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Crunch changes people.
Image credit: Obsidian Entertainment | Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire
Pillars of Eternity 2 is a good game, but it didn't sell as well as Obsidian Entertainment hoped. It's twice as sad considering the reportedly unhealthy atmosphere in the studio during its development.
Not so long ago, Josh Sawyer, the director of Pillars of Eternity, Fallout: New Vegas, Pentiment, and other well-known games, tweeted that burnout had replaced crunch as the primary hazard of the game industry, and he knew what he was talking about.
“With Pillars Of Eternity II, we were in a position where we knew that we did not have enough time, nine months before we hit that wall,” he told Rock, Paper, Shotgun. “We raised concerns to management, and the options were either to invest more time in it, or to cut scope and staff. And they didn’t want to do that.”
With the management refusing to cut some features or move the launch date, people at the studio became "really harsh." Sawyer admitted that he didn’t recognize himself at some point, pushing workers like never before. Eventually, he sent a letter to Obsidian’s owners saying he wouldn’t return to work until the schedule was extended. He said he felt worse every day, and the game suffered from it as well. The owners gave in, and Pillars Of Eternity 2 received a warm welcome but not that many sales.
“It didn’t sell well, and that was very demoralising,” Sawyer shared. “I was like, ‘Damn, I was this huge, awful asshole to this team’. And it felt like a big waste.”
It took him a whole year to recover from the experience, so his words about crunch and overworking hold extra weight.
In the same interview, Sawyer also discussed another game he directed, saying he doesn't care what happens to New Vegas in the new Fallout show as it was never his in the first place.
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