In recent days we have often talked about a working practice unfortunately very widespread, not only in the videogame industry, which bears the name of "crunch". Basically it consists in staying many more hours than necessary in your office to complete, by a pre-set date, that video game (or any other task inherent to the work done) that would otherwise be delayed. The developers of Naughty Dog know something about it these days are under the eye of the storm or the employees Rockstar who, cyclically, find themselves grinding hours and hours in front of the PC screen to finish the work of the software house.
An almost opposite vision is that of Hugo Martin, creative director of Id Software. In fact, he spoke of this practice, inherent in their last chapter to be released on March 20, Eternal DOOM, as a "endless work". What Hugo means is that in order to increase his pop culture he never stops playing games or watching movies and TV series that can stimulate and motivate him further even outside of working hours, so that future projects are always to move with the times.
“It's not a real crunch… I define it more as a lifestyle. I only live and breathe this. There is no one who forces me to stay in the office. Even when I get home, I am first with my children, I do the chores that compete with me and then I do research, that is, I play video games and read comics, something that makes me part and completely absorbs me in pop culture, 24 hours a day 7 days a week. In the morning, after I get up, I do some exercises, take the children to school, and I have a couple of free hours to play video games ”.
Surely Martin is what is called a real Nerd, with the difference that when one's passion meets work, the two lines must go hand in hand and not overlap each other, effectively making what a developer's dream of his life is, a nightmare.
