Kotaku: As Cyberpunk 2077 Development Intensifies, CD Projekt Red Pledges To Be 'More Humane' To Its Workers

[SunBroDave]

For example.. ...this year the company has told staff to work through Polish holidays, and that there will be mandated periods for vacation. Rather than take off whenever they'd like, CD Projekt Red's developers have to limit their vacation to specific times in 2019. One period will be this summer, right after E3, while another will be in the winter.

"We are trying to organize the vacations better, and to streamline the effort," said Adam Badowski. "It's a general rule for the studio, but if there are special occasions, we will obviously take care of those kind of people. And this is our take on this this year. And we will see—maybe it's good, maybe it's wrong. We will do a survey after that and take care of people… When the production takes five years, for four years it's super normal, and then it's the last year, and we have some special rules just for this period."

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Not to distract from the main point of this article, but I thought the above quote was interesting as it seems to indicate that they're in the final stretches of development for Cyberpunk, perhaps shooting for an early 2020 or perhaps even late 2019 release date?

 

[Deleted member 18944]

He's not wrong. Do you work or have you worked at a AAA development studio? Because not participating in non-mandatory crunch doesn't always result in a firing.

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And this is my point. With everything I've read and the personal accounts of friends who work in the industry, I do not doubt that it has happened.

 

[Deleted member 18161]

If you use anything in your life you are complicit to something , the choice is yours.
Clearly consumers are to blame

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Videogames are not a necessity and I wasn't blaming anyway specifically so stop trying to put words in my mouth.

 

[MatrixMan.exe]

And this is my point. With everything I've read and the personal accounts of friends who work in the industry, I do not doubt that it has happened.

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I can believe and know that it happens. But your response to Eolz suggested that he was being naive. He wasn't. Similar to him I work in this industry and can vouch for what he's saying.

 

[Mahonay]

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Perfect

 

[blackmass]

Maybe in the next century, CDPR.
I don't believe them.

 

[Deleted member 18944]

I can believe and know that it happens. But your response to Eolz suggested that he was being naive. He wasn't. Similar to him I work in this industry and can vouch for what he's saying.

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Being naive in thinking you don't get fired for it, which you just said that you know that it happens. I know it doesn't happen often because most people I know don't wait to find out.

 

[burnsy]

"Non-compulsory crunch" is really just compulsory crunch with denial.

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Perfectly said!

Many workplaces "encourage" workers to take overtime. With the real choice being whether you have a job waiting in the long run if you actually take your entitled leave.

 

[Deleted member 5621]

When will CDPR be more humane towards trans folk though?

 

[burnsy]

Non Mandatory Crunch. What an infuriating condescending term.

 

[Tovarisc]

How some here reach conclusion that heads of CDPR are straight out lying and wont commit to any of these promises or changes when they several times underlined to Jason that they go on public record with this stuff so their employees can more easily keep management to these commitments?

 

[Books]

Do you want a good game and do you want it on time or not?

 

[Khanimus]

Reads like complete bullshit

 

[Wagram]

The problem with saying it's not obligatory is the fact that bosses still pay attention. They will know and recognize those that stay. They will be more apt for promotions, etc. You'll actively be hurting your career if you leave.

 

[MatrixMan.exe]

How some here reach conclusion that heads of CDPR are straight out lying and wont commit to any of these promises or changes when they several times underlined to Jason that they go on public record with this stuff so their employees can more easily keep management to these commitments?

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Because all game studio leads are evil, apparently. Era has spoken.

 

[Strangelove_77]

You'd think they were running some kind of traveling carnival. Ugh.

 

[Khanimus]

Do you want a good game and do you want it on time or not?

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Are good games impossible without worker exploitation? Since when?

And "on time" for what? Is there a countdown clock that the game has to be out by?

 

[Sign My Guestbook!]

How some here reach conclusion that heads of CDPR are straight out lying and wont commit to any of these promises or changes when they several times underlined to Jason that they go on public record with this stuff so their employees can more easily keep management to these commitments?

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I suppose we will know when next we hear of people crashing out of the industry, and there's no one from Poland.

