'They Often Don't Make It in the Door' — Wardogs CEO Hesitant to Hire Employees That Speak Out Against Crunch
Joe Brammer said Bulkhead checks applicants’ social media and favors hires who accept crunch, while some staff receive bonuses and shares after Wardogs sold 2 million copies.
- Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer stated the studio avoids hiring developers who publicly criticize crunch on social media, explaining such candidates would not be happy working there.
- While Brammer says Bulkhead tries to avoid crunch, he admits it 'inevitably happen at some point,' justifying the intense periods by offering select employees bonuses and company shares.
- Around the game's launch earlier this month, Brammer posted a video showing studio beds and explained that some team members had been there for two days straight; Wardogs has sold 2 million copies.
- As the team ages, balancing development with personal lives has proven difficult, prompting Bulkhead to reduce paternity leave from 10-weeks to 2-weeks while offering half-days to ease family transitions.
- Despite receiving 'Best Places To Work' accolades in 2023 and 2024, Bulkhead has laid off employees every year for the past six years, even as it plans a 2028 console release for Wardogs.
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15 Articles
"I apologised" - Wardogs studio CEO issues new response to backlash after saying his studio won't hire people who "constantly tweet anti-crunch messaging"
Joe Brammer, CEO of Bulkhead, the developer behind The Turing Test, Battalion 1944, and now the hugely successful new release Wardogs, has found himself in somewhat hot water, following a revealing interview where he discussed work culture at the UK studio.
So many video games are launched that it is difficult to follow the pace and play (or at least try) everything we want. In the end we have to limit ourselves to just a few games that go out a year and that catch our attention or we may make room for news that we didn’t expect. That’s where the entry The CEO of WARDOGS prepares mattresses to sleep in the studio, the family is secondary and warns: “We will only hire workers who are willing to do m…
"They often don’t make it in the door": Wardogs studio Bulkhead check for "anti-crunch messaging" on prospective hires' social media, CEO says
Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer has revealed that the studio behind recent FPS hit Wardogs check the social media accounts of prospective hires for public criticism of crunch practices, and deliberately prefer to avoid bringing such folks on board. In the exec's view, devs working extra or long hours to get a game or update out of the door - otherwise known as crunch - "is going to happen at some point", even if the studio "always try and avoid it".
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