We have already talked a bit about the Game Informer interview with the co-presidents of Naughty Dog, but there is still some meat on this bone. Evan Wells and Neil Druckmann also spoke about the unionization efforts that are one of the gaming industry’s key things.

“I have personally worked very hard over the years. I think some of that has helped me get to where I am in my career,” Wells said about the crunch.

He added that Naughty Dog has post-mortem (post-launch) discussions after each project for every department. The goal is to “strike the right balance between giving people the opportunity to… leave their mark on the industry and advance their craft in ways that have never been achieved, but also find space along that spectrum.”

Druckmann says the team wants to prevent its employees from burning out, creating working groups to identify areas for improvement within Naughty Dog. Wells focuses on increasing the number of directors and leads to better monitor employee well-being and take feedback. However, Wells doesn’t think of much of unionization, claiming that it wouldn’t solve anything.

“To Neil’s point about making sure that everybody can work as hard or as little as they want, we’ve got to create an environment that allows that. If we had some sort of restriction where when the clock strikes 40 hours, the servers shut down, and you can’t work anymore, that would frustrate people to no end. Some people want to put in that extra polish of their own volition, and they would feel handcuffed,” Wells said.

Druckmann added that they tried preventing devs from working past a particular hour or on Sundays, but it wasn’t a 100% solution: “When you try to have a silver bullet, like one solution, you’re always leaving someone behind. That’s why we feel like we need multiple solutions. We have to approach this from multiple angles.” But crunch has been a long-term issue in Naughty Dog. Amy Hennig, Uncharted 3’s creative director, openly said that she worked 12 hour days, seven days a week for the entire decade she worked at the studio…

Source: Gamesindustry