Devolver Digital Talks about the Dangers of Crunch

Devolver Digital is quickly shaping itself as one of the few “good guy” studios left in the world, in that they not only publish excellent games by passionate indie studios, but they also seem to be having a good time doing it, all without forcing any cruddy monetization schemes. It’s almost as if they’re in the business out of pure love of the game, and in a recent panel at PAX Australia, co-founder Graeme Struthers underlined their “people first” approach by tackling the issue of crunch, which is sort of the “topic of the month” for the industry right now.

"I'm sure Red Dead's going to be an absolutely huge success… and I hope they use some of that success to address what seems to be a fairly deep-rooted issue. And I'm sure they will, because it's in their best interest to keep that talent and nurture it.

…My view personally is that if you're a company that owns a studio you've got to figure out better ways of working with your own employees and take better care of them... In the same way when you work like we do, independent studios, you've got to take care of people because they can basically throw themselves into unhealthy work practices. It's very easy to do that."

He went on to explain that Devolver Digital tries to do the opposite of Rockstar, and actually encourages the studios under their care to actually ease up on work and maintain a better work-life balance, even going so far as flying out to take them on nights out. That’s anecdotal, of course, but if true, it would certainly cement the ol’ double-D’s place at the top of the cool developer list, right next to, uh… Nintendo, kind of? Oh, and Blizzard. I heard they’re pretty nice to work for too.

If you ignore, the, uh, crappy way they exploit their players.

Wow, this is a short list.