Under de senaste åren har det varit ett ökat fokus på förutsättningarna som spel produceras under, eftersom det har visat sig att praktiskt taget alla studior i branschen antingen har använt eller fortfarande använder sig av så kallad "crunch", det vill säga förväntad övertid utan rimlig kompensation.
Men på Relic Entertainment, som slutför utvecklingen av Age of Empires IV, är det inte något problemet. Tydligen har de, som så många andra, har de överarbetat som galningar tidigare, men detta har man slutat med. I en intervju hos Golem berättar narrative director Philippe Boulle:
"As with many studios that started in the late 90s, there were sections with crunch. At some point the members of the management team said: That must not be the case if we want to build a functioning studio over the long term. You can then throw a product on the market in good time, but a large part of the workforce resigns immediately afterwards. As someone who has really benefited from this, I am very happy about it."
Spelets director, Quinn Duffy, tyckte också till och förklarade att de inte har överarbetat på crunch-premisser på flera år:
"Fortunately, that's not an issue at Relic. I don't even remember when we last had crunch. If I remember correctly, Company of Heroes 2 had a couple of weeks of overtime. Many of the colleagues are now a bit older and have children - some of them are almost as old as Relic itself. In creative professions, it is extremely important to have a clear head. But you don't have that with burnout. Sure, we are very busy at the moment and are trying to get to zero bugs. But that has nothing to do with the crunch I experienced myself in my early years at work."
