A frustrated gamer posted on Reddit complaining that almost zero modern games properly show end credits anymore, and while that sounds like a minor nitpick, they accidentally stumbled onto one of the game industry’s ugliest secrets. The lack of proper credits isn’t just annoying for players who want that post-game epilogue moment. It’s symptomatic of how the non-unionized game industry treats worker recognition as optional, allowing studios to weaponize credits, erase contributors, and deny people proof they worked on shipped titles.
- The Player Complaint That’s Actually Valid
- The Real Problem: Game Development’s Crediting Crisis
- Why Credits Actually Matter for Careers
- How Film Credits Work vs Game Credits
- The Unskippable Credits Debate
- Why Studios Don’t Want Proper Credits
- What’s Being Done to Fix It
- Games That Got Credits Right
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Why This Actually Matters
The Player Complaint That’s Actually Valid
The original poster noted that finishing modern games rarely gives you that satisfying movie-style credit roll anymore. Instead, you get dumped back to the menu with a small “Credits” button tucked away somewhere. Sometimes credits are skippable from the start. Other times they don’t appear at all unless you specifically hunt for them in options menus. This strips away the sense of completion and respect for the work that went into creating the experience you just spent dozens of hours enjoying.
Compare this to how films handle credits. When a movie ends, the credits roll. You can leave the theater or turn off your TV, but the credits play automatically as the default experience. It’s a moment of reflection, often accompanied by a great soundtrack, letting the emotional weight of what you just watched settle while acknowledging everyone who made it possible. Games used to do this too, especially in the PS2/Xbox 360 era when credits were mandatory viewing experiences often packed with bloopers, artwork, or epilogue scenes.
Now? Many AAA games either skip credits entirely, make them instantly skippable, or hide them so thoroughly that most players never see them. The shift happened gradually as games became services rather than finished products, as teams ballooned from dozens to thousands of people, and as the industry decided that crediting everyone properly was too much work or too time-consuming for players who just want to get back to the gameplay loop.
The Real Problem: Game Development’s Crediting Crisis
What players see as an annoyance is what developers experience as erasure. The game industry has a massive crediting problem that goes far beyond whether credits auto-play after the final boss. According to research by the International Game Developers Association, there are no industry-wide standards for who gets credited, how they’re credited, or whether they’re credited at all. Unlike the unionized film industry with rigid rules about Key Grips and Best Boys, game studios can do whatever they want.
Rockstar Games infamously uses credits as punishment. When Red Dead Redemption 2 shipped, anyone who left the company before launch wasn’t included in the official credits regardless of how much work they contributed. Rockstar openly stated they use credits to incentivize employees to “get to the finish line,” essentially erasing years of someone’s career because they escaped the studio’s notorious crunch culture before the arbitrary finish date. The only acknowledgment these developers received was a vague webpage listing names with no details about what they actually did.
This isn’t unique to Rockstar. The Callisto Protocol left out up to 20 employees who worked on the game. Quality assurance testers, contractors, and support studio employees routinely get excluded from credits despite spending months or years on projects. Joshua Minette, a former QA employee at localization company GTL Media, estimated he worked on around 60 mobile and console games but his name appears in zero credits. These aren’t people who contributed minor tasks, these are developers whose work was essential to shipping the product.
Why Credits Actually Matter for Careers
For game developers, especially those early in their careers, credits are currency. When applying for jobs, studios want proof you’ve shipped titles. Your resume might say you worked on a major AAA game, but without a credit to verify it, good luck proving that claim. This is particularly devastating for contractors, outsource workers, and people at support studios who do substantial work but get excluded because they’re not “core team” in the publisher’s eyes.
Nazih Fares, vice chair of IGDA’s game credits special interest group, worked as a public relations contractor for major game companies and was left out of credits for over 50 games they supported. When they started specifically requesting credits, studios said they don’t include external developers. Imagine working on 50 shipped games and having nothing to show for it professionally. Your entire portfolio is based on trust that employers will believe you without verification.
The problem compounds across careers. If you can’t prove you worked on games, you can’t advance to better positions. If you leave studios because of crunch or toxic culture and get erased from credits as punishment, you have gaps in your resume that raise red flags. The lack of standardized crediting creates a system where workers have minimal leverage and studios hold all the power over career advancement, not through merit but through arbitrary crediting policies.
How Film Credits Work vs Game Credits
The film industry solved this problem decades ago through unionization. The Directors Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild, and other unions established rigid crediting standards that studios must follow. Every position has a defined title. The order of credits follows specific rules. Credits are mandatory in release prints. Studios can’t arbitrarily decide someone doesn’t deserve credit because they left before the premiere date.