 

[Deleted member 50232]

You can't be fired in the EU for not agreeing to work overtime. I'm sure in America it's different though?

 

[finalflame]

He's not wrong. Do you work or have you worked at a AAA development studio? Because not participating in non-mandatory crunch doesn't always result in a firing.

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It's neat how little context people here have with regards to actually working at a game company, and how varied practices are across the industry.

IMO, the rise of interest pieces in game news outlets about the internal business of game studios has led everyone and their uncle to think they know exactly how these very complex and varied dynamics work, as if they are or ever have been on the inside. Literally nothing (or no collection of things) you read online paints a complete picture, there is always nuance to these things.

 

[gully state]

This is the vibe I got from reading that article...I'm a huge fan of CDPR's output but that was a whole lot of nothing.

 

[PucePikmin]

While I don't necessarily buy that CDPR's motivations are altruistic, I don't think anyone's lying. The article is basically the studio saying "We know Jason has been talking to people, and we're going to try to make sure he has nothing to report on." It's cynical, but I still think it's a positive sign for CDPR employees. We'll see -- if they don't hold to their "humane" promises, I'm sure we'll hear all about it.

 

[AtomicShroom]

percisely.

"you don't have too but everyone will look at you sided eyed if you leave on time and don't stay."

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"You don't have to, but when contract renewals roll around, you can be certain you'll be dead last on the list."

 

[Tovarisc]

I suppose we will know when next we hear of people crashing out of the industry, and there's no one from Poland.

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Yes, it will be interesting to see if CDPR management can actually and properly commit to these things. If they can it would be net positive for people working there.

They are basically calling their employees to publicly and loudly shame them if they can't commit.

 

[MatrixMan.exe]

It's neat how little context people here have with regards to actually working at a game company, and how varied practices are across the industry.

IMO, the rise of interest pieces in game news outlets about the internal machinations of game studios has led everyone and their uncle to think they know exactly how these very complex and varied dynamics work, as if they are or ever have been on the inside. Literally nothing (or no collection of things) you read online paints a complete picture, there is always nuance to these things.

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Precisely this, but I'm finding it increasingly harder to discuss things on Era because there is no nuance to the discourse.

Not to mention as you said, how few people on internet message boards and even in the games press actually have professional experience working in the space they write about outside of second hand information, nuance is lost even further.

Of course, the industry has huge problems with its treatment of employees in some places, but crunch is not the same at every studio. I know from personal experience and those of peers that at many big studios crunch is something that's actively being combatted, and if it does happen, employees are being well looked after.

 

[Deleted member 1003]

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

 

[Cudpug]

In reality if your colleagues are crunching and you're the only person not crunching, even if it isn't mandatory I imagine people will do it. I know if I stuck out for not working long hours I'd feel obliged to.

 

[Daniel Westlake]

here at cdpr we are happy to announce that we've put away the shock batons, we've put away the katanas, we've put away the whippin poles, we put away the guns, we put away the especially sharp knives, we've put away the phonebooks.

We promise to only overwork employees. Some days they'll even be allowed to see their children and the sun.

 

[Gabbo]

In reality if your colleagues are crunching and you're the only person not crunching, even if it isn't mandatory I imagine people will do it. I know if I stuck out for not working long hours I'd feel obliged to.

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Hopefully every employee takes the time off instead of crunching. gonna fire the whole team for it? Doubt it.

 

[xxracerxx]

9,000 free meals coming their way!

 

[Shy]

 

[Ushay]

Guys can I ask a question here. This crunch, I'm assuming its paid overtime basically. Do they get paid at a higher rate when working beyond standard hours?

 

[Deleted member 28523]

they really need some new PR people over there in poland.

 

[Acorn]

I dunno that just seems like the same shit but worded by a pr agency.

 

[kittens]

Non-obligatory crunch still normalizes crunch. They need to make this shit entirely voluntary and well rewarded instead of it being assumed and then opted out of.

 

[Mercador]

My question is: why asking CDPR?

 

[LudicrousSpeed]

Guys can I ask a question here. This crunch, I'm assuming its paid overtime basically. Do they get paid at a higher rate when working beyond standard hours?

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Sometimes.

