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Crunch, not just onomatopoeia. The term “crunch” is used in the gaming industry when studios are in the home stretch of finishing a game, and it requires extra work hours to be put in by employees beyond a normal 40ish hour work week. It is a controversial topic to say the least. Often employees aren’t even paid extra for the extra work they put in. CD Projekt Red, the Polish studio behind the Witcher games and the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077, has announced mandatory crunch for their employees. In an email, studio head Adam Badowski said “Starting today, the entire (development) studio is in overdrive,” elaborating that this meant “your typical amount of work and one day of the weekend.” Jason Schreier at Bloomberg has the full story.
Activision Blizzard is allowing Overwatch League (OWL) and Call of Duty League (CDL) teams to defer multimillion-dollar franchise fees that were due this year to account for the financial turmoil brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, according to two people holding senior roles in the leagues. This follows up on a report from July that Activision Blizzard were weighing their options for different ways to help teams financially. Every year, franchise owners are expected to pay a predetermined portion of the original price tag. If a team decides to defer the payment this year, the cost will then be split among the payments in 2021 and thereafter. Teddy Amenabar from The Washington Post has the full story.
Nintendo has announced that we can expect to find out the next character to join the Smash Bros. Ultimate lineup tomorrow morning. The reveal event will only run for about three minutes and will start at 10 AM ET. You can find the link to the video for when it goes live here.