Video games have none of this structure. Every game’s credits are completely different. Position titles vary wildly between studios. There’s no standardization for what “Lead Designer” means versus “Senior Designer” versus “Design Director.” Some studios list support companies but not individual names. Others credit entire outsource teams with no details about what they contributed. Still others skip external contributors entirely despite them doing substantial work.
The lack of standards also means credits are comically inconsistent in quality and presentation. Some games have 10-minute credit sequences. Spider-Man PS4 has credits lasting 34 minutes and 27 seconds. Far Cry 6’s credits run nearly an hour. These marathon scrolls happen because there’s no agreed-upon structure for organizing thousands of contributors, so studios just dump everyone alphabetically or by department with huge spacing between names, stretching what could be 10 minutes into half an hour.
Film vs Game Crediting Standards
| Aspect | Film Industry | Game Industry |
|---|---|---|
| Union Protection | Strong union contracts mandate credits | Mostly non-unionized, no mandatory credits |
| Position Titles | Standardized across productions | Varies wildly between studios |
| External Contributors | All credited per union rules | Often excluded arbitrarily |
| Leaving Before Launch | Still credited for work completed | May be erased as punishment |
| Credit Order | Follows strict guild guidelines | No standards, studio decides |
The Unskippable Credits Debate
Here’s where it gets complicated from the player perspective. Some studios make credits completely unskippable, forcing players to watch 20-30 minutes of scrolling names before getting control back or seeing post-credits scenes. Persona 5 Tactica apparently won’t let you skip, pause, or fast-forward through credits, with huge spacing between names making a short credit roll take forever. Players understandably find this disrespectful of their time.
The counter-argument from a worker perspective is that if credits are instantly skippable, nobody watches them. If nobody watches them, studios question why they bother including comprehensive credits at all. This creates pressure to shorten credits, which leads to excluding contractors and support workers to keep runtime manageable. Making credits unskippable ensures some percentage of players actually see the names of people who spent years of their lives on the project.
The ideal middle ground is making credits skippable after first playthrough or providing a fast-forward option rather than forcing players to sit through the entire sequence. Games like Portal and Super Smash Bros solved this by making credits interactive or entertaining. Journey integrated credits directly into gameplay as a final reflective level. When credits are presented thoughtfully rather than just white text on black backgrounds, more players engage with them willingly.
Why Studios Don’t Want Proper Credits
From a studio perspective, comprehensive credits create several problems. First, they’re expensive. Someone needs to compile names from dozens of departments, contractors, and support studios. That data needs to be verified, formatted, and implemented into the game. For massive AAA titles with thousands of contributors, this is substantial work. Some studios see it as non-essential administrative burden that diverts resources from development.
Second, long credits look bad from a marketing perspective. When your credits run 30-40 minutes, it implicitly admits your game required an army of people to make, which undermines the auteur narrative studios prefer. Publishers like promoting specific creative directors as singular visionaries rather than acknowledging the factory-like reality of modern AAA development with multiple studios working simultaneously across different continents.
Third, credits create legal and contractual headaches. Production studios often negotiate credit quotas with external partners, limiting how many names from outsource companies can appear. This keeps credits shorter but means most contractors get excluded. It also allows publishers to maintain control over the credits’ length and appearance without giving individual contributors much say in how they’re acknowledged for their work.
What’s Being Done to Fix It
The IGDA’s Game Credits Special Interest Group released updated standards in 2023 after more than 10 years without revisions. The guidelines promote inclusivity and best practices for credit attribution, providing toolkits to help development teams organize credit sequences. They even built tools for Unreal Engine to streamline importing credits into games. The problem is IGDA can’t force companies to adopt these standards since the organization has no enforcement power.
The only real solution is unionization. Film industry credits work because unions negotiated contracts that studios must follow or face consequences. Game development unions are slowly forming in pockets of the industry, with quality assurance workers, voice actors, and some studio teams successfully organizing. These contracts can embed fair crediting practices, giving workers tangible protection rather than relying on studios’ goodwill.
Katie Golden, current chair of IGDA Game Credits SIG, stated: “We want all of our colleagues in the video game business to feel involved and support our policies so that we can lead the change globally.” That’s optimistic language, but without binding contracts, studios remain free to ignore guidelines. Until meaningful percentages of game workers unionize and demand crediting standards in collective bargaining agreements, the problem will persist.
Games That Got Credits Right
Some games have found creative solutions that satisfy both players and developers. Journey’s credits are integrated into gameplay as a final level where you fly through environments representing the game’s stages, with developer names appearing as flowers you pass through. It’s beautiful, reflective, and impossible to skip since it’s part of the actual game rather than a separate sequence.
