9 ms·

Cyberpunk 2077 has involved months of crunch, despite past promises

84 points by elorant 6y ago

nightski 6y ago
What is even more baffling to me is the sheer rage and lack of humanity of fans towards the developers when they delayed it several times. There was a lot of hate including death threats to the developers. I understand the internet brings out the worst in people but I can't imagine anyone desiring to be a game developer at this point.
- dx87 6y ago
  It's not like every fan was acting like that. "We've received death threats" has become a tool to try and change the topic from whatever made people upset.
  - detaro 6y ago
    That not everybody does it doesn't make it any more acceptable, or makes rightfully complaining about it any more unacceptable.
    - ekianjo 6y ago
      > That not everybody does it doesn't make it any more acceptable, who said to accept it? Above poster said that death threats are easy to get these days for virtually anything and can hardly be used as an excuse.
      - detaro 6y ago
        Who is using it to excuse anything? Saying that objecting to death threats is used as a distraction technique or "as an excuse" is pretty much suggesting you shouldn't object to it, because doing so is trying to distract or make excuses instead of objecting to unacceptable behavior.
        mlyle 6y ago
        A) death threats aren't acceptable. They're not really fun to receive. I remember a span when I received several and while I was fairly sure they weren't serious, it's still not too fun to think about. B) whinging about inevitable death threats to deflect attention from your gaffes isn't really great, either. The public complaint, if anything, further normalizes the death threats with people inclined to make them. Secondarily, it generates sympathy and distraction, which is probably the effect one wanted when one chose to whinge. If one wants to object to death threats in a way that improves our culture and makes them less likely, it's probably best done out of band from the actual coverage of one's failing. Do it retrospectively, and in contemplative channels, not ones that are already polemic and filled with attention to the failing that caused the original outrage.
        pmoriarty 6y ago
        "If one wants to object to death threats in a way that improves our culture and makes them less likely, it's probably best done out of band from the actual coverage of one's failing. Do it retrospectively, and in contemplative channels, not ones that are already polemic and filled with attention to the failing that caused the original outrage." Violent extremists are often operate under the mistaken belief that they represent the "silent majority", and that most people secretly agree with what they do. This is one reason that when a political party that tacitly or explicitly approves of extremist violence gets in to power more terrorist acts are committed. It's also why, for example, racists terrorists believe the murders they commit will spark a "race war". They believe that most people are secretly racist, and all it'll take for such a war to start is for their murders to encourage people's secret hatred to come to the surface. To counteract this, it's important for the real majority to not be silent, and instead condemn violence, hatred, and terrorism (which includes death threats) in the strongest possible terms. When terrorists see evidence that the majority actually opposes them it'll require a lot more cognitive dissonance on their part to continue to believe that they represent the majority. This is not a panacea, and I don't imagine for a moment that it will end all violence, especially as some people will never believe the evidence of their lying eyes, but many people speaking out in public against violence is one of the most effective tools we have for combating violent extremism.
    - DuskStar 6y ago
      What it does, is make "but we received death threats for this, we couldn't have done more" irrelevant as you'll get death threats for whatever you do.
      - detaro 6y ago
        Where does that suddenly come from?
    - dx87 6y ago
      I never said it's acceptable, but when twitter has close to 200 million daily users, you're going to get some death threats when you do something that makes people upset. And it's blatant PR when the company is forcing the devs to do even more crunch time, then tweet about "death threats" and you see the conversation immediately switch from critical to supportive. It's also not like tweeting "Death threats are NOT OKAY" is going to change the mind of the kind of people who send death threats.
    - ramblerman 6y ago
      Nobody said it was right, but it still derails from discussion by offering essentially an insignificant datapoint. At this point on the internet, if the topic touches more than 100,000 people and its controversial. You can probably find a few truly heinous comments. And giving them attention, is kind of what they are after.
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    Death threats happen so much to everyone now online it's hard to take them seriously. Which is really rather sad, isn't it?
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    I think it's fairly pertinent that you're getting death threats to you and your family from potential psychos. 99% are probably just peeved man-boys, but it only takes that 1% to kill you or someone you care about. I would say it especially if you get a few hundred a day and you're working 16 hours a day for months on end to push out a game.
    - FruityCoconut 6y ago
      It's not 1% of them though. It's 0%. None of them are getting off the couch to kill anyone because their video game release is delayed. It's an expression of frustration, and we all know that. Unfortunately in today's world, feeling threatened is socially valuable so they're simply playing on that. It says more to me about the disingenuity and/or weakness of the "victim" than anything else. We need to laugh at people more.
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    Yes couple of teenagers and mental children sent some. That doesn't mean that the whole player base want them dead over delivery date. Its just very vocal fringe minority.
    - koheripbal 6y ago
      You are right, but social media has a tendency of amplifying the voices of its most dysfunctional members.
- 0xy 6y ago
