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I have heard a lot of murmurs about "horrible industry practices" regarding CD Projekt Red, but nothing concrete. Is this just a smear campaign, or a half-truth

I have heard a lot of murmurs about "horrible industry practices" regarding CD Projekt Red, but nothing concrete. Is this just a smear campaign, or a half-truth being thoughtlessly repeated because it fits preexisting narratives? Or more to the point, were they violating Polish or EU labor laws?

b0rsuk 6y ago
"Cyberpunk 2077 has involved months of crunch, despite past promises" Including, but not limited to, 6 day work weeks for over a year. Sounds like 966 and China. https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/21575914/cyberpunk-2077-release-crunch-labor-delays-cd-projekt-red https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/21575914/cyberpunk-2077-re... Combine that with the unoptimized, buggy state the game is in. Many streamers had the game crash, forcing them to redo the combat encounter because you can't save in combat.
- wavefunction 6y ago
  I have a beefy pc setup that I purchased recently specifically for Cyberpunk 2077 and some other demanding PC games still in development (wink wink Star Citizen) and I have had one non-gameplay bug in my couple of hours of play where elevator doors didn't open for my partner but did for me. The situation is very different for people using the previous gen consoles though, it seems, and I feel bad for them. I have a couple of good friends in this cohort who were very much looking forward to the game.
- danielEM 6y ago
  > 6 days work weeks for over a year So not true! Greets from Poland!
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
  I'm on 7+ year old hardware and a 1080 ti and it runs fine @ 1440p. Partner has a 980ti and it runs fine @ 1080p. Any bugs I've encountered have been minor. Makes me wonder what people's "rigs" are actually like. It's no Doom Eternal but it plays about as well as GTA at launch going from memory.
  - b0rsuk 6y ago
    Just curious, where does the fashion of calling screen resolution by vertical dimension come from? Why not a format like 1680x1050?
- rasz 6y ago
  Its nothing like 966. Poland is in EU and worker rights apply. https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human-resources/working-hours-holiday-leave/working-hours/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human-resources/workin... https://bezprawnik.pl/crunch-cd-projekt-red/ https://bezprawnik.pl/crunch-cd-projekt-red/ Polish law adheres to EU guidelines and limits working hours to 8 hours/day 40 hours/week with no more than 8 hours/week of overtime - paid extra.
  - b0rsuk 6y ago
    Standard work week is 40 hours: 8 hours for 5 days. 75% of Poles work overtime (2017): https://strefabiznesu.pl/czy-polacy-umieraja-z-przepracowania-nadgodziny-dotycza-75-proc-zatrudnionych-w-polsce/ar/c3-11863364 https://strefabiznesu.pl/czy-polacy-umieraja-z-przepracowani... One fifth (20%) of those working overtime don't receive any compensation (2019): https://bezprawnik.pl/polacy-zmieniaja-prace/ https://bezprawnik.pl/polacy-zmieniaja-prace/ Transport equipment and services is one of Poland's specialties, but even there it mostly competes on price: https://oko.press/polska-i-wegry-przegraly-spor-o-pracownikow-delegowanych-ekspert-powinnismy-sie-cieszyc/ https://oko.press/polska-i-wegry-przegraly-spor-o-pracowniko... (not to mention bus drivers in the capital driving under influence of metaamphetamine to keep up with the pressure) Poland is the China of Europe. But in relations with the real China, Poland is like a colony: exporting raw resources(like copper), importing manufactured goods. And Polish president acts servile towards Xi Jinping. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yfjsZujQqc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yfjsZujQqc
nashalo 6y ago
Polish law specifies that the standard working time is 8 hours every 24 hours but we have reports of employees as early as one year ago who reported night and week-end hours. Even if you don't believe anonymous employee reports, the studio's chief Adam Badowski announced in September that working time will now involve Saturdays. To me, too many pointers are highlighting a toxic crunch culture in that studio to be ignored. I will not play Cyberpunk because of that. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-29/cyberpunk-2077-publisher-orders-6-day-weeks-ahead-of-game-debut https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-29/cyberpunk...
- standardUser 6y ago
  Do you also refuse to purchase clothing made in Bangladesh and sneakers made in Indonesia? Seems like a fairly trite issue to take a stand on.
  - brumm 6y ago
    Your word for today: Whataboutism
    - tryauuum 6y ago
      isn't "whataboutism" about slightly different situation, namely when a person, as a defense, accuses their interlocutor of crimes? situation in this thread is a bit different, it's about choices of a single person.
  - danbolt 6y ago
    I mean, both aren't ideal things. We should be mindful of that and seek to improve on that whenever we can as individuals and as a society.
tmpz22 6y ago
Its a mixed bag. They promised no crunch, but there was crunch anyways. IIRC they gave bonuses and other forms of compensation for the extra work. From what I hear they have a very generous payscale relative to regional norms (Poland) and many team members stand to make a small fortune off the release of Cyberpunk 2077. Of course executives and investors will make much more off the release then the individuals who made the game.
izacus 6y ago
> I have heard a lot of murmurs about "horrible industry practices" regarding CD Projekt Red, but nothing concrete. Is this just a smear campaign, or a half-truth being thoughtlessly repeated because it fits preexisting narratives? The crunch is very real, but the silent part is that insane working hours and crunching are a staple of gaming industry. Pretty much every single project ends up in this state and the stories can get pretty horrifying (Blood, Sweat and Pixels is an interesting read on this topic - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34376766-blood-sweat-and-pixels https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34376766-blood-sweat-and... ). The strange part of this story is the way how it's set to snipe at certain companies - CDProjekt and Rockstar were target of these stories, but other development studios for some reason weren't.
- mey 6y ago
  I remember when the (then) anonymous EA Spouse posting went up bringing wider attention to the routine practices of the game industry. Long story short, game companies can abuse the enthusiasm of young people of the medium and burn them out, over and over, for little pay. There is always someone behind you to happily take your seat. It's one of the reasons I left that field early in my career. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Hoffman#%22EA_Spouse%22_blog_post https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Hoffman#%22EA_Spouse%22_b...
- hnuser123456 6y ago
  Yeah, the targeting is the most interesting part of this story for me. All of the best AAA games are the best because a lot of people put a tremendous amount of effort into them. If you want to make a new game that's a serious contender for one of the best games of all time, and you want an ambitious, deep world and story in a realistic setting, you're going to have to match or exceed previous efforts. If you find enough people who are as interested in the concept and want to make it happen, it's possible and it will probably never be a walk in the park. There's always a market for indie-scale games, 2D platformers, simple but innovative 3D games, etc, where good, simple ideas are more important than huge amounts of effort. But there's also a market for complex games, and if they're well done, people will happily pay for them. source: over a decade in the modding and gamedev community, never done it professionally (yet) but have made some popular mods/minigames, and a decent grasp of how much work goes into large-scale games and how much you have to want to make it happen for it to happen, and sometimes, you're willing to spend these long days, and sometimes it's even enjoyable before the money and fame start rolling in, or at least enjoyable enough to stick with it. I hope, and suspect, nobody who is working on AAA games has zero interest or joy in making big, complicated games. You get the job because you have skills at it. You have skills at it because you were interested enough to learn them. Those skills are worth money. All of the articles criticizing gamedev seem to miss this.

