Glen Schofield sighs, and shifts in his seat. The Striking Distance CEO is clearly excited to give us an exclusive glimpse of the opening of his studio’s forthcoming science-fiction horror The Callisto Protocol, as well as an extended look at a later section of the game. But he’s aware he has something else to address first. You wouldn’t exactly say he’s happy to talk about it – “I want to put the attention back on the game and not on this,” he says – but equally it’s clear he doesn’t want to simply sweep it under the carpet.
“Well, you know…” he begins, and sighs again. “It was a thankyou,” he says, finally. He’s talking, of course, about a tweet he posted shortly after his return from a trip to promote The Callisto Protocol at Gamescom. Quickly deleted, its message about life at his studio – “working 6-7 days a week, nobody’s forcing us. Exhaustion, tired, Covid but we’re working… 12-15 hour days. This is gaming… U do it cause ya luv it” – created a firestorm among fellow developers and media alike. As per Twitter tradition, condemnation was fast and far-reaching, accusing Schofield of promoting the kind of culture of overwork that has become endemic in the videogame industry – aculture which, fortunately, many of its leaders are working to address.
Game The Callisto Protocol
Developer Striking Distance Studios
Publisher Krafton
Format PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series
Release December 2
That includes Schofield, who says he has read just about everything everyone has written about him since, and if there’s a hint of sadness when he says “I’m the freakin’ devil to people… this is my first blip in 32 years [in the industry],” it doesn’t feel at all like self-pity. He’s been around the block enough times to know what overwork feels like at its worst, and rejects the notion that his words had anything to do with his ‘old-school’ approach to work. “I may be old, but I’m not old school. I’ve been through crunch time that I never want to put anybody through. I was on Return Of The King – arguably the worst ever,” he says. “Look, I’ll be honest with you – for the last three years, we’ve been really good. We talk about it all the time. We have 120-something people that work from home, we’re in 17 states, and we pay California wages. We try to be fair.” (In recognition of its track record, the studio won a Best Places To Work award from Gamesindustry.biz earlier this year.) “Look,” he says firmly, “I do not believe in crunch, man. I had three kids during it, and I took two days off for each one, right? And nowadays, I’m so happy that we can give six weeks off. And it’s mandatory. You. Take. This. Time. Off.”
He concedes that time offbetter in its closing weeks of development. “I was just thanking ’em,” he says of the tweet. “You know, when people know that there was passion [invested] and you’re just trying to let them know that this was out of passion and just trying to get things done. I mean, they’re artists and engineers and sometimes it’s just hard to put the pencil down, you know?”