  The delays were sheer incompetence and are far from normal in the gaming industry. You don't guarantee to fans personally that the game will definitely come out at a date (which is less than a month away) then delay it the next day. This indicates that nobody even knew how bad it was. There's also rumors developers found out about the delays from social media. CDPR execs are just incompetent and unable to set realistic timelines. When big AAA releases are delayed, they're usually delayed once and it's done 6+ months from release (because it's obvious then you won't make it). Delaying when it's less than a month out? Absolute incompetence. You lose millions and millions of dollars doing this, by burning marketing dollars and screwing over your retail partners.
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    Who cares? It’s a game. Incompetence or not, harassing and threatening devs is not okay.
    - 0xy 6y ago
      Reread the OP. It's not exclusively about threats. This is also a giant billion dollar corporation that deliberately misled customers (who in many cases have already paid them for the product). How did they deliberately mislead them? By saying things like only a natural disaster would stop the latest release date, only for it to slip with less than a month left. That's an actual lie and false advertising. As someone with project management experience, the people making those claims are either incompetent or lying. So yeah, customers who paid them money and were lied to have an absolute right to be furious. Death threats is an excuse. 99.99% of the criticism was justified and without intimidation or threats.
      - jakelazaroff 6y ago
        Estimates are hard, software gets delayed. It’s not fun for the customer but it happens all the time and life goes on. Ask for your money back, or try for a class action lawsuit if you really think it’s fraudulent. Obviously people can feel however they want, but we’re talking about $5–60 and like eight months delay; you’ll forgive me for being a little dismissive of people who are “furious” about this.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  Given that the promotional strategy seems to have focused on engaging the GamerGate portion of their fanbase, I’d say it’s not baffling at all. https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/22058784/cyberpunk-2077-marketing-cd-projekt-red-transphobia https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/22058784/cyberpunk-2077-ma...
  - quibbler 6y ago
    What is "exploitative" about the mix it up poster? I know people like that. Have they no right to exist?
  - krastanov 6y ago
    I was confused by this article. I am interested in understanding better the point of view of the author and if you have insight in it I would appreciate if you can elaborate on your comment. The criticism of the character creation surprised me: sure it could be better, but is it not also the most embracing version created yet in any AAA videogame that we known of. Same with the poster: is it not cool to have a buff trans protagonist - they are objectified, but that is the point of posters (see captain america or black widow posters). Please assume good faith in my questions: I understand the topic is sensitive but while I have tried to read up on it, my surprise at the tone of the article seems to mean that I am definitely missing something.
    - detaro 6y ago
      I think the key point in regard to your question is this line > Cyberpunk 2077’s advertising has been saying the quiet part loud. It has maintained the spiky, anti-SJW, anti-woke persona throughout its marketing campaign, careful to always pepper any diverse characters’ inclusion with stereotyping or humor designed to mock its own ideas. As the article concedes, these pieces individually don't have to be bad, but they are always presented by the overall marketing as something to make fun of or stereotype, not as something to take seriously or positively.
    - jakelazaroff 6y ago
      With the caveats that I'm not trans and I haven't looked into the game much beyond reading takes like this, I'll give my interpretation. I think there are a few issues at play, some more nuanced than others. The first (and most black-and-white) is that CDPR's social media presence has been very… trolly. For example, "did you just assume my gender" is not something I've ever heard a queer person say; it's an anti-woke joke at their expense aimed at people who disdain the notion of gender fluidity. These, I think, color the rest of CDPR's conduct; there are other things that might be considered benign if not for their consistent trolling here. > The criticism of the character creation surprised me: sure it could be better, but is it not also the most embracing version created yet in any AAA videogame that we known of. The cynical take is that CDPR is exploiting the issue; they know that this is a popular topic right now and they're appropriating it in order to sell a video game. But even if you assume good faith on the part of CDPR, I think this is a case of intentions not mattering. Ultimately this game is going to be played by a lot of people, and help shape how many of those people see trans issues, and trans people are unhappy with the impression the game will leave. I also observe that people often use "at least they/we are trying" as a way to evade criticism — even constructive criticism — which makes it hard to move forward. Like, are you only supposed to engage with people that are already hostile? > Same with the poster: is it not cool to have a buff trans protagonist - they are objectified, but that is the point of posters (see captain america or black widow posters). Objectification isn't binary; there are plenty of ways to highlight conventionally attractive features, which is why you see films like Wonder Woman lauded for their representation while characters like Black Widow are criticized for superficially similar portrayals. And of course criticism refers only to a consensus; there will always be people who are offended at benign representation and others who are fine with flagrant stereotyping. Ultimately, I think the author knows that AAA titles are made by teams of hundreds of people, many of whom are trying to make a progressive game. But whatever the creators' intentions, when all is said and done the game and marketing thereof will look how they look, and people will feel how they feel about it.
- ABCLAW 6y ago
