Crunch: does it help and how do you know?
[翻译] 加班有用吗？如何知道加班有用？
短连结：http://wp.me/pBAPd-wN
原文连结：
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/EricByron/20160729/278113/Crunch_does_it_help_and_how_do_you_know.php
by Eric Byron on 07/29/16 10:44:00 am
旧文转发，Game Outcomes Project 团队 中断两年后再度开始有进度
In the great debate amongst the games industry regarding crunch the one
fundamental questions that doesn’t seem to be answered is: does crunch
actually help a game development project be more successful?
在游戏产业中，关于加班的基础问题中，仍未在辩论中获得答案的是：加班是否真能帮助
游戏开发获得更多成功？
In our original survey and articles, the Game Outcomes Project measured game
project success using an aggregate score of 4 factors:
Return on investment
Critical acclaim
Internal satisfaction
Project delays
在我们先前的问卷及文章－"游戏专案为何成功"－我们基于四个量度来总和测量游戏开发
的成功度：
获利或回收。
专案在外部被认定获得巨大成功。
专案内部满意度。
专案时程达标或延迟。
From our 2014 survey results, our fourth article concluded that teams that
reported having crunched during the project were generally less successful
than teams that reported little or no crunch. So why do so many still swear
by crunch as a necessary part of game development?
从我们2014年的结论中，第四篇文章讨论了：在专案开发中加班的团队，比起加班较少或
不加班的团队，一般来说反而获得了比较少的成功。但为何有这么多人声称加班在游戏开
发中是必要之恶？
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20150120/234443/The_Game_Outcomes_Project_Part_4_Crunch_Makes_Games_Worse.php
Did we ask the wrong questions or make false assumptions about what success
is? There are many in the games industry that believe working long hours is
an inevitable part of the creative process and those who are passionate
cannot and should not be constrained to working 40 hours a week. On the
other hand, there is a lot of scientific evidence regarding the ill effects
on productivity when working long hours. More importantly, there seems to be
complete void of any real data to validate that those working long hours are
actually as productive and creative as they would be working less hours.
是否我们问了错误的问题，所以导致了关于成功错误的结论？有很多业界的朋友仍相信长
工时在创意发想中是无可避免，以及那些充满热情的开发者不应该被一周四十个小时的制
度所限制。在相反的角度来看，已经有很多科学证据显示长时间工作会对生产力有负面影
响。更重要地，我们缺乏真实数据来证明长时工作－比起较少的工时－能真正带来高生产
力及高创意。
Alex St. John, in response to an interview with Kate Edwards, recently
described those wanting to avoid crunch as having a “wage slave” attitude
and basically said we should feel privileged to work 80 hours a week. You
can read his blog article here:
http://venturebeat.com/2016/04/16/game-developers-must-avoid-the-wage-slave-attitude/
Alex St. John 在最近回应 Kate Edwards 的访问中认定那些不想加班的人是"薪水奴隶"
，而且我们应该感觉一周工作八十小时是一种恩赐。请透过部落格的文章阅读他的看法。
We need less opinions and more data!
我们需要数据，而非看法。
We’ve been talking with leaders in the games industry trying to gather more
evidence to support or dispel the theory that crunch is a necessary and
beneficial practice when making games or other creative endeavors. One
problem we have run into right away is a problem with defining crunch
itself. There are those who believe crunch should be defined as extended
periods of mandatory overtime: 3 or more weeks of 60+ hours each week. Evan
Robinson, author of the article “Why Crunch Mode Doesn't Work: 6 Lessons”,
is of the opinion that anything beyond 40 hours per week is crunching. Dave
Swanson, a director of engineering for Electronic Arts, commented that what
people call crunch now is nothing compared to the hours he worked when he
started in game development in the early days of Madden Football at the
Tiburon Studio in Orlando, Florida.
