“We also need to make sure that, as an industry, we’re having those conversations.”
– Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser discusses crunch with IGN.
Crunch is an ever persistent problem and topic of conversation in the game industry, and Nintendo of America’s new president Doug Bowser spent a few moments to discuss the issue in a recent chat with IGN.
Bowser says it’s important that the industry has conversations about crunch and that companies like Nintendo “need to make sure that our employees have good work-life balance.”
He says part of that awareness means that delaying games is something he says Nintendo is proud of, as opposed to excessively crunching to meet a difficult release date.
“One of those examples is, we will not bring a game to market before it’s ready,” Bowser tells IGN. “We just talked about one example [in Animal Crossing’s delay]. It’s really important that we have that balance in our world. It’s actually something we’re proud of.”
He doesn’t offer the hardest hitting take on cunch by any means, but his comments do align him with the beliefs shared by his presidential predecessor Reggie Fils-Aimé.
Fils-Aimé, who retired as Nintendo of America’s president this April after 15 years with the company, was one of many people that weighed in on crunch for a Waypoint (now Vice Games) story last summer. He told the publication that Nintendo typically will bring on short-term contracted employees to help with an excessive workload, rather than disrupt the work-life balance of its employees.
“And so we’re not asking people to go for a couple days without sleep,” Fils-Aimé told Waypoint. “We’re not asking people to ignore their family and friends and their social life. We’re not asking people to do things that are unhealthy. That is not our approach.”
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