#69: Out of Options

Absent Minded Podcast

Long stretches of game development involving mandatory overtime, known as crunch, are unfortunately very common in the video games industry. It's a difficult topic to discuss as in some ways it almost seems like a necessary evil while the argument for its avoidance can be made just as strongly. Is it always a result of poor planning by project leads and managers or is it just a result of the unpredictable nature of creating such massive projects? After committing to a crunch-free development cycle for Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red has this week enforced mandatory overtime for the six week sprint leading up to the release of the game in mid-November, and with it the discussion of this issue has opened up yet again. Reviewers across games media got access to working Xbox Series X hardware this week so we've been flooded with impressions of the soon to release console, Naoki Yoshida shares some updates on Final Fantasy XVI at Tokyo Game Show, Insomniac details all of the upgrades you'll see in Spider-Man: Remastered on PS5 in an attempt to earn that $20 price tag, and Apex Legends finally makes the jump to console and PC cross-play next week.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/absentminded/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/absentminded/support