Tim Schafer says it’s “really important” to not normalise crunch culture

Psychonauts creator and Double Fine founder Tim Schafer has stressed that it is “really important” for the games industry to tackle crunch culture and improve the quality of life for workers.

Speaking to NME for a Boss Level profile, Schafer revealed that the creation of Double Fine’s 2005 debut Psychonauts struggled with “one of the worst crunches” he’s ever experienced, with developers working “until five in the morning, for days on end” to finish the game.

The term crunch refers to the practice of developers working unpaid or mandatory overtime to finish games. In Schafer’s case, he says developers at Double Fine were working “until five in the morning, for days on end” to finish Psychonauts.

“We were just like…oh god, that was terrible,” recalled Schafer. “That’s wrong – let’s never do that again.”

Since then, Schafer has actively pushed back against crunch culture – and last year, it was revealed that Psychonauts 2 was made without crunch. On the topic of battling crunch, Schafer shared that “to this day it’s still a struggle, but the important thing is not to normalise it.”

“If you have crunch mode, it means something went wrong, he continued. “Either you overscoped, or you lost some productivity for some reason, or something bad happens. As long as you don’t say that’s normal…you say, how do we fix that problem? That’s the important thing: and it’s a constant struggle to get better at it every game.”

“Changing our tendency toward crunch behaviour, and [improving] quality of life for people who work in the games industry is really important,” Schafer added.

Elsewhere in the Boss Level, Schafer touched on why being inclusive makes for better writing and shared his idea for a Skyrim spin-off.