http://www.enginesofmischief.com/makers/evan/pubs/crunch.html
我们与游戏产业内的领导者深谈，想找到更多证据来支持或质疑这种"创意开发或游戏开
发时，加班有益"的理论。首要的问题就是我们如何定义什么叫作加班（超时工作）。有
人认为加班应该定义为被命令长时间处于超时工作的状态（而不是偶发的超时）：也就是
超过三周都在六十小时以上工作。Evan Robinson－<六堂课告诉你为何加班不可行>的作
者则认为只要每周超过四十个小时就叫加班。Dave Swanson－美商艺电的工程监督则认为
现在大伙所谓的加班与他当时在奥兰多的 Tiburon Studio 开始做 Madden Football 时
的工时简直就是一碟小菜。
We also want to acknowledge before going further with this discussion that
there is a distinction between voluntary and mandatory overtime. Within our
survey there was a statistical difference, in terms of project outcomes, when
respondents indicated that overtime was voluntary. Voluntary overtime is not
surprisingly less harmful but there are still studies that suggest, any time
we work long hours, fatigue effects the quality of our work. This seems to
be especially true for “knowledge workers” who have to make decisions or
solve complex problems. In game development this may translate to more bugs
or poor technical decisions that result in performance issues or generally
poor quality or stability of the game. We’ve included some links at the
bottom of the article where you can go review some of the research that’s
been done. Don’t just take our word for it.
我们也应该在继续研究这个题目之前，清楚区分自愿加班及被命令加班的差别。在我们的
问卷调查中，问卷填写者指出自愿加班对专案的成功度，有统计上的差异。不意外地，自
愿加班负面影响比较低，但仍有研究建议不论怎样的长时间工作的疲劳都会造成工作品质
的影响。对用脑力工作的劳工来说这似乎特别明确，因为他们必须解决复杂问题，做出工
作上的决定。在游戏开发中，低落的工作品质就代表更多的臭虫，效能问题。也就导致游
戏的稳定性低，一般所谓品质低落。我们在文章结尾列出了一些我们提到的参考连结，让
读者可以互相比较。
Let’s talk a little bit about why game teams crunch. Seppo Hellava,
Co-Founder and Creative Director at Wonderspark, made a direct correlation to
ship dates. He was proud to tell us that his teams don’t crunch because
they do not set hard deadlines. They do this by working in short iterations
with frequent small releases. This minimizes the risk of introducing a major
problem with any release, allows them to quickly change course if they learn
something new; either from development or from those playing the game.
Because there are no hard deadlines, they can manage the workload and focus
on just the next iteration, not a long feature list with pressure to get some
major release out for a marketing window.
http://www.wonderspark.co/
接着我们来谈谈为何游戏团队会加班。Seppo Hellava－Wonderspark 的创意监督及共同
创办人，订定了发售日的计算方式。他自豪地说他的团队不加班，因为他们的发售日期是
弹性的。他们透过快节奏的短期循环来开发及释出产品。这样的作法降低了大问题发生的
风险，让他们能够快速学习新知－不论是从开发中或从试玩中，同时立即改变方向。为他
们没有明确的时程底线，他们可以调整工作时程，只专注在下一循环的工作上，而非让长
期的工作清单及因为营运目标而设定的发售时程造成团队的压力。
Of course, this doesn’t work for many game studios with pressure from
publishers or marketing to ship a game for Christmas or release within a very
short window to hit some specific target market or hit some revenue goal in a
particular fiscal period. It can be extremely hard to avoid some degree of
crunch when faced with a hard deadline and too much work left to do with
limited time to do it. Joe Hoff, Director of Software Engineering at
InContact and a former Development Director at EA Sports, put it this way:
“Crunch is caused by designers trying to shove 10 pounds of shit in a
5-pound bag. They will always insist on more features than can possibly be
done within the available capacity.”
当然，对于很多接受发行商或营运单位压力－要在圣诞节发售或是在下一个会计结算前就
要达到特定的营收－的游戏开发工作室并不能这样运作。当面对固定发售日的时程而还有
很多工作必须完成的情形下极难避免一定程度的加班。Joe Hoff 前美商艺电运动开发监
督及 InContact 的软件工程部门监督说道："加班是肇因于设计师总是试着把十公升的大
便装到五公升垃圾袋。设计师总是坚持要有更多的特色，比目前能做到的都来的多。"
Yes, there are those that believe crunch is the result of poor management and
a willingness to over commit, promising features that will force the team to
work overtime to deliver them. Counter point: Warren Spector is famously
quoted as saying:
“Crunch will always exist in studios that strive for quality. Look, I'm
sure there have been games made without crunch. I've never worked on one or
led one, but I'm sure examples exist.”
