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Game developers 
What do you or people you admire do to help support your/their team and their wellbeing during crunch?
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I'll start. At Ubisoft Montreal - Vincent Paquet would direct message and chat with his team if he heard they were working late. Not always work related, just hang out. He was kind, caring and thoughtful when shipping Watch Dogs and I barely knew him, or anyone in the city.
At a few places I've seen co-workers write cards and notes for eachother. Acknowledgments and emotional support in a professional environment is a kind of vulnerability not everyone is good at, I appreciate those who try.
I've observed leads acknowledge their place in requiring crunch, and being accountable. I've seen them thank individuals by name for their contributions even/especially if they didn't or couldn't do overtime. Not rewarding overtime, just good work is *so* important for morale.
I have friends messaging me to ask if I'm alright because of this tweet.
This is in and of itself a great example. Watch for signs of distress, show your love!
(yes I'm ok!)
Privately push the execs and producers to do anything at all in their power to avoid crunch. Rescoping, push milestones, shifting workloads... look at every possible option before scheduling in crunch.
That's awesome. It can be thankless work, too. All the power to those who have that people-first bravery especially for new staff. I love it.
Suggest intelligent cuts that don't hurt the core integrity of the game. People may love this content, may have worked hard on it, and so it's unthinkable to cut - at least until implemented. Then, with focus, the game often gets better - and actually shippable. Seems to help.
I tell them unless I specifically have asked, just go home. Get lost. I don't wanna see them there past 6 at the latest. (I've never had to ask). Some do stay late voluntarily for other reasons, so I try to just check in and make sure they're not feeling overwhelmed.
In other cases I have INSISTED a certain INDIVIDUAL to go the gym with me after 5 if they were going to stay late (which they chronically were) as a promise to me and them to take care of themselves. I know that ding dong will read this and know that I love them haha.
The most commonly repeated mistake in our industry is to treat the entire development cycle as a production cycle, assuming prototyping uncertainties will just pan out. The key to avoiding crunch is to avoid locking into launch dates until uncertainties have actually panned out.
That's a great management wisdom that does a good job of adding clarity for a responsible but misguided leadership team (seen that a lot). I'll try to remember this one, thank you.
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