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Bloomberg: CD Projekt management to receive $4 to $6 million in bonuses from Cyberpunk's shoddy launch, staff between $5k to $20k

Samiya

Samiya

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Link to full article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/news...till-win-big-bonuses-after-shoddy-game-launch




Jason Schreier also tweets:

A CDPR spokesman told me that they'd allocated $29.8 million for bonuses to 865 employees. CDPR allocated $28 million for bonuses to 5 board members.

I did hear some good news out of Poland this week, though. One CDPR employee told me that following Bloomberg's reporting and many internal reviews and complaints, the company did a salary reevaluation and bumped up wages for some of the company's lowest-paid staff including QA.
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On a CD Projekt earnings call, someone asked if these executive bonuses were "appropriate." Here's the full question and co-CEO Adam Kiciński's full response. Kiciński is set to receive a $6.3 million bonus:

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Sir_Bumble_Bee

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Oct 25, 2017
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You hate to see it but sadly this is normal practice

AtomicShroom said:
He says "flop", but didn't the game do extremely well financially?
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Shipped ~13 million units. While obviously a lot I'd imagine they were aiming for closer to 20 million. Also have to account for the big PR blunder, people are much more hesitant to buy what CDPR sells in the future
 
Transistor

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Shitty, but not surprising in the least. Executive bonuses are always ridiculous and outrageous compared to the average workers' bonus.
 
jayu26

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Those executives did amazing job at convincing people to buy an unfinished product, so job well done and money well earned...I guess.
 
RailWays

RailWays

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Tale as old as time.

Management takes it all and leaves workers the scraps
 
Ananasas

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I think the title should be fixed as the range for staff is $5k to $20k , not $5 to $20k
 
Merc_

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lol millions to the management that was responsible for the shoddy product in the first place. What a joke and a bad look.
 
MatrixMan.exe

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MillionIII said:
What's the average bonus for such games?
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There isn't really an average because profit-sharing bonus schemes varies wildly from studio to studio. It's often calculated several ways, including seniority and time spent on the project, and that's not factoring in what the profit pool even is. So yeah, tough question to answer but people often do get fucked over due to semantics.
 
BarryFishFinger

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Oct 27, 2017
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I assume flop is appropriate as whilst it sold well at launch, I'm guessing that sales subsequently dropped off a cliff so lifetime sales will be nowhere near what was anticipated?
 
DanteMenethil

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Oct 25, 2017
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Objectively Cyperpunk wasn't a flop, they made some good money out of it. Relatively to expectations though it was a flop. out of the 13m sales, 8m were pre-orders. This ratio is not normal. The sales stopped real quick once word got out the game was half cooked.
 
behOemoth

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AtomicShroom said:
He says "flop", but didn't the game do extremely well financially?
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The game was kicked from the PSN after 2 weeks and probably no reprints were made on disk. They lost a huge amount of revenue there because of the poor decision making of the leading board. Other companies would at least kick their leads after handing out compensation. I guess the board is a big stakeholder of CDPR.
 
Griffith

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I feel embarrassed I supported this company getting Cyberpunk at launch, even though the game is okay. These practices though, certainly are not.
 
lostconst

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Even if the game had succeeded, this is par for the course. Employees receive a couple thousand while the BOD and executives collect millions.
 
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Socivol

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Oct 25, 2017
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Remember in the topic about crunch at CDPR where people were saying "It's fine they get bonuses". Those bonus amounts are nothing after working on a project for years. Like always the worker gets fucked while management that caused the situation is rewarded.
 
Temascos

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I haven't bought the game yet, and initially when I saw that first gameplay slice I was all on board. For a title that was so hugely anticipated it is a shock that it came out the way that it did, and people are going to be cautious when it comes to CDPR's next release. Maybe not to the extent that "Oh, this will kill the company", but certainly a gut punch when so many companies rely on those sales in the first few weeks and months mostly.
 
jaymzi

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Does flop mean not making it's budget back or does it mean selling under expectations?
 
MouldyK

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He said "Close to half of it goes to the Management Board"


...so $28 Million is half of $29.8 Million...?

Who knew?!
 
Golbez

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Millions to the people that fucked up development and are responsible for the game's bizarre and unfinished state, little bonuses to the programmers etc that crunched for 16 hours a day.

Gotta love this industry!
 
Fai

Fai

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Mar 1, 2020
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The bonuses for the staff should have been even higher. Seeing as these are bonuses for the 'launch' of the game, and not the increase of crunch that they have to be doing even after launching the game.
 
HomerSimpson-Man

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Calling it a flop when they are handing out over $50 million in bonuses really takes away from the crutch of the more important issue that half of the bonuses is to only 5 people.

Disappointment I guess, but flops literally don't make their money back.
 

QuigleyMcShine

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Jan 29, 2018
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Ha I forgot that the game still isn't available on PSN. What a mess.

Definitely sucks for the devs who probably spent the last couple years hoping to hit certain bonus targets. Having so much of your compensation tied up in 'promised' bonuses on the completion of a project is so damned risky because of circumstances that are ultimately out of your control - like forcing a game out the door before it's ready.

As for 'flop' - I guess it depends on how far of 13 million is from the company's expectations. Sure seems it underperformed but I have no idea how much.
 
Meia

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By calling the game a "flop", isn't he actually giving an excuse to the company about why the bonuses were so low at the actual worker end? Is that kind of terminology something you'd want to use in this story?


I mean, how much more did it really need to sell to give better bonuses, considering the benefit for crunch was essentially "think of the bonuses!" :\


The top mismanages the game's development, and they get uber rewarded for it, while blaming the lower end for them not getting more. Just fucking garbage.
 
ThreepQuest64

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It's getting harder and harder to separate the game from the company or even to like it; it's cynical at this point. There are many other shady companies out there but none of them made a game about shady or outright inhumane corporations.

I can feel how the managers laugh their asses off and wipe their tears with all the money they received, like "and these idiots keep playing our game". At least I'm feeling more and more of an idiot.

Now, I can stop playing but the poor developers have my sympathies getting all the shit and mess, too, the company created.
 
modiz

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Oct 8, 2018
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How much do I love seeing companies defend low bonuses/salaries for majority of employees by using bumped up averages thanks to the few making millions.
Quick Edit: I see Jason clarified in a later post that its not including board memebers, so probably not talking about millions here, but upper management has still likely made a lot of money.

jaymzi said:
Does flop mean not making it's budget back or does it mean selling under expectations?
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In the context he meant selling significantly below expectations.
Cyberpunk was expected to sell 20 million on launch and sell a lot more as time goes on. The game sold around 60% of its expectation at launch and post launch its sales crawled to a halt (far below expectations for its legs) as far as we know.
 

Deleted member 63122

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People are focusing too much on the 13 million rather than what could've been if it was launched in an optimal state. That game could've sold already 18 million+.
Also, Schreirer is referencing long time legs that Witcher 3 had that this one won't have.

IIRC, they wanted to release paid DLC for the game, now it is free to try and amend the trash release.
 
MillionIII

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MatrixMan.exe said:
There isn't really an average because profit-sharing bonus schemes varies wildly from studio to studio. It's often calculated several ways, including seniority and time spent on the project, and that's not factoring in what the profit pool even is. So yeah, tough question to answer but people often do get fucked over due to semantics.
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Thanks, I wonder what the bonuses for The Witcher 3 were like then.
 
jschreier

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The range wasn't 5-20k. Individuals who spoke to me said they'd received between 5 and 20k. CDPR said the average among non-board members was 34k, so managers and directors likely received far bigger bonuses.
 
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