Rockstar devs say crunch “typically” means under 50 hours a week and are mostly fine with it

A number of developers at GTA and Red Dead Redemption studio Rockstar have discussed their working conditions on social media, after their famously tight-lipped employer apparently lifted a ban on their doing so. No doubt Rockstar is hoping that their testimony will diffuse the current controversy around working conditions and excessive overtime - or 'crunch' - as the studio prepares to launch Western epic Red Dead Redemption 2 (on console... for now). Quite a few Rockstar staff have taken the opportunity at time of writing. Generally, the tweets we've seen agree that crunch hours at Rockstar are roughly 45 to 50 per week, and that they don't feel this is excessive. In case you missed it, that controversy was sparked after Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser told Vulture "we were working 100-hour weeks" to finish Red Dead Redemption 2. After an immediate backlash, Houser walked this back in a statement to Kotaku, saying he was only talking about the writing team, only over a three-week period, and that "no one, senior or junior, is ever forced to work hard."