没错，加班是由差劲管理及过度承诺造成，这样的情形逼迫团队超时工作交付成果。但也
有可能是如 Warren Spector 所说："加班会永远存在于追求品质的工作室。听着，我确
信一定存在某些游戏团队不需要加班，但我还没有碰过或带过这样的专案。"
We talked to Kate Edwards, the Executive Director of the International Game
Developers Association (IGDA), about crunch in the games industry. Kate is
passionate on this subject and the IGDA recently announced an initiative
called the Crunch Comp Initiative. The IGDA has been studying quality of
life in the games industry for years, running an annual Developer
Satisfaction Survey (DSS). In 2015 the DSS respondents reported the
following:
“62% indicated that their job involved crunch time; 58% said they were in
crunch more than twice in the last two years; and 61% said that crunch time
is expected at their workplace.”
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/267567/IGDA_announces_crunch_tracking_and_reward_initiative.php
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/551ac4c9e4b0038a33ecc74e/t/55f82793e4b0c4dcba8181b1/1442326419944/IGDA+DSS+2015-SummaryReport_Final_Sept15.pdf
我们与 IGDA 的执行监督 Kate Edwards 谈过游戏产业的加班问题。Kate 对这个议题充
满热情，而且 IGDA 最近才公布"Crunch Comp Initiative"这个业界自清行动。IGDA 多
年来已经研究了游戏产业内的生活品质问题，每年都针对开发者做问卷统计。在 2015 年
的问卷结果表示："百分之六十二的回答者有加班（crunch）状况；其中百分之五十八在
最近两年这样的情形超过两次；百分之六十一的人说在他们的工作环境加班是被期待的。
"
In our interview, Kate also stated, “crunch is almost entirely avoidable,
even in creative works, because it goes back to that creative vision and that
creative vision includes a certain agreed upon feature set. Someone has to
draw a very hard and difficult line and say, ‘that is a great idea but we
are not going to do it in this version’.”
在我们的访谈中，Kate 也谈到："即便是在创意工作中，加班其实可以完全避免：当我们
回头看创意的开发过程，工作内容是来自于我们事先同意的创意需求。而某个人必须对对
这些特点设定下严格的标准及红线，负责任地排除掉无法在这次的版本加入的那些好点子
。"
She commented that in the DSS, respondents often blame crunch on
inexperienced management. When she lectures she has a slide that says: “
Crunch time: In every other industry it’s called it ‘poor project
management’”.
她在报告中提到，问卷填写者普遍认定加班是肇因于没有经验的管理层。她对我们展示她
的一页演讲的投影片说明："在任何其他产业，加班都被叫做管理不当。"
We talked a little bit about the conflict between creative leadership and
project management, who are trying to hold that line and say “no more scope
” but the creative leadership is fighting to add more features (recall Joe
Hoff’s quote above). Who wins the struggle between creative leadership and
the passion to make the game the best it can be and project management, who
know that scope creep can cause the team to crunch?
我们谈到了创意及管理型领导者在这个议题上的冲突，也就是当某人想要阻止无限度的需
求进入开发，而创意开发者却想要一直增加游戏的内容。两种情形中，是创意及让游戏更
好的热情还是知道团队开发的容量研判将造成加班，哪个应该胜出？
Kate commented that we have to make sure that when considering new scope,
that could cause a team to have to crunch, that leadership has to really
recognize the impact on people’s lives. She also reminded us that many of
these companies don’t compensate folks for working later so it should not
just be assumed that because the new feature will be awesome that people
should be willing to work extra hours to make it happen. She also suggested
that the decisions are often made by managers who aren’t going to work long
hours with the staff they are expecting to crunch.