  While video gaming has gone mainstream, plenty of marginalized individuals that are poorly socialized still rely on games as an escape. Some, at the very ends of the bell curve, are enraged and simultaneously not equipped with the tools to process that in a healthy way.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > There was a lot of hate including death threats to the developers Hate is cheap on Twitter
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    Hate is Twitter's currency.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Aeolun 6y ago
That’s dissapointing. Especially after they ‘promised’ they wouldn’t do it. I wonder what the solution is here. Boycotting the game is hardly going to help the employees there. I guess this is just one of those things that the law should mandate, but does not for some reason.
- defen 6y ago
  Maybe a software developers’ union. Big projects like this use a lot of third party tooling; imagine if a decent percentage of those said “we won’t license this to you unless you’re a union shop” or something like that. And said union would enforce humane working conditions.
  - denkmoon 6y ago
    Us software developers are too smart for organised labour. And why would companies like Epic restrict their revenues like that? Epic too sees financial gain from their developers working excessive (potentially unpaid) overtime, no doubt. Unions are necessarily devised and lead by workers, not beneficent corps.
    - temp20160423 6y ago
      That's correct. If you're a software developer and interested in maximizing pay while minimizing stress, you obviously avoid the gaming industry. The only news here is that the company seems to have reneged on the promise it made, but it's not obvious how a union would have solved this problem. Would the union help get the game shipped on time?
      - defen 6y ago
        A union’s role would be to enforce humane working conditions, not to ensure that a company achieves arbitrary financial goals.
      - grive 6y ago
        > Would the union help get the game shipped on time? This is such a weird logic. Since when should the company financial incentives have higher priority over the employees well-being? Arguably, if the existence of the company is threatened by a few delays and that the only solution is to exploit people, it should instead close shop and let people get other jobs that will make them happier. So no, a union would probably not help the game be shipped in time, and if it did, it would be the shittiest union. And if enforcing humane working conditions against the profits of the employer makes the business unsustainable, this means the business should not exist in the first place.
snorrah 6y ago
They said crunch was happening in October. Why is it news again now?
- walterman 6y ago
  According to the article, the crunch has reportedly been going on for more than a year. IF that's true, then CDPR's claims about only crunching for the last two or so months isn't as transparent as they wanted it to seem back in October.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- 666lumberjack 6y ago
  Because the game is about to come out, I guess.
- pixel_fcker 6y ago
  Because the games comes out in a couple of days.
sim_card_map 6y ago
And billions of profits go to owners and shareholders, while developers crunch 80 hours/week for $2000-3000/month.
- aaron-santos 6y ago
  If they don't want to have their labor power exploited, why don't they work somewhere else?
  - fatbird 6y ago
    Volunteering to be exploited doesn't absolve the exploiter of their wrongdoing.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    It's very hard to change jobs.
  - approxim8ion 6y ago
    It's the status quo in their industry.
- Aqua 6y ago
  Indeed, that's what companies do, earn money for their investors and owners. Sorry to be blunt, but that's how the world works and arguably talented developers can relatively easily find other jobs that are less stressful.
  - VHRanger 6y ago
    What an insular point of view. While devs can, artists and game designers don't have that bargaining power.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  Devs are always free to go indie and make it big for themselves. But it's a LOT harder than it sounds. So your point is?
mikl 6y ago
Polygon hates CDPR, episode CVXII: Video game production involves crunch, news at eleven. See also https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/22058784/cyberpunk-2077-marketing-cd-projekt-red-transphobia https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/22058784/cyberpunk-2077-ma...
dom96 6y ago
> While long hours would be permitted for those interested in working them, crunch would not be made “mandatory.” Yeah, I'm sure that works well. How can you compete with those that do work long hours when it comes time for performance reviews? The fear of losing your job is very real and I'm sure that creates a culture where in effect everyone is working long hours, no matter what the CD Projekt co-founder says.
- uberman 6y ago
  Those that work harder or longer than others get ahead. This is a universal truism and also very distinct from the mandated overtime dictated by many developers.
  - blamestross 6y ago
    Yes, but an employer attempting to absolve themselves of responsibility for pressures to overwork by "it is not required" is basically the same thing as "unlimited time off".
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- orev 6y ago
  This is the same problem with companies that have a “no vacation tracking, just take off when you want policy”. It ends up that no one takes vacation for this same reason.
  - uberman 6y ago
    I see two people with this viewpoint, and I would be interested in knowing more. Is the thought here that a company that offers unlimited vacation would see people take none? I have never worked in such an environment, and I also don't tend to take all of my allotted vacation anyways, but at first glance, I'm not sure how: "take off as much as you like" could possibly be more restrictive than: "take off as much as you like, but no more that 2 weeks." Assuming of course we are not talking about mandatory vacation policies (that some companies/countries) effectively have.
joejohnson 6y ago
The video game industry needs to learn from the film industry and unionize for better pay and working conditions.
- throwaway123409 6y ago
