Former Red Dead Redemption multiplayer lead designer Chris Roberts spoke about the extent of crunch at Rockstar Games during the game's development. In an interview with Kiwi Talkz, he stated that in some cases, employees were forced to come to work on weekends not because of the urgent need to fix problems in the game, but to create the appearance of constant busyness for studio executives. Roberts is indeed credited in the official Red Dead Redemption credits as the lead designer for the multiplayer component.
According to Roberts, after transitioning from the Midnight Club series to Red Dead Redemption, he was moved from hourly pay to full-time employment. Initially, employees were expected to work from approximately 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM, but gradually the so-called core hours expanded, first to half of Saturday, then to the entire Saturday. Sunday was formally considered optional, but, according to the developer, in practice, employees were soon working every day.
Roberts called the last six months of Red Dead Redemption's production a "blurry period" due to the number of working hours. He noted that after such prolonged crunch, a person might practically not remember in detail what happened during that period.
At the same time, the developer distinguishes between voluntary overtime and situations where overtime was imposed by management. While working on Midnight Club, he himself agreed to extra hours because he wanted to participate in development at a higher level. With Red Dead Redemption, the situation, he said, was different.
Roberts recalled several instances when on Friday afternoon, management sent emails to employees demanding they come to work on the weekend. Moreover, shortly after the first email, a clarification arrived stating that it concerned not only Saturday but also Sunday.
According to the former developer, such demands were not always related to a large number of critical bugs or the need to prepare the next game build. He claims that sometimes employees were simply asked to demonstrate the team's constant activity due to a visit from executives, among whom Roberts mentioned Leslie Benzies and Sam Houser.
It was the need to inform his team about such mandatory overtime that became one of the reasons for Roberts' departure from Rockstar. He noted that this was among the four most significant reasons for his decision to leave the company.
Chris Roberts worked at Rockstar from 2001 to 2010, working on the Midnight Club series, and later became the lead multiplayer designer for Red Dead Redemption.