We often hear about the burnout of individual developers or entire creative teams that have gone through a crunch. The Red Dead Redemption 2 team from Rockstar and the bankrupt Telltale studio faced rework.
Gamasutra portal talked about the culture of crunch that has developed in the industry with the heads of Ubisoft Quebec studio — managing director Patrick Klaus and chief producer of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Marc-Alexis Cote. The key points of the interview are given below.
Assassin’s Creed OdysseyHow not to bring employees to a nervous breakdown
Work on the studio’s first AAA project – Assassin’s Creed Syndicate — was progressing very hard for the employees. But their leadership has taught them a lot. The heads of the studio claim that they have drawn conclusions, and therefore the recently released Assassin’s Creed Odyssey did not require the same insane reworking. Although her Ancient Greece is much bigger than London in Syndicate.
According to Kote, it is unprofitable for the studio itself to bring employees to creative burnout. After all, in Quebec it is much more difficult to find a talented employee to replace the departed one than in New York, San Francisco or London.
Every two weeks, Ubisoft Quebec management evaluated the scale of the project together with the entire creative team, said Cote. This was started in order to make sure that the task is still within the capabilities of existing employees.
And immediately a contradiction crept into the words of the Cat: no, it turns out that at Ubisoft Quebec, creative teams themselves assess the workload. And they themselves go to labor feats. Sometimes they decide to stay out of hours and work for several weeks in a row on some brilliant idea that came to their mind. Such enthusiasts are always met by the management and subsequently rewarded with a vacation. It is impossible to allow the loss of talented people, says Klaus.
At the same time, the studio refused to provide statistics on the workload of the creative team working on Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.
Assassin’s Creed OdysseyHow to assess whether a team is close to burnout
Advice from Ubisoft Quebec: Compiling a project commitment index helps a lot. The following survey is conducted within the studio with a certain frequency:
- Does the employee have enough tools available for fruitful work?
- Does he understand the concept of the project?
- Does he understand the structure of the project?
- Does he face obstacles in his work?
This approach allows you to identify and solve problems right away, while it is still possible. And here the heads of the studio again reminded about the evaluation of the project every two weeks.
What to do with employees who have completed their task
When developing an AAA project, there are situations when, after the release, the need to keep a large team of employees disappears. And in this case, the studio sometimes has to fire her, especially if there are no other projects.
But the Assassin’s Creed franchise is far from over. Many developers will be thrown into the development of the next games in the series, according to Klaus and Kote. Some more will be transferred to other Ubisoft Quebec projects (those that cannot be named). In addition, there are other Ubisoft studios in the world: in Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto… And everyone needs help with their own AAA projects. That’s why, if dozens of developers in Quebec have nothing to do after the release, they can be moved to other Ubisoft studios. After the vacation, of course.
Assassin’s Creed OdysseyHow does Ubisoft Quebec feel about the idea of creating unions for game developers
Is unknown. This question was sent to Patrick Claus by letter after the interview. Neither he nor other studio representatives responded to the request.
Meanwhile, the gaming industry is increasingly talking about this idea. After loud mass dismissals, after terrible stories about months—long crunches, after other violations of the rights of game developers – no wonder.
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