The Callisto Protocol CEO has seemingly glorified crunch culture within the development workplace but then retracted the statement.
As reported by Wccftech, Glen Schofield, the CEO of The Callisto Protocol developer, Striking Distance Studios has seemingly praised crunch culture.
In case you didn’t know, the term “crunch” within a workplace is when employees work overtime for an unreasonable duration, often under stressful conditions.
Crunch culture is an industry problem
In the past, many companies have been accused of imposing a crunch culture upon their employees. While developers such as Guerrilla Games delayed Horizon Forbidden West to avoid crunch hours.
However, Glen Schofield has gained a lot of heat due to a recent tweet in relation to working crunch hours. The tweet was then swiftly deleted.
Are Callisto Protocol devs working 105-hour weeks?
“I only talk about the game during an event. We r working 6-7 days a week, nobody’s forcing us. Exhaustion, tired, Covid but we’re working,” Tweeted Schofield.
“Bugs, glitches, perf fixes. 1 last pass thru audio. 12-15 hr days. This is gaming. Hard work. Lunch, dinner working. U do it ’cause ya luv it.”
As pointed out by Wccftech, if any employee was to work the hours hinted at by Schofield, we’re talking 72 to 105 hours a week. Likely under pressure to hit deadlines set by those higher up in the company.
In my opinion, no matter how much you love any job, working 105-hour weeks will test even the most passionate of employees.
Callisto Protocol dev apologised
After generating a heated reaction from followers, Schofield explained his tweet and apologised for the message it had given. “Anyone who knows me knows how passionate I am about the people I work with,” said the CEO.
“Earlier I tweeted how proud I was of the effort and hours the team was putting in. That was wrong. We value passion and creativity, not long hours,” adding “I’m sorry to the team for coming across like this.”
Going by what Schofield said in the tweet above, he doesn’t backtrack on the number of hours that the developers at Striking Distance Studios seemingly work.
However, it is possible that his words were misguided in a tweet intending to mean well. Furthermore, we don’t know whether the devs are forced to work crunch hours or if it’s something that they welcome. We can only speculate.
Either way, we wouldn’t want developers to work under stressful conditions that are unnecessary and we wish them all good health in bringing the video games we love.
The Callisto Protocol is inspired by Dead Space
Glen Schofield was the co-founder of Visceral Games and a creator of the original Dead Space series, a game that The Callisto Protocol is proudly inspired by.
The Dead Space remake currently has a release date of January 27th, 2023 for PC, PS5 as well as Xbox Series X|S. The Callisto Protocol will release on December 2nd 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
What are your thoughts on the tweets made by Schofield? Let us know across our social media channels.
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Featured Image Credit: Striking Distance Studios/Source: Wccftech