By James Batchelor

The crunch debate was reignited by a recent interview with Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer, in which he admitted there was some crunch involved in developing the studio's new multi-million-selling military shooter Wardogs. 

Speaking to The Game Business last week, Brammer also suggested Bulkhead is unlikely to employ folks who express anti-crunch sentiments via social media. Inevitably, these comments sparked headlines and general industry discourse on the subject, with many decrying Brammer and his methods. 

The Bulkhead CEO has since issued statements clarifying the crunch behind Wardogs; the team worked any extra two hours per day, four days per week for four weeks, in order to ship the beta on time. 

Speaking to Knowledge, Brammer said: "Just to be clear for the record, I'm not pro crunch, I am pro hard work. I just love making games. 

"Defining crunch is really hard. It's subjective, but to me, if people work overtime, they should be rewarded for that. When I came into the industry, it was the EA Spouse era. Companies were making games for two years, and planning for six months of working weekends and 10-hour days. It's horrendous behavior that you've planned for it." 

By contrast, he views Bulkhead's approach as more akin to overtime. The shift in hours was explained to the team in a town hall meeting, with the emphasis that everyone would go home at a normal time on Friday and no weekend work would be expected. The studio also provided two free meals per day, and increased flexi time by two hours. 

All but four members of the team agreed to the plan.  

"I didn't believe it was crunch if I'm honest," says Brammer. "But we've got a bunch of [younger] people, and they do think that's crunch. So I owned it and didn't argue with them. 

"There were four people who didn't want to do it, and that was fine. I wasn't going to make anyone do it. It wasn't about punishment, it was what we needed to do... If we didn't deliver on time, it was going to hurt. We'd lose our jobs. We were slipping into GTA's window."

Brammer stresses this was just one month of development. In fact, 50 per cent of development time was done while operating a four-day work week, something Brammer hopes to return to in the future. 

He adds that the company was facing redundancies just ten months ago, but the team pressed on to finish the game. Now Bulkhead is awarding "massive bonuses" to the team following Wardogs' success (up to £50,000 for some juniors). But had the game performed poorly, Bulkhead would have faced worse than job losses. 

"The company would be limping or dead," says Brammer. "We risked our careers, business and reputation to make a new IP. Somebody has to take risks or the industry will stagnate. Our devs were willing to take that risk with us. It's a gamble at every level of Bulkhead and developers understand that when choosing to work with us. That's not going to be for everyone."

Much of last week's outcry targeted Brammer specifically, with some questioning his leadership of the studio. 

"I really don't agree with the 'it's just bad management and bad production' argument against crunch," he says. "That is such a bullshit mentality. Making a new IP is hard, especially with new tech – we helped make some of the things in Unreal Engine 5, we're at the cutting edge. When things don't quite work how we want, we can't always go, 'oh, we'll delay the game a month.' That's just not how it works." 

Brammer also suggests it's not possible to prepare for every potential delay, and Bulkhead is not alone in finding ways to get back on track. 

"The conversations that happen in private are a lot different than the conversations that happen in public," he says. "I would bet that more people agree with me."

He adds that the reality of working beyond paid hours is different across various industries. His mother was a teacher and "didn't do a nine-to-five her entire career"; teachers often have to bring work home, including during the weekends and holidays. 

"That's crunch," he asserts. "That's the public sector, way less money, and that's not what we're doing... Meanwhile, some [games] companies love to say they don't crunch, then outsource a load of work to Vietnam and Poland and make them crunch. But because it's out of sight it's out of mind. It's fine. 

"I do get why people [are speaking out against this]. It's honourable what they're trying to do. But we're trying to make changes as well – I'm the guy who pushed a four-day work week on Tencent. That wasn't easy. I'm not perfect, but I'm trying things differently. Give me the space to make the mistake. 

"The industry's changing and its attitude to crunch is becoming healthier by way of talking about it. Don't shut down the conversation, don't attack people because they think doing overtime occasionally is OK as long as we respect the staff, their families, their partners." 

Yet the key to making mistakes is learning from them, so what has Brammer learned that will help avoid this level of crunch (or overtime) on future projects? 

"I don't have the answer yet," he says. "Step one is stop planning for crunch, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't expect overtime. That was what I was trying to say when I said we looked at social media profiles. If you're vehemently against crunch or overtime, we're not going to hire you – not because you're not talented, but because you'll hate it here. You'll try to change our culture, and our staff like our culture." 

Knowledge will be further exploring attitudes towards crunch next week.