Hamachi Room

[Berto]

Quoted from Dark Side of the Sun

Most Japanese game developers back then had a hamachi room - it was rare to create games without crunch time.
According to Tokihiro Naito (creator of Hydlide): "When you entered the room, the door was locked from the outside. Sometimes we'd throw a programmer in there, lock the door, and say, 'We'll let you out once you finish your coding!'"

Reading this make me wonder ....
Do western game developers had this kind of room too back then?

[Tad]

I hope not. Not only would it be highly illegal, but it sounds absolutely disgusting.

[Berto]

Recently I bought Segabits' sponsored The Hardcore Gaming 101 and Sonic & Sega Fan Jam 2016 Fanbook from Amazon and when I read chapter about SEGAGAGA, there is this story...

Those are gigantic doors." You remark. "Are they for keeping intruders out?"

"Nope." replies Alisa. "They're for keeping our staff members in."

She continues. "Game development is a very special job that requires a very special person. The high stress levels often drive our staff members to become... subhuman. They're violent and need to be caged. But we need them to make good games. This is the unfortunate truth of the game industry."

Clearly this is not how we imagined video game development, right? But Alisa elaborates further. "No one has set foot in the development room for nearly twenty years. So no one knows what goes on in there, really. Sometimes they give us a finished game in exchange for some food and water. Sooner or later, you're going to have to go in there and wrangle those guys under your control."

So SEGA (of Japan) was one of the company who really did have a Hamachi Room back then.
Because there's no way the game would be published if that's not the case..

[Shun-Di]

And I thought trying to hand out pizza for game testing here in America was bad.  They were lucky to even eat.