Portal made credits entertaining with the legendary “Still Alive” song performed by GLaDOS, turning what could be boring text scrolling into a memorable musical number that players voluntarily watch repeatedly. The same approach worked for Portal 2 with “Want You Gone.” When credits are genuinely enjoyable content rather than obligatory lists, players engage with them.
Super Smash Bros games make credits interactive, letting you shoot at names as they scroll by for points and unlockables. It gamifies the credit sequence so players pay attention while also turning it into an actual gameplay challenge rather than passive viewing. These examples prove that with creativity and effort, credits can enhance the game experience rather than just being something to endure or skip.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do modern games not show proper end credits?
Many modern games hide credits in menus or make them instantly skippable because studios prioritize getting players back to gameplay loops over acknowledging contributors. This shift happened as games became live services and teams grew from dozens to thousands, making comprehensive credits seem too time-consuming or expensive to produce and present properly.
Can game studios legally exclude developers from credits?
Yes, because the game industry is mostly non-unionized with no standardized crediting requirements. Studios can exclude anyone they want for any reason, including contractors, early leavers, or people they simply forgot. Unlike film industry unions that mandate specific crediting practices, game developers have no such protection unless they unionize and negotiate contracts.
Why did Rockstar exclude developers from Red Dead Redemption 2 credits?
Rockstar openly admitted they use credits as incentive for employees to stay until game launch, essentially punishing anyone who leaves before the finish line by erasing their contributions from official credits. This policy affected developers who escaped the studio’s notorious crunch culture before Red Dead Redemption 2 shipped, denying them recognition for years of work.
How long are video game credits typically?
Credit length varies wildly from 8-12 minutes for smaller games to over 30 minutes for massive AAA productions. Spider-Man PS4 has 34-minute credits. Far Cry 6’s credits run nearly an hour. The lack of standardization means studios format credits however they want, often with excessive spacing that artificially extends runtime.
Do game credits matter for developer careers?
Absolutely. Credits serve as verification that you worked on shipped titles, which is essential when applying for jobs in the industry. Without credits to prove your experience, employers may doubt your resume claims. This is particularly damaging for contractors and early-career developers who need verifiable credits to advance their careers and build portfolios.
What is the IGDA doing about game crediting problems?
The International Game Developers Association’s Game Credits Special Interest Group released updated guidelines in 2023 promoting inclusive crediting practices and providing tools to help studios organize credits. However, IGDA can’t force companies to adopt these standards. Real change requires unionization so workers can negotiate crediting requirements into binding contracts.
Should video game credits be skippable?
Ideally credits should be skippable on repeat playthroughs or include fast-forward options, but forcing players to watch them at least once ensures some acknowledgment of the thousands of people who created the game. The best solution is making credits entertaining or interactive like Portal, Journey, or Super Smash Bros so players want to watch rather than being forced.
Why This Actually Matters
That Reddit post complaining about missing credits touched on something bigger than player convenience. The lack of proper end credits is a symptom of how the game industry treats workers as disposable, denying them basic recognition while corporations reap billions in profits. When studios can arbitrarily decide who deserves credit and who gets erased, they wield power over careers, portfolios, and professional advancement.
The contrast with film is stark. Movies credit everyone because unions fought for that right decades ago. Games don’t because game developers haven’t successfully unionized en masse yet. Every time a major release excludes contractors or punishes early leavers by removing their credits, it reinforces that game workers have minimal power and protection in an industry built on their labor.
For players, watching credits is the minimum respect you can show to people who spent years creating the entertainment you just enjoyed. Whether it’s a 12-minute sequence or a 30-minute marathon, those names represent real humans who crunched through overtime, sacrificed family time, and poured creativity into making something special. Skipping credits because they’re not entertaining enough misses the point that they’re not entertainment, they’re acknowledgment.
The solution requires action from both sides. Studios need to adopt comprehensive crediting standards that include everyone who contributed meaningful work. Players need to stop treating credits as obstacles to skip and start viewing them as essential context for understanding how games are actually made. Most importantly, game workers need to organize and unionize so they can negotiate binding contracts that protect their right to recognition, just like their counterparts in film and television achieved generations ago.
Until then, expect more Reddit posts complaining about missing credits, more developers getting erased from their own projects, and more evidence that the game industry’s labor practices remain stuck in an exploitative past while the rest of the entertainment world moved forward. It’s a problem hiding in plain sight every time you beat a game and credits don’t roll, every time thousands of names scroll by in 30 minutes without proper formatting, and every time someone’s years of work vanish because they left before an arbitrary deadline. The lack of proper credits isn’t just annoying. It’s a symptom of an industry that still doesn’t respect its workers enough to acknowledge them consistently.