labor Day in the United States, a time to acknowledge the struggles and strides the working class has made over many decades, and the work that still needs to be done.
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