Doom: Eternal's Creative Director: "It's not Crunch... it's a Lifestyle"

Doom Eternal is about a week away which is excellent news for the enormous influx of people suddenly finding themselves with time to kill and we're all eagerly awaiting an opportunity to rip and tear through the hordes of hell. But while slaying the denizens of hell is a jolly good time, we have to remember that a lot of game developers have to go through hell to finish their games on time: a process known as crunch.

One of the developers of Doom Eternal, id Software's creative director, Hugo Martin, spoke on the issue of crunch with Joe Rogan on his podcast, and the man had what could generously be called a "backwards" view on the issue.

Although bear in mind, he's only speaking for himself:

It's not really crunch... this is going to sound hokey. Its like a lifestyle. I live and breathe this. No one makes me stay at the office. Even when I come home, I see my kids, I do my thing, and then I just do research you have to ingest a ton of it, which means [this job] is 24/7. I get up really early; I try to do the exercise thing ... then I come home, send the kids to school. Then I have about two hours where the house is empty and I'll just play games.

That sounds utterly charming, but one does have to remember that he does this from something of a privileged position, as one of the higher-ranked members in his organization. Others who work under him may not have a choice in the matter or at the very least, may face pressure from their bosses and their peers to keep up with their fellow, overworking developers.

No one's exposed any terrible work practices in ID Software yet, though, unlike Rockstar, Naughty Dog, and Bioware, so I suppose we can give them the benefit of the doubt.