Honestly man, I'm growing tired of articles like this because crunch in the AAA industry is SO incredibly common. I've crunched so many times in my past, and the work was pretty insane. I'm talking Monday - Sunday, from 7/8AM to 1/2AM, sometimes 3AM depending on the severity of the crunch. Within that time it was looked down upon to not be there, etc. But I'll admit, some of those times were the best times I've ever had with my coworkers and at those companies. I have so many fond memories where we were almost delirious, lmao.
Over time I've realized that every time I've crunched, especially the most recent time, there's always 1 - 2 people that haven't done it before that make a fuss, but everyone else is fine. I mean, the general reaction would be, "Man, this really sucks. Hopefully it doesn't last too long.", but everyone would continue to do their best because it was our job and work needed doing. Majority of the time the people that would complain or that were really upset had never been in the industry at all before, whereas people that had experience knew it would come at some point.
QA generally gets crunch worse than anyone else does, and that's something that is very well known, and it sucks. They're usually underpaid, overworked, and generally looked down on by other departments as well. It's complete BS.
Crunch is something that is going to continue to exist in the AAA industry and I don't think there is anything that can really be done about it. The only thing that can change is how it is handled. If the dev/pub gives the team a heads up in advance, provides food, etc. As long as there are deadlines to meet, crunch will be there.
I'm just annoyed at the amount of "breaking news" articles that come out from a single source, maybe two to three, when you know the rest of the team is grinding and just doing what they have to do because they have no choice.
Just to give you an idea I've crunched on on the following projects...
Rock Band 2
Rock Band Beatles
Quake Arena Arcade
Bomberman Battlefest
Bonk: Brink Of Extinction
Grey Goo
Dreadnought
RiME