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THQ and Kaos defend 6 month 'crunch' for Homefront

Accusations of an exhaustive "crunch" at Homefront developer Kaos have been met head-on by parent company THQ and the studio's general manager David Votypka. Develop is covering all sides of the issue, including Votypka's acknowledgement that the studio has been crunching for the last six months, with 10 hour days. He notes, "If this seems unique or abhorrent, I would have to suggest that any assessment regarding a 10 hour work day would need to consider a much larger segment of the American workforce."

The anonymous employee also wrote up their own piece for Develop expressing fears about "THQ publicly [saying] things that glorify crunch time." The source feels that management shouldn't have put the team on a schedule that created this extended, "seven day a week crunch mode."

"Crunch," loosely defined as the overtime-intensive period before a game ships, is an industry standard. The issue certainly gets sensitive whenever brought up, and it always seems like the specter of EA Spouse is watching the conversation.