Rockstar North—Mandated 50-80 hour weeks during Red Dead Redemption 2 development, causing employee breakdowns
In October 2018, co-founder Dan Houser described working '100-hour weeks' on Red Dead Redemption 2, later clarifying it was just the writing team for three weeks. However, Kotaku's investigation found mandatory crunch was widespread: one employee described 'a steady death march of mostly mandated 50-60 hour weeks for years,' another worked 80-hour weeks 'until I had a breakdown.' Internal emails confirmed mandatory late nights starting in 2017. One former employee said failure to crunch would result in contract termination.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Worker Rights | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.885 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.59)
Evidence (1 signal)
Mandated 50-80 hour weeks during Red Dead Redemption 2 development, causing employee breakdowns
In October 2018, co-founder Dan Houser described working '100-hour weeks' on Red Dead Redemption 2, later clarifying it was just the writing team for three weeks. However, Kotaku's investigation found mandatory crunch was widespread: one employee described 'a steady death march of mostly mandated 50-60 hour weeks for years,' another worked 80-hour weeks 'until I had a breakdown.' Internal emails confirmed mandatory late nights starting in 2017. One former employee said failure to crunch would result in contract termination.