Kate 谈到，我们应该确保当谈到新的规格的时候，就有可能导致团队加班，领导者应该
认真承认加班会导致对生活的冲击。她同时也提醒我们很多公司因为他们认为这些有趣的
点子是由员工自己想要加入而导致超时工作，而导致没有发加班费的结论。她也同时说明
加班常常是由没有真正加班的管理层而决定。
The 2015 DSS found that as many as 37% of developers are not compensated for
extra hours they work.
2015 年的报告结论说明有百分之三十七的开发者并没有在超时工作上拿到加班费。
And the debate goes on… Many teams crunch and many leaders make a conscious
decision regarding scope versus capacity, believing that crunching will allow
them to publish a better, more successful game. So how do we prove one way
or another if crunch is beneficial or harmful to most game development
projects? We need data. We have a proposal for a way that you can do your
own data gathering so you know what the real affect is of working long hours
on your project.
这样的辩论持续著，很多团队加班，很多领导者都面临着时程或加班的良心考验，希望加
班能让他们的发布更顺利，游戏更加美好。所以如何证明加班对游戏开发专案是有用的或
有伤害性的？我们需要明确的数据。我们有个计画来蒐集数据让我们知道长时工作队开发
的真实影响。
We believe that productivity can be measured as combination of three
measurable factors:
Volume
Efficiency
Quality
Here’s how this works, and it isn’t rocket science.
我们相信生产力可以被以下几个要素所总合：产能，效率，品质。我们接着细谈每个要素
是如何运作，其实一点也不难懂。
Volume
Volume simply measures the amount of work being done during some period of
time. You can use whatever unit of measure makes sense for you. It might be
story points, work items, bugs fixed, man days of estimated work… You almost
surely are already collecting this data point.
产能，就是一定时间内能够工作的总量。可以用任何的单位来量度。可能是故事的数量，
产出的物品量，修复的臭虫，预估可完成的工作等。你必定知道这些数据了。
Efficiency
Efficiency is simply the amount of effort required to deliver the volume of
work you are measuring. You may already collect this data too. For example,
if your team delivers 20 story points with 5 guys working 40 hours in a
one-week sprint your efficiency rating looks like this.
5 * 40 = 200 man days of work time divided by 20 units = 10 hours per unit.
You have an efficiency rating of 10.
效率，就是为了要产生一定量的产能所需要的努力。你也可能已经知道这些数据了。打比
方说，假如你的团队在一周的冲刺中用了五个人工作四十小时产生了二十个剧本，你的效
率可以这样算。5*40为两百个人力工时，除以二十，效率就是每个剧本单位需要十个小时
。
This assumes that all 20 story points were delivered with no defects or work
remaining. This is not very realistic which is why we also need to measure
quality to really understand the true productivity.
这还必须假定二十个剧本单位都没有错误需要修改。因此这就是为何我们需要品质这个指
标来总和生产力。
Quality
The easiest way to add this component to the calculation is to measure the
amount of time that members of the team spend on bug fixing or rework. You
don’t have to be precise in this measurement but if you ask folks to
honestly ball park the amount of time they spend each day on bug fixing you
can get a good indication of how much effort goes into resolving issues.
品质的最简单计算方式就是团队成员用来修正臭虫或重工的时间。不一定要很精确的描述
，只消问团队就可得到每天花在修改臭虫的时间，也就是这个指标是花多少时间在解决问
题。
Using the same example from above with 5 guys working 40 hours in a one-week
sprint, let’s say we identify that they each spent about 4 hours fixing
bugs. That is 20 hours total or about 10% of the total time spent on bug
fixing.
假如我们继续用同样的例子五个人在一周花了四十个小时，然后每个人都花了四个小时修
改臭虫。那么总和就二十个小时，或是百分之十的时间在修臭虫。
We subtract the bug fixing percentage and calculate the “productivity”
rating. (10 – 10%) = 9.
简单把修改的比例计算进去就可以得到一个生产力的结果为十个效率单位减去百分之十，
等于九个生产力单位。
Now we have a bench mark. In a good one-week sprint, with 5 guys we should
hit a productivity rating of 9. If you measure this over time you will
expect to see some fluctuation, hopefully with productivity increasing as the
team gets more experienced and learns to work together more effectively.
