Polish video game developer CD Projekt Red told employees on Monday that six-day work weeks will be mandatory leading up to the November release of the highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077, reneging on an earlier promise to not force overtime on the project.
[…]“I take it upon myself to receive the full backlash for the decision,” he wrote. “I know this is in direct opposition to what we’ve said about crunch. It’s also in direct opposition to what I personally grew to believe a while back — that crunch should never be the answer. But we’ve extended all other possible means of navigating the situation.”
Severely overhyped repetitive walking simulators like The Witcher 3 don’t make themselves, after all. They’re made by harshly overworked and underpaid developers who are replaced faster than Polish judges critical of the Polish government.
Take the high road… and delay the game.
They would get much less flak if they were open about it. Halo devs did that, and so did many others.
We are in tough times, and things get delayed. Money can come later, your team integrity, however is a different story.
Overhyped maybe, but I don’t think it’s fair to call it that just because it’s not your thing.
(It’s not my thing either, but it’s certainly more than a repetitive walking simulator. I could just as easily insult pretty much any other genre medium by ignoring its strengths and focusing on its weaknesses.)
Severely over-hyped clickable map
Severely over-hyped interactive spreadsheet
Severely over-hyped interactive animated comic.
etc.
No, the over-hyped Walking Simulator is Death Stranding. You literally have to hold your triggers in certain ways so you don’t fall over if you’re over burdened.
This is like the joke in Clerks II about Lord of the Rings vs Star Wars.
A joke? Are you sure?
I love the witcher, oblivion, skyrim and games like them.
Kudos to them for at least trying. Thom, where is this “harshly overworked and underpaid […] replaced faster” statement coming from? Them working for six days a week for two months doesn’t justify it.
And they certainly don’t deserve being compared to their government, just like most educated Brits or Americans would take an offense for being compared to BJ or DT.
ndrw,
I haven’t worked in the games industry but I hear it’s ruthless. Still, I’ve had lots of 50hr-60hr workweek jobs, Sure, I concede some have it worse if you look around the world, but what really sucks is being legally exempt from overtime pay, which means $0 for that time. In other industries the laws require 100%-200% overtime pay. So it isn’t just a matter of hours compared (ie lots of people work overtime or take a second job), it’s also a matter of being paid for it.
The gaming industry is a cesspool of abusive labor relationships. Hopefully one day, soon, they will be regulated and the assholes like the one in this article get to be fined up to their eyelids for exploiting their workers.
If you can’t stay in business without exploiting people, you don’t deserve to be incorporated. Period.
Okay its reallt super
“Starting today, the entire (development) studio is in overdrive,” Badowski wrote, elaborating that this meant “your typical amount of work and one day of the weekend.”
“In a post on Twitter Wednesday, Badowski said CD Projekt employees can continue to count on bonus payouts amounting to 10% of the company’s annual profit. This could prove to be a lucrative sum, as analysts estimate the Warsaw-based company’s net income will rise 11-fold to 2 billion zloty ($520 million) in 2020. CD Projekt had 1,079 employees at the end of June.”
i see nothing wrong with this. first of all, they are not forced to stay late at work. normal work hours, except 6 days of the week. and financial support seems great. people actually get compensated for this overtime and don’t have to live in their offices.