Burnout Is Now “the Primary Hazard of the Game Industry”

As many of us know, the game industry has long grappled with the issue of crunch culture. For those unfamiliar with the term, crunch is when developers put in extra hours and workloads to meet deadlines, usually, that happens before a game’s release or important project milestone.

However, according to seasoned veteran Josh Sawyer, who you may know as Studio Design Director at Obsidian (contributed to Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, etc.), burnout has now taken its place as “the primary hazard of the game industry” for gamedev professionals.

Burnout, a state of mental and physical exhaustion caused by prolonged stress, is the scourge of our time, and nobody is safe when we talk about it.

Having experienced burnout himself, Sawyer believes that more action is needed to combat this problem and improve working conditions in the industry.