Crunch, strict bosses, few people with something to say – that’s what you think of when it comes to video games. But World of Warcraft: Midnight probably didn’t need that.
When you think of the video game industry, images of fun and leisure likely come to mind first. But if you linger on the topic, the issue of crunch comes up more frequently – that is, times when employees have to work massive overtime under stress. Usually to meet a release date. World of Warcraft Midnight didn’t need that. The Game Director explains how they were still able to deliver.
What was said? In an interview with The Game Business on YouTube, the Game Director of World of Warcraft, Ion Hazzikostas, talked about the development of Midnight and the general work environment in the teams.
He mentioned that in the past they had tried to simply hire more and more developers to produce more content, but that didn’t work. Because in the end, there would be a bottleneck at the management level, where everything had to be decided.
The solution was to have multiple teams with more decision-making power and divided management levels. This way, different smaller teams can make decisions efficiently and work on multiple projects.
Additionally, there is one point that Hazzikostas is visibly proud of, as he says:
The most important thing is that there were no sacrifices to team health. I can truly say, and that may be a rarity in this industry, but fortunately, that is changing, this expansion was created without crunch. This was an expansion we made without having to tell the team: “Alright, we also need you on weekends and late into the evening.” We did it smarter, instead of pushing our team into unhealthy paths.
No Crunch, But Worse Quality – the Community Thinks
This is what the community says about the incident: Even in the WoW Subreddit, there is discussion about the statement. Most are pleased that working conditions at Blizzard seem to have improved. However, there is criticism regarding the speed of the patches, which sometimes comes at the expense of quality:
- “That would explain all the bugs xD
I’m not saying that this approach is a bad thing, I actually think it sounds good, but I wouldn’t mind if they took a month longer on the patches and then had time to fix some of the bugs beforehand.” – FaroraSF - “My cynical reaction to this would be to say: ‘Of course that’s true, look at the state of the product they deliver as a result.’ But, even though I am still dissatisfied with the UI bugs and how poorly some specializations are right now, I hope that’s accurate. Crunch should never be used to mask bad decisions and bad management.” – Aern
- “They’ve previously stated that their new approach is to become a more positive work environment. I really don’t think Blizzard can risk more bad press here.” – Absoled
Cortyn says: I can only hope that Hazzikostas’s statement is true. But at least it sounds fitting – after all, we know that Blizzard is still working on many expansions and is already preparing for the time after The Last Titan. Over such a long time, it would probably be impossible to impose a massive burden without literally burning out the employees.
However, it must also be said that the original quality of patches and events has significantly suffered due to the faster cadence. Especially in the first week of a new patch, you can almost expect daily hotfixes, which often not only fix minor issues, but also throw entire reward systems into disarray or reduce grind times by 80% to 90%. Here, one notices that a little more time might help to increase quality.
