Bulkhead, the studio behind current FPS hotness Wardogs found itself at the centre of controversy this week, since CEO Joe Brammer made some inadvisable comments around crunch at the company. Essentially, he said it’s part of the development there, prompting pushback, and now clarification from him on what he really meant.
For context, this started when he discussed Bulkhead’s culture with The Game Business. “A lot of people who may have an issue with crunch,” he said.
“Rightly so, I understand that issue, we always try and avoid it, but we don’t hide that this is going to happen at some point,” he continued. “[Those people] often don’t make it in the door, because we want to be known for that: this is a place you come to work hard.”
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He added, “If you care about the work you’re making and the result of what you make here, this is a place to work,” because “you’ll feel really valued.” But “if you don’t, you will feel slave-driven,” and “it’s a constant to-and-fro with that.”
I have to say, these comments do not make the team sound too appealing. Regardless, they started doing the rounds, leading to backlash against Brammer, who made a couple of clarifications on Twitter. “I’m not going to get into a public debate about this, or any other of these out-of-context articles,” he starts.
He notes he never used the word “mandatory” when it comes to crunch, and adds there are a number of employee benefits, such as a four-day work week for half the development cycle of Wardogs and the full month of December off. It’s worth pointing out he does say it’s known that he “expects” crunch and that he “doesn’t believe” in working from home during his appearance on The Game Business.
He elaborated further on Bulkhead’s policies in comments to Eurogamer. After Wardogs missed the June beta deadline, two hours of crunch per day, Monday through Thursday, for four weeks were introduced. “We admitted to the staff that this was crunch; we clearly stated that we needed to crunch,” he says. “It was optional; four people opted out, nothing happened to them and nothing will.”
He concedes, however, “that maybe the social pressure within a very tight-knit team might make those individuals feel less than great.” He then doubles down on experimenting with a four-day work week, and how 80% of the company’s shares are distributed across half the current employees.
“If we’re going to be a company who says, ‘We do crunch’, then we have to also say, ‘But you get something for it,'” he told The Game Business to tie up his stance on the subject. “We want people to know that those people who do work hard get that return, and it is life-changing.”
Wardogs publicly launched in early access last Friday to a resoundingly positive reception, peaking at over 428,000 players on Steam so far.
