THE ART OF CRUNCH - A quantitative study on the effects of a high-pressured period during video game production on organizational commitment

Abstract

The video gaming industry is one of the most lucrative markets in the world, yet surprisingly, little research is devoted to the industry. Most of the research that can be found about the video gaming industry is primarily focused on the gender issues that is prominent in the industry. However, crunch, a stressful period in the production process that comes with long overtimes, which are often uncompensated, is an issue that has been a part of the industry for decades. Overtime has also rarely been studied in relation to organizational commitment in labour science, therefore this thesis aims to bridge the gaps concerning lack of research on crunch and overtime’s effect on organizational commitment by conducting a study on how overtime in the form of crunch affects organizational commitment among video game developers. The hypothesis claims he more the video game developer experiences “crunch time” in his/her organization, the more likely is he/she to exhibit lower levels of affective commitment. The hypothesis was tested quantitatively by creating and distributing a survey to video game developers and analyzing the data by employing an OLS multivariate regression analysis. According to the results, the primary hypothesis had to be accepted, as the frequency of experiencing crunch is significantly correlated with lower values of affective commitment. This result is important, as it shows that crunch can have a negative impact on video game developer’s affective commitment, even when controlling for several other factors.