When "Fortnite" launched in the summer of 2017, it wasn't an immediate hit. It didn't even have the Battle Royale mode at first — it wasn't until September 2017 that the game added its absurdly popular mode and catapulted into mainstream culture. Across the next year, it became the most popular game in the world.
But the massive success of "Fortnite" came at a cost: "I work an average 70 hours a week," one person told Polygon. "There's probably at least 50 or even 100 other people at Epic working those hours. I know people who pull 100-hour weeks."
Another said, "I hardly sleep. I'm grumpy at home. I have no energy to go out. Getting a weekend away from work is a major achievement."
At "Red Dead Redemption 2" maker Rockstar Games, a similar story played out.
"We were working 100-hour weeks," Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser said in a New York Magazine interview, which prompted game developers across the industry to speak out. "Working conditions in the industry have improved, but when the co-founder of a studio working on one of the biggest releases of the year can openly brag about their '100 hour work weeks' and have it lapped up as a marketing pitch, it's clear how much further we have to go," one developer wrote.
A Kotaku investigation further detailed the sometimes grueling hours worked by Rockstar Games employees to complete "Red Dead Redemption 2."
A similar story played out at EA with "Anthem," where employees reportedly were put on "stress leave" due to working conditions. "I actually cannot count the amount of 'stress casualties' we had on 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' or 'Anthem,'" one developer at EA's BioWare studio told Kotaku.