  It needs to learn from the VFX industry that unionizing programmers making six figures is hard.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > The video game industry needs to learn from the film industry and unionize for better pay and working conditions. Is Hollywood a successful business model though? Most movies don't make much in the end - we only see the most successful ones.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    "Los Angeles County contributed $656 billion in gross domestic product, or 27 percent of California’s economic output, in 2015, according to a Bloomberg analysis of the most-recent data available from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That’s the largest amount of goods and services produced among 3,000-plus counties in the U.S. and equal to the economic might of Saudi Arabia." https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:atHjZMG_sncJ:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-06/hollywood-s-home-is-america-s-biggest-economic-contributor https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:atHjZM...
    - ekianjo 6y ago
      I'm talking about profits, not revenues.
      - claudeganon 6y ago
        The entertainment industry makes plenty of money, they just disguise the profits through all kinds of trickery that make what tech companies do with tax shelters look childish by comparison. There’s a whole colloquial term for it, “Hollywood accounting”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
4cao 6y ago
I keep reading about this every once in a while, and it appears to be industry-standard practice. Is there a major game developer known not to require this of their employees? (According to the article, CD Projekt appearently made such a promise but failed to deliver on it.)
fortunajs 6y ago
someone seems to be shorting big on their stocks ;-)
vvanders 6y ago
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Once with a 6 months crunch, second time closer to 10 months of 14 hour days. That was enough for me to swear off the entire industry despite working towards it for most of my younger life. Saw it what it did to our team, destroyed multiple relationships, the product suffered for it and overall both titles we're a disaster. It cuts in more than one way, aside from some really rare cases the industry compensation is abysmal compared to traditional software engineering. I basically doubled my take home salary leaving the industry while also having a sane work life balance. Rami Ismail of Nuclear Throne sums is up well[1]: > In these situations we don't even expect everyone to get through unscathed. It's like management calculates the amount of churn, of burnout, of careers, relations, happiness that will be lost and goes "well, that's not too big a sacrifice to undo the damage of our incompetence". Fuck em. They deserve nothing for putting a team through hell like that. Chances are they aren't the ones to pay for the damage their crunch does in the end. [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/tha_rami/status/1335698820970254337 https://mobile.twitter.com/tha_rami/status/13356988209702543...
- xwdv 6y ago
  Imagine talking an overworked employee out of blowing his own brains out, so he can at least finish the work he has left to do and then you can lay him off. That’s the game industry.
- dathinab 6y ago
  I did crunch time once. (In my case ironically I was the problem, it was fully unnecessary and no one but me involved). Thinks I learned from it: - It's very daunting. - It's quite bad for your health, especially your mental health. - It's bad for productivity. Which means it's a fatal cycle: you do crunch time => because of stress and exhaustion you are less productive => you need to do even more crunch because you where not productive enough. - It's bad for quality. Sure all your tests pass and the many problem(s) seems fixed, but there is a good chance that you will have to pay extra in the long run due to technical dept or just sub-optimal design. - It's bad for creativity. I could more than one time majorly reduce my work by just reflecting on what is actually needed (in difference to what seems to be needed, is asked for by your team lead (i.e. not your customer)). The chance for this to happen under crunch is continuously decreasing with increasing frequency of crunch. - EDIT: Because of the last 3 points, it's bad for getting things done in time as they will likely take longer on a "work done per hour" scalar.
quibbler 6y ago
Sure, it is not desirable, but what if it is what is needed to suceed? Complaining about bad management doesn't finish anything. Hopefully the compensation was OK, at least.
awill 6y ago
This is a terrible situation. I think leadership bit off more than they could chew. Releasing a polished game on PC, consoles and Stadia simultaneously is nigh on impossible for a large, open world game. I bet Google offered them a bunch of money to launch simultaneously on Stadia, but they still should have said no. There is a reason Sony games are so polished. They release on a single platform.
Despacito2019 6y ago
I work in a bank, boring as hell, but at least i be on time to pick up my little boy at school
nine_k 6y ago
All it might take is for customers to say: "Okay, I don't need it for Christmas, I can wait until March, or maybe even June, for a real good game". Not very realistic, unfortunately.
- seba_dos1 6y ago
  Why? What other option do customers have than to accept the delay and just buy the game later? Games are being delayed all the time, it's not like everybody suddenly loses interest in a game they would like to play and are waiting for once it fails to arrive at its initial release date. Also, it's not an indie studio that needs sales money right now to keep existing. They can easily afford much bigger delays. They prefer to put their employees at severe health risk instead so they can maximize profits.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  For me what would be better is ,,Okay, I don't want to play it all through, just give me the first half, and take your time with the second''. But maybe it's because I'm not a fast player generally. Anyways, companies compete how they can, I vote with my wallet.
koonsolo 6y ago
On a great day I can do about 6 hours of highly concentrated programming work. Most days is probably closer to 4 hours. If I'm tired, I will definitely not reach the 6 hours. So I really wonder who in their fucking mind would think that you can pull off 12 hour workdays and be more productive? That is just pure insanity. I think it's time to stop lying to ourselves on how many hours we are actually productive in the 'work hours' that we do.

