Crunch, or the sustained overtime work of developers to meet deadlines, is a major problem in the video game industry. The famous "EA spouse" pitch about the destructive effects of crunching at Electronic Arts dates back to 2004, and little has changed since then, except that it has become harder to hide the crunch.

The apparent lack of change in this regard seems to be borne out by the latest GDC State of the Industry survey of over 3,000 game developers worldwide. Just over half of the respondents, 56 percent, reported working an average of less than 40 hours per week over the past 12 months, which does not seem particularly burdensome strictly in terms of hours. A quarter of developers, however, say they work an average of 46 hours or more per week.

As the following graph shows, this number has remained largely unchanged over the past two years:

The GDC commented on these results, "While this seems like good news from a work-life balance perspective, especially since remote work has been the norm in the last year, it may actually make it It can be difficult."

GDC noted that: when your home is also your office, it can be difficult to feel like you are obligated to be available and not "always on."

A survey on the maximum hours worked in a week in the past year yielded slightly different results: 30% of respondents reported working at least 60 hours in a week, and 17% reported working at least 70 hours.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents who worked more than 40 hours per week said that "self-pressure" was a major factor. While "self-pressure" was the main reason for working more than 40 hours per week in last year's survey as well, this year the number of respondents citing it as a major factor increased significantly, from 59% in 2020 to 73% in 2021.

"Also noteworthy is that the second most common response, 'I don't consider my working hours excessive,' was 33% this year compared to 40% last year," the GDC wrote. This is just a normal variation in game development, and cycles vary in rhythm from year to year, making it difficult to discern a trend." Alternatively, stressors from telecommuting and pandemics may also be involved.

Also interestingly, there was not much movement on the topic of unionization: 51 percent of respondents said gaming industry workers should unionize, compared to 54 percent in 2021, and 14 percent said they should not.