b0rsuk 6y ago

"Cyberpunk 2077 has involved months of crunch, despite past promises" Including, but not limited to, 6 day work weeks for over a year. Sounds like 966 and China. https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/21575914/cyberpunk-2077-release-crunch-labor-delays-cd-projekt-red https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/21575914/cyberpunk-2077-re... Combine that with the unoptimized, buggy state the game is in. Many streamers had the game crash, forcing them to redo the combat encounter because you can't save in combat.

wavefunction 6y ago
I have a beefy pc setup that I purchased recently specifically for Cyberpunk 2077 and some other demanding PC games still in development (wink wink Star Citizen) and I have had one non-gameplay bug in my couple of hours of play where elevator doors didn't open for my partner but did for me. The situation is very different for people using the previous gen consoles though, it seems, and I feel bad for them. I have a couple of good friends in this cohort who were very much looking forward to the game.
danielEM 6y ago
> 6 days work weeks for over a year So not true! Greets from Poland!
2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
I'm on 7+ year old hardware and a 1080 ti and it runs fine @ 1440p. Partner has a 980ti and it runs fine @ 1080p. Any bugs I've encountered have been minor. Makes me wonder what people's "rigs" are actually like. It's no Doom Eternal but it plays about as well as GTA at launch going from memory.
- b0rsuk 6y ago
  Just curious, where does the fashion of calling screen resolution by vertical dimension come from? Why not a format like 1680x1050?
rasz 6y ago
Its nothing like 966. Poland is in EU and worker rights apply. https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human-resources/working-hours-holiday-leave/working-hours/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human-resources/workin... https://bezprawnik.pl/crunch-cd-projekt-red/ https://bezprawnik.pl/crunch-cd-projekt-red/ Polish law adheres to EU guidelines and limits working hours to 8 hours/day 40 hours/week with no more than 8 hours/week of overtime - paid extra.
- b0rsuk 6y ago
  Standard work week is 40 hours: 8 hours for 5 days. 75% of Poles work overtime (2017): https://strefabiznesu.pl/czy-polacy-umieraja-z-przepracowania-nadgodziny-dotycza-75-proc-zatrudnionych-w-polsce/ar/c3-11863364 https://strefabiznesu.pl/czy-polacy-umieraja-z-przepracowani... One fifth (20%) of those working overtime don't receive any compensation (2019): https://bezprawnik.pl/polacy-zmieniaja-prace/ https://bezprawnik.pl/polacy-zmieniaja-prace/ Transport equipment and services is one of Poland's specialties, but even there it mostly competes on price: https://oko.press/polska-i-wegry-przegraly-spor-o-pracownikow-delegowanych-ekspert-powinnismy-sie-cieszyc/ https://oko.press/polska-i-wegry-przegraly-spor-o-pracowniko... (not to mention bus drivers in the capital driving under influence of metaamphetamine to keep up with the pressure) Poland is the China of Europe. But in relations with the real China, Poland is like a colony: exporting raw resources(like copper), importing manufactured goods. And Polish president acts servile towards Xi Jinping. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yfjsZujQqc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yfjsZujQqc

