Rockstar Games Co-Founder In Hot Water For Saying Employees Endured 100-Hour Work Weeks While Making Red Dead Redemption

POLYGON – Rockstar Games renewed the ongoing conversation of game industry crunch after co-founder Dan Houser suggested in a New York Magazine interview that the development team worked multiple 100-hour weeks on Red Dead Redemption 2. In response to the backlash, Houser sought to clarify his comments, although those concerned about crunch at the studio may not be satisfied. New York Magazine’s story about the making of Rockstar’s new Red Dead noted that writing and edits on the game’s script were “immense,” with Houser explaining, “We were working 100-hour weeks” earlier this year. Houser told the magazine that the entire script of Red Dead Redemption 2, if stacked, “would be eight feet high,” and that the game features 500,000 lines of dialogue. The game’s NPCs have 80-page scripts, said writer Lazlow Jones. Game developers, writers and others criticized what read as a flippant, even boastful admission of overwork at Rockstar.

100 hour work weeks? Welcome to Dave Portnoy’s pleasure dome. There are 168 hours in a week, and if the dictator known as El Presidente had his way there would be another 32 hours added to the week solely so his subjects could work all 200 of them. As for the talented folk over at Rockstar, I’m not even sure this HNIC (Head Nerd In Chief, racists) is being literal with his words here. I don’t even know if he knows what he’s saying in regards to 100-hour work weeks. But ya gotta admit, whatever Rockstar is doing, the results speak for itself.

There’s a reason why Rockstar takes a few decades between their flagship games. These guys could clearly make a shit ton more bank by releasing a half-assed Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto every single year. Call Of Duty shamelessly does it because they know they’ve got the market by the balls. Hell, Madden almost releases the same exact game every August. Not Rockstar. They take pride in their art. There was a 6-year window between Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) and Grand Theft Auto V (2013), and it was WELL worth the wait. Now there’s a 7-year hiatus between Red Dead Redemption and this game. And if you gotta put in 100-hour work weeks during crunch time to perfect the product, oh well (as long that it’s legal, which I’m not 100% sure it is). Look, you don’t create 40 different kinds of horse species with each one owning a wonderful set of digital testicles by punching in at 9 and clocking out at 5. You just don’t.

Look at that attention to detail. You can almost taste the varicose veins. You can’t create those horse nuts on a 40-hour work week. These beauties might as well have been sculpted by Michaelangelo himself.

Allegations of indentured servitude aside, as long as the good people at Rockstar keep on inviting us down to their HQ for jam sessions, they’ll have a friend in us. Good times, gents. Good times. Well, besides when they sabotaged me with my character getting filmed in the shower. That was more of a savage time.

h/t Kmarko