Naughty Dog is hoping to eliminate crunch

Crunch was the buzzword in the gaming industry a couple of years ago. As we heard about Rockstar employees sleeping at their desks, and other studio developers working dozens of hours of overtime without fair compensation, it was clear something needed to change.

Now, in the new documentary from Naughty Dog, a few leading developers have spoken about how they don't want crunch to affect the studio going forward. "We now have the goal for Naughty Dog to eliminate crunch," said Neil Druckmann.

"When we onboard people, we tell them that we have a reputation as a studio for crunching, and it's something that we don't want. And it's something we're not going to do anymore," said quality assurance lead Patrick Goss.

Informing new hires that they should avoid crunch, as well as moving to a more hybrid/remote work scheme has helped prevent the issue, but it'll still likely be a while before crunch is gone for good.