84 points by elorant 6y ago

What is even more baffling to me is the sheer rage and lack of humanity of fans towards the developers when they delayed it several times. There was a lot of hate including death threats to the developers. I understand the internet brings out the worst in people but I can't imagine anyone desiring to be a game developer at this point.

dx87 6y ago
It's not like every fan was acting like that. "We've received death threats" has become a tool to try and change the topic from whatever made people upset.
- detaro 6y ago
  That not everybody does it doesn't make it any more acceptable, or makes rightfully complaining about it any more unacceptable.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    > That not everybody does it doesn't make it any more acceptable, who said to accept it? Above poster said that death threats are easy to get these days for virtually anything and can hardly be used as an excuse.
    - detaro 6y ago
      Who is using it to excuse anything? Saying that objecting to death threats is used as a distraction technique or "as an excuse" is pretty much suggesting you shouldn't object to it, because doing so is trying to distract or make excuses instead of objecting to unacceptable behavior.
      - mlyle 6y ago
        A) death threats aren't acceptable. They're not really fun to receive. I remember a span when I received several and while I was fairly sure they weren't serious, it's still not too fun to think about. B) whinging about inevitable death threats to deflect attention from your gaffes isn't really great, either. The public complaint, if anything, further normalizes the death threats with people inclined to make them. Secondarily, it generates sympathy and distraction, which is probably the effect one wanted when one chose to whinge. If one wants to object to death threats in a way that improves our culture and makes them less likely, it's probably best done out of band from the actual coverage of one's failing. Do it retrospectively, and in contemplative channels, not ones that are already polemic and filled with attention to the failing that caused the original outrage.
        pmoriarty 6y ago
        "If one wants to object to death threats in a way that improves our culture and makes them less likely, it's probably best done out of band from the actual coverage of one's failing. Do it retrospectively, and in contemplative channels, not ones that are already polemic and filled with attention to the failing that caused the original outrage." Violent extremists are often operate under the mistaken belief that they represent the "silent majority", and that most people secretly agree with what they do. This is one reason that when a political party that tacitly or explicitly approves of extremist violence gets in to power more terrorist acts are committed. It's also why, for example, racists terrorists believe the murders they commit will spark a "race war". They believe that most people are secretly racist, and all it'll take for such a war to start is for their murders to encourage people's secret hatred to come to the surface. To counteract this, it's important for the real majority to not be silent, and instead condemn violence, hatred, and terrorism (which includes death threats) in the strongest possible terms. When terrorists see evidence that the majority actually opposes them it'll require a lot more cognitive dissonance on their part to continue to believe that they represent the majority. This is not a panacea, and I don't imagine for a moment that it will end all violence, especially as some people will never believe the evidence of their lying eyes, but many people speaking out in public against violence is one of the most effective tools we have for combating violent extremism.
  - DuskStar 6y ago
    What it does, is make "but we received death threats for this, we couldn't have done more" irrelevant as you'll get death threats for whatever you do.
    - detaro 6y ago
      Where does that suddenly come from?
  - dx87 6y ago
    I never said it's acceptable, but when twitter has close to 200 million daily users, you're going to get some death threats when you do something that makes people upset. And it's blatant PR when the company is forcing the devs to do even more crunch time, then tweet about "death threats" and you see the conversation immediately switch from critical to supportive. It's also not like tweeting "Death threats are NOT OKAY" is going to change the mind of the kind of people who send death threats.
  - ramblerman 6y ago
    Nobody said it was right, but it still derails from discussion by offering essentially an insignificant datapoint. At this point on the internet, if the topic touches more than 100,000 people and its controversial. You can probably find a few truly heinous comments. And giving them attention, is kind of what they are after.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  Death threats happen so much to everyone now online it's hard to take them seriously. Which is really rather sad, isn't it?
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  I think it's fairly pertinent that you're getting death threats to you and your family from potential psychos. 99% are probably just peeved man-boys, but it only takes that 1% to kill you or someone you care about. I would say it especially if you get a few hundred a day and you're working 16 hours a day for months on end to push out a game.
  - FruityCoconut 6y ago
    It's not 1% of them though. It's 0%. None of them are getting off the couch to kill anyone because their video game release is delayed. It's an expression of frustration, and we all know that. Unfortunately in today's world, feeling threatened is socially valuable so they're simply playing on that. It says more to me about the disingenuity and/or weakness of the "victim" than anything else. We need to laugh at people more.
- me_me_me 6y ago
  Yes couple of teenagers and mental children sent some. That doesn't mean that the whole player base want them dead over delivery date. Its just very vocal fringe minority.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    You are right, but social media has a tendency of amplifying the voices of its most dysfunctional members.
0xy 6y ago
