News Games made under crunch, like Last of Us Part II, don't deserve 'Best Direction' award

[Miles]

Last night, The Last of Us Part II walked away from The Game Awards with seven trophies, including those for Game of the Year, Best Narrative, Best Audio Design, Best Performance (by Laura Bailey as Abby), Innovation in Accessibility, and Best Action/Adventure. Arguments can be made as to whether it deserved those or not, but I think it’s pretty obvious that no game that required its developers to crunch, like The Last of Us Part II did, should be given a Best Direction award, which The Last of Us Part II somehow also won.

Let’s be clear: the existence of crunch indicates a failure in leadership. It’s up to game directors and producers to ensure workloads are being managed properly and goals are being met. If workers are being forced to crunch, explicitly or otherwise, it means the managers themselves have fallen short somewhere, either in straining the limits of their existing staff, fostering an environment where overtime is an implied (if unspoken) requirement, or both. And as ambitious as The Last of Us Part II director Neil Druckmann and his projects may be, “questionable experiments in the realm of pushing human limits” are not required to make a great game.

Games Made Under Crunch Conditions Don’t Deserve ‘Best Direction’ Awards

Last night, The Last of Us Part II walked away from The Game Awards with seven trophies, including those for Game of the Year, Best Narrative, Best Audio Design, Best Performance (by Laura Bailey as Abby), Innovation in Accessibility, and Best Action/Adventure. Arguments can be made as to...

kotaku.com

I totally agree with this article.

 

[Paul Phoenix]

To be fair though, there really wasn't many other games released in 2020 to compete with it, except a few titles. So it really perhaps only won because it had no stiff competition.

 

[Demon_skeith]

Well, they do and don't. They do because they did work within that rough crunch time to get it done, and they shouldn't for the same reason.