现在我们有了评估标准。在一周的冲刺中，五个人会达到九个生产力单位。假如你持续评
估这个数字，就可以看到一些波动，预期中有经验的团队会学着有效率地一起工作，也就
是生产力会提高。
The trick is to see what happens when people start working longer hours. We
expect to see an initial increase in the volume of work completed with no
significant change in the overall productivity rating. The question you need
to answer is: what happens after 2 or 3 weeks in a row of working longer
hours? Research in other industries has suggested that by the third week you
will see all three metrics (volume, efficiency and quality) decline.
Meaning, as people get tired they get less efficient and they will generate
poorer quality work, be less innovative and make poorer decisions.
我们所要观察的就是当团队工作超时之后会发生的事。我们预期产能会依照相同的生产力
指数提高。我们需要回答的问题就是在二到三个礼拜这样的长时工作后会发生什么事？在
其他产业的研究已经说明了到第三周你会看到三个指数（产量，效率，品质）都下降。也
就是说团队成员疲惫之下没有效率，也产生品质低下的产品，同时缺乏创新，还会做错事
。
If you believe that crunch is okay and a natural way of working in creative
endeavors than we implore you to measure productivity in this way and see for
yourself what is really happening. Research suggests that after as little as
3 weeks of working 60 hours per week individuals may actually produce less
than if they had worked 40 hours each week during that same period. Don’t
you want to know if crunch really works? Measure it and find out! Even
better; measure it and then share your aggregate data with the Game Outcomes
Project and the IGDA so we can share what you’ve learned with the broader
industry.
假如你相信加班在创意工作时很正常，那么我们希望你能测量这个生产力，自己看看会发
生什么事。研究指出在每周六十个小时工作下，仅需要三周，每个人的产量就会比每周工
作四十个小时还要低。你难道不想要证明加班有用吗？自己测量看看吧！更建议你测量之
后，与我们 "游戏专案为何成功团队" 及 IGDA 分享，那么我们也会把你的数据列在我们
的研究之中分享给业界。
Conclusions:
结论
We believe, from both the Game Outcomes Project survey and from the IGDA DSS,
that most people working in the games industry have some period of crunch
each year. We concluded from the Game Outcomes Project survey that for those
that participated in the survey; teams that crunch have less successful
projects than those that don’t.
我们相信，从 "游戏专案为何成功" 的问卷到 IGDA 的报告，大多数在游戏产业工作的人
都每年都曾经加班工作。从问卷中得到加班的团队却获得较少的成功成果。
From the personal experiences of members of the Game Outcomes Project team,
and industry leaders we have spoken with, there appears to be a correlation
between fixed ship dates and issues with managing scope, that contribute
strongly to the need to crunch. Teams that can avoid hard deadlines or can
manage scope well are less likely to rely on crunch to get their game
released.
从"游戏专案为何成功"的团队，访谈过的业界领袖中的个人经验指出，不可变更的发售日
通常伴随着管理规格的问题，导致必然加班。那些能避免不可变更的时程，或者能够好好
收拢规格的团队就能避免依赖加班，也能把游戏做完。
For those teams that expect to crunch, and intentionally commit to scope that
they know will require crunch probably have no real data to know if crunch
actually gives them the boost in productivity they want. It is also possible
that crunch causes harm to employees that results in physical and mental
health issues, but that’s a topic for another article.
那些预期要加班的团队，其实也预期地接下那些必须加班才能完成的规格，但他们可能没
有真实的数据证明：加班实际上是否能带给他们所预期的生产力提升。加班也有可能导致
员工身体及心理的健康问题，但我们不在这篇文章中讨论这个题目。
It is possible to measure productivity and, if your teams crunch, you should
want to know if the practice is effective or not. Maybe, “you can’t handle
the truth!” Stop just believing that we should all expect, and be happy to
work 80 hours a week and find out if that is really the best way to be
successful.