I'm actually just going to recycle my own post from another thread. For a little context, the question had been something about how expensive crunch must be:

From the 2017 IGDA Developer Satisfaction Survey:

When employees worked beyond normal office hours (i.e., overtime or crunch), 37% received no additional compensation. Of those who did, this additional compensation came most often in the form of perks like meals (37%) or future time off (32%). Only 18% received paid overtime.

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Some people get overtime. The key to managing the overtime pay on that is to depress the base wage, so that paying them time and a half means that they're finally getting something approaching where they should have started at. And this is why you had the stories about NetherRealm hiring contractors at $11/hr and then working them for brutal lengths of time, because even double time on $11/hr only bumps the rate up to $22/hr.

Other times the compensation is comp time, but you can look at the Fortnite story for how that goes wrong. Epic technically has an unlimited vacation policy, so you can take comp time whenever, assuming your boss approves it. But the constant churn means that anyone taking time off is increasing the load on the rest of their team, so there's pressure to not use the time you've got.

And then there's like a third of people that just get nothing for it, or they get sold that catered meals is something they should consider a perk and not an inducement to get people to stay in the office.

 

[WiZaRdOuS]

Anyone have any idea on the history of them and crunch? .

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Well established and profitable developers.....

There will always be crunch as long as we have shareholders idc what PR fluff piece gets released. One joke from rockstar and and extreme article from kotaku has ALL MAJOR STUDIOS shooketh. Hence why these articles are coming. Far from actually trying to help, more of the same in a different shade or at least an attempt of a different shade lol

 

[WiZaRdOuS]

Oh you sweet summer child

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Let em be smh lmao

 

[NHarmonic.]

This seems like a non-solution.

 

[Timeaisis]

They're not dogs.

 

[WiZaRdOuS]

He's not wrong. Do you work or have you worked at a AAA development studio? Because not participating in non-mandatory crunch doesn't always result in a firing.

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If that was really the case, there would be complaints of no vacations, rather than burned out, mentally/physical exhaustion/depression.

Do you honestly believe what you posted? Like seriously?

 

[WiZaRdOuS]

Honestly, every time I play a major video game release now mostly all I can think about is the hell that the people making it probably had to go through.

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Honestly, what do you think about? What is it that you feel? And what do you do about it? These "convenient ethical" posts make me curious...
Not trolling, hoping to understand a perspective...

 

[Mercador]

Guys can I ask a question here. This crunch, I'm assuming its paid overtime basically. Do they get paid at a higher rate when working beyond standard hours?

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In the article, it is said it's 150% night, 200% weekend.

 

[EVA UNIT 01]

Ehhh well be sorta humane

 

[Baccus]

Yeah the non mandatory crunch bullshit should be he headline. Awful, tone deaf policy.

 

[Braag]

If your boss "asks" you to work extra hours then you're gonna work those hours unless you have a good excuse. Otherwise you might get fired.

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This is not true at all. I've been asked to work extra hours in my work a few times (I work for an electronics company) and I've declined each time. Nothing has happened and not once was I affraid of losing my job over it. My boss was absolutely fine with my decision.
This really depends on where you work at.

 

[Eolz]

If that was really the case, there would be complaints of no vacations, rather than burned out, mentally/physical exhaustion/depression.

Do you honestly believe what you posted? Like seriously?

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You know all studios don't work the same way in this industry right? Not everyone work like Rockstar, thank god.

 

[Deleted member 4413]

What a load of bullshit. "It's not mandatory" is just about the same excuse every developer known for abusing it's workers uses.

Make it mandatory that EVERYONE gets weekends off, no exceptions.

Crunch is NOT necessary. Push the game back if you have too. Better yet, don't give a time table that fucking assumes crunch time towards the end. If a game will take 4 years with crunch and 5 years without, then make it 5 years then.

Fucking capitalism is a disease.

 

[MatrixMan.exe]

If that was really the case, there would be complaints of no vacations, rather than burned out, mentally/physical exhaustion/depression.

Do you honestly believe what you posted? Like seriously?

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Um, yes I do believe it because I'm speaking from first hand experience. Or are you suggesting I'm just making up lies?

Kinda stupid question is that.