Here’s a feel-good story to cap off your Veteran’s Day whether you’re stuck working or not: Warframe players on Reddit last week begged Digital Extremes not to crunch for the Fortuna launch. Reddit user spacesheepie whipped up an infographic as a “gentle reminder” that “crunch is bad for wellbeing.” The so-called “Tenno Against Crunch” thread racked up over 5000 upvotes (only 5% downed it) from players who would rather wait for the game than see their favorite developers suffer. “I like the game but not at the cost of people’s lives,” wrote one.
As readers surely know, the overwork issues plaguing the industry have been a serious problem for decades and have indeed led the the deaths of developers, to say nothing of industry burnout and mental health issues. Dozens of reports from employees who say they were pushed into excessive crunch working on Red Dead Redemption 2 lifted the subject back to the top of the game industry meta in recent months. Given some of the community reaction to that coverage, with a lot of gamers saying they simply don’t care at all about whether the employees are overworked as long as they get their games, you might find the Warframe community’s compassionate, supportive position refreshing.
Fortuna did release in Warframe as planned last week; indeed, we streamed a bit on Friday night!
