Who is Glen A. Schofield? In game development, the founder of the developer Striking Distance Studios is considered a veteran. He worked on about 50 different games from different genres, ranging from colorful children’s games to worst survival horror games.

Among the most famous titles Schofield has been involved in are Legacy of Lain: Soul Reaver, Dead Space and Call of Duty: Black Ops. In June 2019, he joined Korean publisher Krafton as CEO of the newly formed Striking Distance Stidios, whose first game will be sci-fi shooter The Callisto Protocol.

12 to 15 hours a day – 6 or 7 days a week

Schofield said: On August 3, Schofield caused a lot of negative buzz with a post on his Twitter account. In the tweet, the CEO talked about all the work and long hours that go into his game:

[…] We work 6 to 7 days a week, no one forces us. Exhaustion, fatigue, covid, but we work. Bugs, glitches, performance fixes, a final check through the audio. 12 to 15 hours a day. That’s gaming. Heavy work. Work during lunch and dinner. You do it because you love it.

The post and screenshots of it were picked up by other gaming industry bigwigs and went viral. However, other developers and journalists did not share Schofield’s enthusiasm for extremely hard work.

“Crunch represents the failure of leadership”.

This has been criticized: Schofield’s gushing was taken as bragging about crunch within his studio. Crunch refers to extreme overtime during the development of a game, which can result in 65 to 80 hours per week over the span of several months.

This leads to burnout in developers and can also lead to severe health damage or even death. Accordingly, Crunch has been criticized frequently in the past.

Commenting on Schofield’s tweet, journalist Jason Schreier said that the CEO uses the love and passion for gaming as a weapon against his employees. No one is forced, he said, but people who don’t crunch have lower chances of promotion.

“This is why people get out of gaming.”

Other journalists also agreed with Schreier. The journalist Paul Tassi of Forbes wrote in a tweet that “bragging about crunch” makes him more skeptical about a game.

Imran Khan of Fanbyte Madia even offered in a tweet that Striking Distance Studios employees can contact him anonymously to talk about the work culture at the developer.

Many other representatives of the gaming industry did not have positive words for Schofield’s tweet either.

• “Crunch is unnecessary and represents the failure of leadership.” – Tom Farnsworth, Senior Design Lead of Bungie.
• “Don’t normalize Crunch. Don’t build unrealistic schedules on your team’s “passion”. Healthy, functional teams make great games […]” – Carrie Patel, game director and senior narrative designer at Obsidian.
• “I have friends who have been hospitalized for crunch on a video game […]” – Kolbe Payne, Level Designer at Crystal Dynamics.

Schofield’s comment that his team worked through the Covid pandemic was also harshly criticized. However, it is not known if the developers had to continue coming into the office or were allowed to work from home. It is not clear from the original tweet.

Here’s how it turned out: Schofield has since deleted his tweet and replaced it with an apology. In it, he wrote that he originally wrote that he was “proud of the effort and hours his team put in.” That, he said, was incorrect. He appreciated the passion and creativity, not the hours.

While a portion of users in the comments sought reconciliation and wished Schofield well in his game, others were less impressed with the apology. It would not even address the core message of the original tweet.

Developers like Bungie and Grinding Gear Games are clearly positioning themselves against the crunch. The head of Grinding Gears spoke about it on reddit:

Path of Exile – boss about crunch phases: “I don’t want to run my studio like that!”