After Red Dead Redemption 2‘s crunchy development, Rockstar decided “‘we’re not doing it again like this'” for GTA 6, the studio’s head of publishing says, and she’s “proud” that the studio changed things for its latest title.
In an interview with Bloomberg, head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe says that the development of Red Dead Redemption 2 was “a real moment for Rockstar to look at itself,” even before the company began receiving backlash over reports of crunch for the staffers bringing the 2018 action adventure to life.
“We all looked at each other and said, ‘We’re not doing it again like this,'” Kolbe says, explaining that she and other fellow leads at Rockstar promised at the time that GTA 6 would be handled differently.
“I said, ‘We’re not going to finish this game by crunching,'” she continues. This involved Rockstar introducing new policies that would offer paid time off to make up for extra hours they’d worked, and sometimes offer workers more pay. Kolbe admits, “It’s not been perfect,” but even so, “It’s certainly better than Red Dead 2 was.”
She knows that if she were to declare that Rockstar hasn’t crunched on GTA 6, “someone is going to say, ‘I did,'” and that’s not something she wants to “get into arguments” over. However, she concludes: “I think we did things differently, and I’m proud of that.”
While Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick also previously indicated that GTA 6 was delayed to avoid crunch, that didn’t stop some employees from alleging back in July that crunch is so common at the studio that it’s “built into” contracts, and that they have to “opt out” of it. But, if Kolbe is to be believed, this is at least a better setup than the devs had for Red Dead Redemption 2.