The delays were sheer incompetence and are far from normal in the gaming industry. You don't guarantee to fans personally that the game will definitely come out at a date (which is less than a month away) then delay it the next day. This indicates that nobody even knew how bad it was. There's also rumors developers found out about the delays from social media. CDPR execs are just incompetent and unable to set realistic timelines. When big AAA releases are delayed, they're usually delayed once and it's done 6+ months from release (because it's obvious then you won't make it). Delaying when it's less than a month out? Absolute incompetence. You lose millions and millions of dollars doing this, by burning marketing dollars and screwing over your retail partners.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  Who cares? It’s a game. Incompetence or not, harassing and threatening devs is not okay.
  - 0xy 6y ago
    Reread the OP. It's not exclusively about threats. This is also a giant billion dollar corporation that deliberately misled customers (who in many cases have already paid them for the product). How did they deliberately mislead them? By saying things like only a natural disaster would stop the latest release date, only for it to slip with less than a month left. That's an actual lie and false advertising. As someone with project management experience, the people making those claims are either incompetent or lying. So yeah, customers who paid them money and were lied to have an absolute right to be furious. Death threats is an excuse. 99.99% of the criticism was justified and without intimidation or threats.
    - jakelazaroff 6y ago
      Estimates are hard, software gets delayed. It’s not fun for the customer but it happens all the time and life goes on. Ask for your money back, or try for a class action lawsuit if you really think it’s fraudulent. Obviously people can feel however they want, but we’re talking about $5–60 and like eight months delay; you’ll forgive me for being a little dismissive of people who are “furious” about this.
jakelazaroff 6y ago
Given that the promotional strategy seems to have focused on engaging the GamerGate portion of their fanbase, I’d say it’s not baffling at all. https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/22058784/cyberpunk-2077-marketing-cd-projekt-red-transphobia https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/22058784/cyberpunk-2077-ma...
- quibbler 6y ago
  What is "exploitative" about the mix it up poster? I know people like that. Have they no right to exist?
- krastanov 6y ago
  I was confused by this article. I am interested in understanding better the point of view of the author and if you have insight in it I would appreciate if you can elaborate on your comment. The criticism of the character creation surprised me: sure it could be better, but is it not also the most embracing version created yet in any AAA videogame that we known of. Same with the poster: is it not cool to have a buff trans protagonist - they are objectified, but that is the point of posters (see captain america or black widow posters). Please assume good faith in my questions: I understand the topic is sensitive but while I have tried to read up on it, my surprise at the tone of the article seems to mean that I am definitely missing something.
  - detaro 6y ago
    I think the key point in regard to your question is this line > Cyberpunk 2077’s advertising has been saying the quiet part loud. It has maintained the spiky, anti-SJW, anti-woke persona throughout its marketing campaign, careful to always pepper any diverse characters’ inclusion with stereotyping or humor designed to mock its own ideas. As the article concedes, these pieces individually don't have to be bad, but they are always presented by the overall marketing as something to make fun of or stereotype, not as something to take seriously or positively.
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    With the caveats that I'm not trans and I haven't looked into the game much beyond reading takes like this, I'll give my interpretation. I think there are a few issues at play, some more nuanced than others. The first (and most black-and-white) is that CDPR's social media presence has been very… trolly. For example, "did you just assume my gender" is not something I've ever heard a queer person say; it's an anti-woke joke at their expense aimed at people who disdain the notion of gender fluidity. These, I think, color the rest of CDPR's conduct; there are other things that might be considered benign if not for their consistent trolling here. > The criticism of the character creation surprised me: sure it could be better, but is it not also the most embracing version created yet in any AAA videogame that we known of. The cynical take is that CDPR is exploiting the issue; they know that this is a popular topic right now and they're appropriating it in order to sell a video game. But even if you assume good faith on the part of CDPR, I think this is a case of intentions not mattering. Ultimately this game is going to be played by a lot of people, and help shape how many of those people see trans issues, and trans people are unhappy with the impression the game will leave. I also observe that people often use "at least they/we are trying" as a way to evade criticism — even constructive criticism — which makes it hard to move forward. Like, are you only supposed to engage with people that are already hostile? > Same with the poster: is it not cool to have a buff trans protagonist - they are objectified, but that is the point of posters (see captain america or black widow posters). Objectification isn't binary; there are plenty of ways to highlight conventionally attractive features, which is why you see films like Wonder Woman lauded for their representation while characters like Black Widow are criticized for superficially similar portrayals. And of course criticism refers only to a consensus; there will always be people who are offended at benign representation and others who are fine with flagrant stereotyping. Ultimately, I think the author knows that AAA titles are made by teams of hundreds of people, many of whom are trying to make a progressive game. But whatever the creators' intentions, when all is said and done the game and marketing thereof will look how they look, and people will feel how they feel about it.
ABCLAW 6y ago
While video gaming has gone mainstream, plenty of marginalized individuals that are poorly socialized still rely on games as an escape. Some, at the very ends of the bell curve, are enraged and simultaneously not equipped with the tools to process that in a healthy way.
ekianjo 6y ago
> There was a lot of hate including death threats to the developers Hate is cheap on Twitter
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Hate is Twitter's currency.
deleted 6y ago
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Aeolun 6y ago

