Nintendo changed the culture at Retro Studios

[Agente42]

TheBraveGallade said:

nintendo seems to be one of the very few companies that actually gives a damn about thier employees.
which is probably why they have such high talent retention.
even when buying studios they make very damn well sure that the studio getting bought is OK with it, down to the employees.
its probably part of the main reason nintendo takes so damn long to aquire one.

this all being said, I think nintendo's approach to crunch is 'no unwilling crunch, but if you want to...' basically they give thier devs as much time as they want (within reason), but won't stop anyone willing to personally and won't penalise anyone who doesn't.
casue when it comes to creative work... sometimes you get that burst of insperation that allow you to do more work in 24 hours then in the past 3 months. completly banning crunch as a policy/law would prevent this.

crunch when the game designers are all engaged is one thing.

crunch because your boss is a lazy boy and deadline crushing you is another thing.

The order of importance

is

customer

employee

company