Why, in the first place have you ever followed Kotaku’s reporting on crunch, the effects it has on people’s health and relationship and how it consumes countless talented folks whole to the point where the turnover in gaming is so insane that most folks in it, or recently in it will more often then not urge anyone…

You’re not a bad person for wanting to have a good time. You might be a bad person for being fully cognizant of injustice and going “LA LA LA, I can’t hear you, this is a fun game and nothing else matters, LA LA LA.” Enjoy the game AND be aware of the ills perpetuated to create it.

This is the realization of something that Extra Credits put forth in a video years ago...that game reviews must evolve into being art criticism if games themselves are to be taken seriously as art.

Your stance is perfectly understandable and justifiable.

I would imagine the controls for just about any game would feel fudgy after having spent the bulk of 4 years in Destiny.

Kirk, this is easily the best game review I’ve ever read, but also the best writing of any kind that I’ve read on this website. I enjoyed your creative narrative prose over the the technical trappings of FPS and other “data.”

You might be waiting a bit.  Fans of the first game are still waiting.

From tip to tail, Red Dead Redemption 2 is a profound, glorious downer. It is the rare blockbuster video game that seeks to move players not through empowering gameplay and jubilant heroics, but by relentlessly forcing them to confront decay and despair. It has no heroes, only flawed men and women fighting viciously…

Apparently ratings are down for this World Series despite the big market teams.  I like to think the stink of Boston has started to reach all corners of the country.

He’s a big guy in even bigger power armour.  Which is hard to translate to Lego, I guess.

I still think the payload set should have not come with any minifigs at all.  Or at the very least only a Zenyatta.

Maybe you’re just not used to seeing them all on the payload at once?

Yeah, as I was reporting this story, something striking was that even those who spoke about their Rockstar experiences really positively would also say things like this. Or “Well, I’m a workaholic, so I probably spend more time at work than most people.” It’s very much a cultural thing and I wonder if even…

“Out of all those projects, Red Dead Redemption 2 has been the easiest I’ve experienced personally,” said one Rockstar San Diego employee. “Core hours, including lunch, would be nine hours. I’d say I probably get in an extra two hours on top of that most times. During crunch I probably put in another hour or two on…

Great article Jason, took a while but was able to finish the whole thing.

Something I have yet to see any exec from Rockstar address is a simple thing that pretty much no creative professional I know disagrees with:

I have a sample size of 1, but from what I understand: most burn out and go into dev outside the game industry.

Besides that fact that “back bars” to make something look “cinematic” is hackey as fuck. 

“The other side of it is that it’s been very easy for me to balance my work life and my personal life.”

Still reading through the entire article, but the first anecdote about the cinematic rework at zero hour speaks to a Producer that doesn’t have the power that they should, or doesn’t have the confidence to stand up and justify a negative to their superiors.