SEGA Japan has published a report on their efforts to reduce crunch among their employees in Japan.

Crunch is a very serious issue in the video game industry, especially in the west. While most people work between 40 to 45 hours a week, game developers at AAA studios may have to work up to 80 hours a week in order to meet deadlines.

This is obviously not very healthy for anyone working such long hours on the long term, so SEGA Japan had set out to ensure their employees are working no more than 60 hours a week.

Thanks to various measures such as training, attendance management, individual alerts for employees, and mandatory no-overtime and no-meeting days, the number of employees working 60 hours or more a week has fallen by 80% to 90%.

There’s still a long way for SEGA and the rest of the video game industry, but this is nevertheless a good step forward.

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