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The International Game Developers Association is to record the use of crunch time practices in the game development sector.
The studios with the best overtime policies would be revealed later this year in an official report, with a new award being issued at next year’s GDC, Gamasutra reports.
IGDA executive director Kate Edwards said that the organisation’s annual Game Developer Satisfaction Survey in 2014 and 2016 had revealed that almost half of devs under crunch work more than 60 hours a week.
Almost a fifth (17 per cent) of workers experiencing crunch were clocking in excess of 70 hours a week.
She also said that the IGDA would also look to introduce a way for devs to anonymously report poor working conditions at studios, similar to the review system of Glassdoor.
It will also issue guidelines and advice for studios regarding the best ways to credit and compensate crunch time workers.
“This is one of the key factors that influences developers in regards to how long they plan to stay in the game industry,” observed Edwards.
“When responding to how long they expect to stay in the game industry, their initial response is without the working conditions, [developers] say they want to work indefinitely in this industry, and that they don’t want to retire.”
“So when we ask ‘Why would you leave the industry?’ and ‘Why have you left the industry?’, it’s almost always answers about working conditions, better pay, or better hours, factors relating to a huge amount of work.”
