When We Made... OlliOlli World
After taking a break from game development, Roll7 is back and better than ever with OlliOlli World. Chris Wallace catches up with Simon Bennett and Thomas Hegarty to find out about their new and healthier approach to game development, and the hard lessons learned along the way.
worked some days. The problems of crunch and burnout are certainly not unique to the games industry – it’s one that lies at the heart of any creative career, any activity that attracts passionate, driven people pursuing the things they love.
T
Simon Bennett, co founder of Roll7
Thomas Hegarty, co founder of Roll7
When we talk about crunch, we often focus on the corporate- mandated side of it. Disconnected suits at large studios demanding that their underlings burn up every last drop of energy in order to meet impossible deadlines. This, unquestionably, does exist. Game development is a great many things – an artistic endeavour, the result of talented and like-minded people coming together to create important work that they care about. But it’s also a business, and like any business in our society, it can often thrive on the exploitation of its workers. But there’s more to it than just that. The decision to crunch isn’t always a cynical one, or even sometimes a conscious one. People, on the whole, are in the games industry because they want to be here. The latest Ukie Diversity Census (see p32) found that 85 per cent of respondents are proud to work in the UK games industry. People come here because they have a passion for games – be that developing them, working in PR, in journalism, whatever. They want to throw themselves into the things they love.
56 | MCV/DEVELOP April 2022
hey say if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. Well, to quote the inimitable Brian David Gilbert, that’s bullshit. I love what I do, and let me tell you something – I’ve
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