Hard work is not crunching hours according to Bulkhead CEO.
"Just to be clear for the record, I'm not pro crunch, I am pro hard work. I just love making games."
He stated "Defining crunch is really hard. It's subjective, but to me, if people work overtime, they should be rewarded for that. When I came into the industry, it was the EA Spouse era. Companies were making games for two years and planning for six months of working weekends and 10-hour days. It's horrendous behaviour that you've planned for it."
Just for those who does not know, EA Spouse era was in the early 2000's a blog post that exposed 85-hour weeks for months, and it was a breaking point on how the industry talked about overtime.
Two accounts of the same period
Brammer stated the June period had only two extra hours a day, Monday to Thursday, across sixteen working days, and that it was optional. Bulkhead ran a four-day week for two years according to him.
He also revealed that for the last three months, Wardogs had been more important than a lot of his team's families.
Both statements are from himself not by a spokes person for the company.
Rejecting the standard critique
Brammer doesn't accept the critique as well.
"I really don't agree with the 'it's just bad management and bad production' arguments. That is such a bullshit mentality. Making a new IP is hard, especially with new tech, we helped make some of the things in Unreal Engine 5, we're at the cutting edge. When things don't quite work how we want, we can't always go, 'oh, we'll delay the game a month.' That's just not how it works."
He firther stated "The conversations that happen in private are a lot different than the conversations that happen in public. I would bet that more people agree with me."
Most studios crunch and few say so, this is mostly true to be honest.
What started it
Brammer also stated "if you're constantly tweeting anti-crunch messaging, 'This should never ever be a thing', we know that and go, 'Look, you're not going to be happy here, so we're not going to go with you.'"
He later told Eurogamer he was "speaking informally about our culture and the kind of environment we have at Bulkhead, rather than setting out our formal recruitment process," adding that any use of publicly available information follows UK employment and data protection law, with no access to private accounts or covert checks.
The numbers behind it
Wardogs surpassed three million copies in 18 days, after two million in five day alone.
Bulkhead was spun out of Tencent in December 2025. Around 80% of its shares are held by half the staff, and Brammer has said those who qualify get bonuses he describes as life-changing, with juniors potentially affording house deposits.
More:Activision Is Making the Next Halo, and Ninja Theory May Not Survive
Read
Source Editing
Visual Editing
Related news
