I know, I know. It might be a day (or two) late, but it won’t be a dollar short! Crunch Mode got me this week. And so that’s what I’ll talk about.

Pretty much what it means in the video game industry is working until about 10 to 11 at night on weekdays, and then putting in a normal work day’s worth of hours on Saturday. And, if you’re project is really screwed, then it’s until 11 on Saturdays also with Sunday hours thrown in. Even if you aren’t screwed, sometimes the late Saturday nights & the Sundays happen.

The really crappy thing about all of it is that you don’t get time to do anything. It’s not that crunch mode is physically exhausting, cause it’s not really. I mean, you just sit there at a PC all day, so it’s pretty much the opposite of that. But what it does do is mentally exhaust you. For the rare times when you are actually not working, it’s like anything that take any amount of thought you avoid like the plague. Like, for instance, me writing this blog even, which is why you’re getting Wednesday’s dose on Friday.

Usually what ends up happening is you go home, and then either crash instantly or because your mind is still moving and needs time to rev down, you fart around on the computer. or what have you. You don’t have time to really go out at all. You don’t have time to do anything substantial. You pretty much go to work, then come home late at night, and then do the whole thing again the next day.

Thanks God for auto billpay & direct deposit!

Hopefully when it’s all over with you’ve got something that you’re proud of and gamers enjoy. You have the inverse of crunch mode once the game is on store shelves, but you’re usually too wiped out from the whole ordeal to even notice. It seems like for however long a team is in crunch mode, they need at least that long, if not longer, in “anti” crunch mode to be even remotely serviceable. That’s why crunch mode is such a strange thing. I wish that the industry didn’t plan crunch mode into its scheduling, but it most often does. Maybe some day someone will figure it all out, but until then we’re stuck with it.

I could ramble about this for a while, but I’m tired now and need to rest up. Tomorrow (and I do mean Saturday…) is another day at the office…

This entry was posted on Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 10:42 pm and is filed under The Viceroy, Shots in the Dark Cast, Video Games. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.