World of Warcraft's Midnight expansion, due out, March 2 is a hurricane, introducing a brand new housing feature to help shake the 22-year-old MMORPG up, along with a whirlwind of customization features. But, according to developer Blizzard, something this ambitious could only be accomplished without crunch.
Game director Ion Hazzikostas tells reporter Christopher Dring in a new The Game Business interview, while Midnight is certainly "the fastest expansion we've ever made, in terms of the shortest gap between expansions," he's glad its developers didn't have to sacrifice their weekends to produce its size and quality.
"No corners cut, no compromises in terms of what we're delivering to our players, and no sacrifices to quality," Hazzikostas says. "And I think most importantly, perhaps, no sacrifices to team health."
The director also notices that the game industry's notorious "crunch" periods requiring extreme hours from its employees are, thankfully, becoming less acceptable. He tells The Game Business, sacrifice "may be a rarity in the game industry, but thankfully that's starting to change more." So Midnight "is an expansion that was made without crunch. This was an expansion that was made without telling the team, 'All right, we need to come in weekends and stay late, and work harder.'"
It's important for both World of Warcraft itself and its creators that Blizzard stick to this balanced approach to development. "Because at the end of the day," Hazzikostas says,
"we're going to keep making this game for years and years and decades. And this is a marathon, not a sprint. And we need to treat it accordingly."
