The subject of overtime in the video game industry has been a hot one for the last few years. In fact, it’s so ingrained in the work culture that there’s a special name for it: crunch.
Game developers are all too often being asked to work up to 100 hours a week, including weekends, as a result of unrealistic deadlines, poor project planning, disorganization, or all of the above. Major studios such as Rockstar (Red Dead Redemption 2), Telltale Games (The Walking Dead), and Epic (Fortnite) have featured in the news recently as reports of grueling work expectations placed on employees come to light.
Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser recently discussed the topic, explaining that a healthy work-life balance is something the company takes very seriously. With Nintendo behind some of gaming’s biggest titles, including Breath of the Wild, Kotaku brought up the subject of overtime with Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma in an interview at E3 last week.
“When creating a game, game development is all about the people. So if one of them or any of them aren’t well, that definitely affects the game and overall quality, and that’s just not good,” said Aonuma when asked about his stance on overtime. He went on to explain that Nintendo tries to be flexible with delivery dates and that he’s not afraid to have to apologize for delays because the staff comes first.
Kotaku specifically brought up Breath of the Wild and asked if the development team had needed to work long periods of overtime on it.
“Overall as a Nintendo work culture, we focus on flexibility,” Aonuma reasserted. “And so even the staff have that flexibility of when to focus, and use their energy on something, or they have a little bit of leeway in their work schedule, don’t have to exert themselves so much. They can maintain that balance themselves. Especially for Breath of the Wild, it was the same, and we focused on the staff. We didn’t have anybody be exerted or anything like that, and I think we were able to achieve our goal.”
It’s certainly a relief to hear that Nintendo is thinking about the staff when planning their games not only due to the industry’s reliance on crunch culture but because Japanese work culture itself can be notorious for expecting staff to work long hours. Japan even has a word that means “death by overworking.” The term, karōshi (過労死), was coined in the 1970s when otherwise healthy people began to die suddenly from heart attacks and strokes as a result of stress and excessive work.
“We didn’t have anybody be exerted or anything like that.”
To round out the discussion on Nintendo’s work culture, Aonuma also gave us an insight into his typical work day.
“Every day’s a little bit different. Just to explain maybe an average day: In the morning I’ll check my mail, take care of that. In the afternoon, it depends on what’s needed—sometimes one of the teammates will ask for advice or I’ll play through something just to make sure it’s fun. And then before I go home I’ll check my email. Lately, I’ve been able to go home pretty early, so it’s been good.”
That does sound good! Keep up the good work, Mr. Aonuma, and we hope that all Nintendo employees will flourish under the flexible work conditions.
