Crunch Hurts: How Unmitigated Overwork Harms Employee Health, Productivity, and Your Studio's Bottom Line

Take This, Inc., a non-profit mental health charity, published this white paper on crunch (overwork beyond 40-hour weeks) in game development, drawing on research including the IGDA's developer surveys. It reviews how overwork affects productivity, health, work/life balance, game quality, and turnover. The IGDA's 2015 Developer Satisfaction Survey found 62 percent of game developers reported that their jobs involved crunch, with half of those working more than 60 hours per week. The authors cite Evan Robinson's IGDA report finding that productivity declines sharply after as little as four days of extended hours. They also cite a 2008 account by developer Clinton Keith, in which productivity matched a normal week by week four and was lower than an average 40-hour week by week five. Citing a national Australian survey, the authors report cognition decreased beyond 25 hours of work per week. Citing Virtanen et al. (2009), employees working more than 55 hours a week, compared to those working 35-40 hours a week, were 2 times more likely to experience shortened sleep hours. Citing Cusick and Akula (2008), they report software defects were significantly higher in projects that required overtime than those that did not.