测量生产力是可以做到的，假如你的团队加班，你应该希望知道这个策略是否有效率。你
也许只是没办法接受真相。停止错误的期待：快乐的一周工作八十个小时。找到真正能带
来成功的方法。
Question we still need to address:
我们接着仍需要厘清的问题：
How long does it take to recover from crunching? If you work 80 hours for 1
or 2 weeks (or months) and then reduce your hours back to something closer to
40 hours, how long before you have recovered?
从加班中回复正常要花多久时间？假如一到二周工作八十小时，然后回到正常的四十小时
，要花多长时间才能回复正常？
What if we never have a regular schedule and simply work 60 hours per week
all the time? If we don’t have a baseline metric of productivity at 40
hours per week, how do we know if 60 is more or less productive?
假如我们从未有正常的时程，而持续一周工作六十个小时又如何？也就是假如我们没有一
个每周四十小时的测量基准的话如何评估六十小时的效率的好坏？
How important is diversity of activities to creativity? There are some that
would argue that people who work too many hours lose their ability to
innovate and need outside activities to stimulate their creativity. How do
we know when that is a factor for our staff?
工作的复杂度对创意的影响是否重要？有些人会争论工时过长的人会失去创意发想的能力
，然后需要一些户外活动来刺激回复创意。
We are here to help and to learn with you. We want to improve the industry
that we work in and are all passionate about.
我们希望能帮助各位，一起了解这些答案。我们想要强化我们在此工作且热情于此的这个
产业。
The Game Outcomes Project is an independent industry/academic partnership.
It is driven entirely by intellectual curiosity. Our mission is to survey a
large number of game developers and statistically analyze the connections
between game development team culture and project outcomes.
"游戏专案为何成功"是一个独立的业界学界合作团队。完全是因为对知识的兴趣而驱动。
我们的任务是透过问卷访问够多的开发者，以统计的方式分析游戏开发团队文化及产出的
关系。
The Game Outcomes Project team currently includes Paul Tozour, Lucien
Parsons, Zhenghua “Z” Yang, NDark Teng, Eric Byron, Ben Weber, Karen Buro,
Joe Frontiera, and Carlos Puertas.
"游戏专案为何成功"团队成员有 Paul Tozour，Lucien Parsons，Zhenghua “Z” Yang
，NDark Teng，Eric Byron，Ben Weber，Karen Buro，Joe Frontiera，以及 Carlos
Puertas。
Leaders who contributors to this article included: Seppo Helava, Joe Hoff,
Clinton Keith, Keith Fuller, Dave Swanson, Andre Thomas, and Kate Edwards.
此篇文章访谈的领导者：Seppo Helava，Joe Hoff，Clinton Keith，Keith Fuller，
Dave Swanson，Andre Thomas，及 Kate Edwards。
References:
参考资料：
IGDA resources on quality of life
http://www.gameqol.org/igda-qol-survey/
IGDA 生活品质问卷
IGDA Developer Satisfaction Survey
http://www.igda.org/?page=surveys
IGDA 开发者满意度问卷
Interview with Kate Edwards
http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/20/why-crunch-time-is-still-a-problem-in-the-video-game-industry/
Kate Edwards 的访问
Clinton Keith’s blog - “Death March Crunches: 10 Causes and Solutions”
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ClintonKeith/20160422/271137/
Clinton Keith 的部落格文章：迈向死亡的加班冲刺：十个原因及解法
Danial Cook article on productivity
http://www.lostgarden.com/2008/09/rules-of-productivity-presentation.html
Danial Cook 生产力的相关文章
Sleep deprivation study from the US Army
http://web.archive.org/web/20071102031613/http://www.usafa.af.mil/jscope/JSCOPE97/Belenky97/Belenky97.htm
美军关于睡眠剥夺的研究
“Proof that Positive Work Cultures Are More Productive” from the Harvard
Business Review
https://hbr.org/2015/12/proof-that-positive-work-cultures-are-more-productive
哈佛商业评论的文章：证明正向工作文化就是生产力
“Psychosocial working conditions and the utilization of health care services
”
http://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-11-642
心理工作状态及健康服务的利用率
Evan Robinson included links to several studies within his crunch article,
which is linked within the article above.
前述 Evan Robinson 的文章连结中包含了数个研究。