It’s interesting to see how different people deal with crunch in different ways. Over the past few months I’ve seen team members at each other’s throats, sleep deprived individuals finding it hard to be productive and apathy towards the project even with the prospect of bonuses. All projects can suffer from this whether or not you’re in crunch, but the contrast compared to just a few months ago is amazing.

Back then, people appeared to be happy with their job, their life and I’m sure they were probably healthier too. But increase the average working week by 25-50%, add in lots of junk food and an ever nearing deadline and this is bound to have an adverse effect on most of the staff on the project even if they were expecting it (and they where expecting it!).

There are always those that somehow seem to deal with anything that is thrown at them and step up their game by working ever hour of the day and pulling out all the stops, but they are the exception and generally don’t have the social/family life that many others do.

How am I coping with crunch you may ask? Well I’m constantly tired, struggling to keep my personal life at home and my work at work, but would I want another job? No. And maybe that’s the one of the games industry’s problems, we love the job too much.

Posted by Versus on Tuesday, September 19th, 2006 at 10:14 am.