That’s dissapointing. Especially after they ‘promised’ they wouldn’t do it. I wonder what the solution is here. Boycotting the game is hardly going to help the employees there. I guess this is just one of those things that the law should mandate, but does not for some reason.

defen 6y ago
Maybe a software developers’ union. Big projects like this use a lot of third party tooling; imagine if a decent percentage of those said “we won’t license this to you unless you’re a union shop” or something like that. And said union would enforce humane working conditions.
- denkmoon 6y ago
  Us software developers are too smart for organised labour. And why would companies like Epic restrict their revenues like that? Epic too sees financial gain from their developers working excessive (potentially unpaid) overtime, no doubt. Unions are necessarily devised and lead by workers, not beneficent corps.
  - temp20160423 6y ago
    That's correct. If you're a software developer and interested in maximizing pay while minimizing stress, you obviously avoid the gaming industry. The only news here is that the company seems to have reneged on the promise it made, but it's not obvious how a union would have solved this problem. Would the union help get the game shipped on time?
    - defen 6y ago
      A union’s role would be to enforce humane working conditions, not to ensure that a company achieves arbitrary financial goals.
    - grive 6y ago
      > Would the union help get the game shipped on time? This is such a weird logic. Since when should the company financial incentives have higher priority over the employees well-being? Arguably, if the existence of the company is threatened by a few delays and that the only solution is to exploit people, it should instead close shop and let people get other jobs that will make them happier. So no, a union would probably not help the game be shipped in time, and if it did, it would be the shittiest union. And if enforcing humane working conditions against the profits of the employer makes the business unsustainable, this means the business should not exist in the first place.

snorrah 6y ago

They said crunch was happening in October. Why is it news again now?

walterman 6y ago
According to the article, the crunch has reportedly been going on for more than a year. IF that's true, then CDPR's claims about only crunching for the last two or so months isn't as transparent as they wanted it to seem back in October.
deleted 6y ago
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666lumberjack 6y ago
Because the game is about to come out, I guess.
pixel_fcker 6y ago
Because the games comes out in a couple of days.

sim_card_map 6y ago

And billions of profits go to owners and shareholders, while developers crunch 80 hours/week for $2000-3000/month.

aaron-santos 6y ago
If they don't want to have their labor power exploited, why don't they work somewhere else?
- fatbird 6y ago
  Volunteering to be exploited doesn't absolve the exploiter of their wrongdoing.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  It's very hard to change jobs.
- approxim8ion 6y ago
  It's the status quo in their industry.
Aqua 6y ago
Indeed, that's what companies do, earn money for their investors and owners. Sorry to be blunt, but that's how the world works and arguably talented developers can relatively easily find other jobs that are less stressful.
- VHRanger 6y ago
  What an insular point of view. While devs can, artists and game designers don't have that bargaining power.
ekianjo 6y ago
Devs are always free to go indie and make it big for themselves. But it's a LOT harder than it sounds. So your point is?

mikl 6y ago

Polygon hates CDPR, episode CVXII: Video game production involves crunch, news at eleven. See also https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/22058784/cyberpunk-2077-marketing-cd-projekt-red-transphobia https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/22058784/cyberpunk-2077-ma...

dom96 6y ago

> While long hours would be permitted for those interested in working them, crunch would not be made “mandatory.” Yeah, I'm sure that works well. How can you compete with those that do work long hours when it comes time for performance reviews? The fear of losing your job is very real and I'm sure that creates a culture where in effect everyone is working long hours, no matter what the CD Projekt co-founder says.

uberman 6y ago
Those that work harder or longer than others get ahead. This is a universal truism and also very distinct from the mandated overtime dictated by many developers.
- blamestross 6y ago
  Yes, but an employer attempting to absolve themselves of responsibility for pressures to overwork by "it is not required" is basically the same thing as "unlimited time off".
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
orev 6y ago
This is the same problem with companies that have a “no vacation tracking, just take off when you want policy”. It ends up that no one takes vacation for this same reason.
- uberman 6y ago
  I see two people with this viewpoint, and I would be interested in knowing more. Is the thought here that a company that offers unlimited vacation would see people take none? I have never worked in such an environment, and I also don't tend to take all of my allotted vacation anyways, but at first glance, I'm not sure how: "take off as much as you like" could possibly be more restrictive than: "take off as much as you like, but no more that 2 weeks." Assuming of course we are not talking about mandatory vacation policies (that some companies/countries) effectively have.

joejohnson 6y ago

The video game industry needs to learn from the film industry and unionize for better pay and working conditions.