nashalo 6y ago

Polish law specifies that the standard working time is 8 hours every 24 hours but we have reports of employees as early as one year ago who reported night and week-end hours. Even if you don't believe anonymous employee reports, the studio's chief Adam Badowski announced in September that working time will now involve Saturdays. To me, too many pointers are highlighting a toxic crunch culture in that studio to be ignored. I will not play Cyberpunk because of that. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-29/cyberpunk-2077-publisher-orders-6-day-weeks-ahead-of-game-debut https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-29/cyberpunk...

standardUser 6y ago
Do you also refuse to purchase clothing made in Bangladesh and sneakers made in Indonesia? Seems like a fairly trite issue to take a stand on.
- brumm 6y ago
  Your word for today: Whataboutism
  - tryauuum 6y ago
    isn't "whataboutism" about slightly different situation, namely when a person, as a defense, accuses their interlocutor of crimes? situation in this thread is a bit different, it's about choices of a single person.
- danbolt 6y ago
  I mean, both aren't ideal things. We should be mindful of that and seek to improve on that whenever we can as individuals and as a society.

tmpz22 6y ago

Its a mixed bag. They promised no crunch, but there was crunch anyways. IIRC they gave bonuses and other forms of compensation for the extra work. From what I hear they have a very generous payscale relative to regional norms (Poland) and many team members stand to make a small fortune off the release of Cyberpunk 2077. Of course executives and investors will make much more off the release then the individuals who made the game.

izacus 6y ago

> I have heard a lot of murmurs about "horrible industry practices" regarding CD Projekt Red, but nothing concrete. Is this just a smear campaign, or a half-truth being thoughtlessly repeated because it fits preexisting narratives? The crunch is very real, but the silent part is that insane working hours and crunching are a staple of gaming industry. Pretty much every single project ends up in this state and the stories can get pretty horrifying (Blood, Sweat and Pixels is an interesting read on this topic - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34376766-blood-sweat-and-pixels https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34376766-blood-sweat-and... ). The strange part of this story is the way how it's set to snipe at certain companies - CDProjekt and Rockstar were target of these stories, but other development studios for some reason weren't.

mey 6y ago
I remember when the (then) anonymous EA Spouse posting went up bringing wider attention to the routine practices of the game industry. Long story short, game companies can abuse the enthusiasm of young people of the medium and burn them out, over and over, for little pay. There is always someone behind you to happily take your seat. It's one of the reasons I left that field early in my career. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Hoffman#%22EA_Spouse%22_blog_post https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Hoffman#%22EA_Spouse%22_b...
hnuser123456 6y ago
Yeah, the targeting is the most interesting part of this story for me. All of the best AAA games are the best because a lot of people put a tremendous amount of effort into them. If you want to make a new game that's a serious contender for one of the best games of all time, and you want an ambitious, deep world and story in a realistic setting, you're going to have to match or exceed previous efforts. If you find enough people who are as interested in the concept and want to make it happen, it's possible and it will probably never be a walk in the park. There's always a market for indie-scale games, 2D platformers, simple but innovative 3D games, etc, where good, simple ideas are more important than huge amounts of effort. But there's also a market for complex games, and if they're well done, people will happily pay for them. source: over a decade in the modding and gamedev community, never done it professionally (yet) but have made some popular mods/minigames, and a decent grasp of how much work goes into large-scale games and how much you have to want to make it happen for it to happen, and sometimes, you're willing to spend these long days, and sometimes it's even enjoyable before the money and fame start rolling in, or at least enjoyable enough to stick with it. I hope, and suspect, nobody who is working on AAA games has zero interest or joy in making big, complicated games. You get the job because you have skills at it. You have skills at it because you were interested enough to learn them. Those skills are worth money. All of the articles criticizing gamedev seem to miss this.