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The association for UK Interactive Entertainment has urged the games industry to end enforcing crunch work.
UKIE chairman, Andy Payne, also made it clear that game studios shouldn’t shrink to the task of intensive workloads.
“If a team wants to push the boundaries in terms of scope, detail and working hours, that should be their collective decision, but this should be consensual and not forced in any way,” said Payne.
“At UKIE we believe that talent, creativity and commitment are absolutely crucial in bringing high quality innovative games to market.”
Payne’s comments come in the wake of revelations that some staff at New York studio Kaos have been forced to work minimum 10-hour days, sometimes for six days a week.
Details of the situation can be found here.
Payne also spoke on the development industry’s shift to digital and more dynamic service based products, which can be updated and improved after a game’s release.
“As more and more games become services and closed physical products are marginalised, the principle of building and interacting with game specific communities becomes vital,” he said.
“Continual product improvement in a 24/7 world is expected and business models [should] adjust to allow continual development and support.
“Successful businesses will be those who have taken account of this transition and the concept of ‘crunch’ to meet the demands of a packaged goods market will become less and less evident and indeed necessary.”
[Image: Videogamesdaily]