throwaway123409 6y ago
It needs to learn from the VFX industry that unionizing programmers making six figures is hard.
ekianjo 6y ago
> The video game industry needs to learn from the film industry and unionize for better pay and working conditions. Is Hollywood a successful business model though? Most movies don't make much in the end - we only see the most successful ones.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  "Los Angeles County contributed $656 billion in gross domestic product, or 27 percent of California’s economic output, in 2015, according to a Bloomberg analysis of the most-recent data available from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That’s the largest amount of goods and services produced among 3,000-plus counties in the U.S. and equal to the economic might of Saudi Arabia." https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:atHjZMG_sncJ:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-06/hollywood-s-home-is-america-s-biggest-economic-contributor https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:atHjZM...
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    I'm talking about profits, not revenues.
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      The entertainment industry makes plenty of money, they just disguise the profits through all kinds of trickery that make what tech companies do with tax shelters look childish by comparison. There’s a whole colloquial term for it, “Hollywood accounting”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

4cao 6y ago

I keep reading about this every once in a while, and it appears to be industry-standard practice. Is there a major game developer known not to require this of their employees? (According to the article, CD Projekt appearently made such a promise but failed to deliver on it.)

fortunajs 6y ago

someone seems to be shorting big on their stocks ;-)

vvanders 6y ago

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Once with a 6 months crunch, second time closer to 10 months of 14 hour days. That was enough for me to swear off the entire industry despite working towards it for most of my younger life. Saw it what it did to our team, destroyed multiple relationships, the product suffered for it and overall both titles we're a disaster. It cuts in more than one way, aside from some really rare cases the industry compensation is abysmal compared to traditional software engineering. I basically doubled my take home salary leaving the industry while also having a sane work life balance. Rami Ismail of Nuclear Throne sums is up well[1]: > In these situations we don't even expect everyone to get through unscathed. It's like management calculates the amount of churn, of burnout, of careers, relations, happiness that will be lost and goes "well, that's not too big a sacrifice to undo the damage of our incompetence". Fuck em. They deserve nothing for putting a team through hell like that. Chances are they aren't the ones to pay for the damage their crunch does in the end. [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/tha_rami/status/1335698820970254337 https://mobile.twitter.com/tha_rami/status/13356988209702543...

xwdv 6y ago
Imagine talking an overworked employee out of blowing his own brains out, so he can at least finish the work he has left to do and then you can lay him off. That’s the game industry.
dathinab 6y ago
I did crunch time once. (In my case ironically I was the problem, it was fully unnecessary and no one but me involved). Thinks I learned from it: - It's very daunting. - It's quite bad for your health, especially your mental health. - It's bad for productivity. Which means it's a fatal cycle: you do crunch time => because of stress and exhaustion you are less productive => you need to do even more crunch because you where not productive enough. - It's bad for quality. Sure all your tests pass and the many problem(s) seems fixed, but there is a good chance that you will have to pay extra in the long run due to technical dept or just sub-optimal design. - It's bad for creativity. I could more than one time majorly reduce my work by just reflecting on what is actually needed (in difference to what seems to be needed, is asked for by your team lead (i.e. not your customer)). The chance for this to happen under crunch is continuously decreasing with increasing frequency of crunch. - EDIT: Because of the last 3 points, it's bad for getting things done in time as they will likely take longer on a "work done per hour" scalar.

quibbler 6y ago

Sure, it is not desirable, but what if it is what is needed to suceed? Complaining about bad management doesn't finish anything. Hopefully the compensation was OK, at least.

awill 6y ago

This is a terrible situation. I think leadership bit off more than they could chew. Releasing a polished game on PC, consoles and Stadia simultaneously is nigh on impossible for a large, open world game. I bet Google offered them a bunch of money to launch simultaneously on Stadia, but they still should have said no. There is a reason Sony games are so polished. They release on a single platform.

Despacito2019 6y ago

I work in a bank, boring as hell, but at least i be on time to pick up my little boy at school

nine_k 6y ago

All it might take is for customers to say: "Okay, I don't need it for Christmas, I can wait until March, or maybe even June, for a real good game". Not very realistic, unfortunately.

seba_dos1 6y ago
Why? What other option do customers have than to accept the delay and just buy the game later? Games are being delayed all the time, it's not like everybody suddenly loses interest in a game they would like to play and are waiting for once it fails to arrive at its initial release date. Also, it's not an indie studio that needs sales money right now to keep existing. They can easily afford much bigger delays. They prefer to put their employees at severe health risk instead so they can maximize profits.
xiphias2 6y ago
For me what would be better is ,,Okay, I don't want to play it all through, just give me the first half, and take your time with the second''. But maybe it's because I'm not a fast player generally. Anyways, companies compete how they can, I vote with my wallet.

koonsolo 6y ago

On a great day I can do about 6 hours of highly concentrated programming work. Most days is probably closer to 4 hours. If I'm tired, I will definitely not reach the 6 hours. So I really wonder who in their fucking mind would think that you can pull off 12 hour workdays and be more productive? That is just pure insanity. I think it's time to stop lying to ourselves on how many hours we are actually productive in the 'work hours' that we do.