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Bloomberg: CD Projekt Changes Developer Bonus Structure After Buggy Release

TVexperto

Member




The bonus system CD Projekt used for developers working on Cyberpunk 2077 was complicated. Every month, team leaders at the company gave out tokens styled after the studio’s logo, a red bird, to members of their team they felt deserved honors, according to three current and former employees. Those tokens would have then been transferred into bonuses if the game met certain criteria, like critical acclaim and a timely release. Under the new system, those payouts will be guaranteed even though Cyberpunk 2077 was delayed and the review score has been mixed. This performance bonus comes on top of regular annual profit-sharing payouts.
 
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It'll be lucky to end up over 60 on metacritic once the console reviews roll in, already one on there at 35 lol
 
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YuLY

Member
This game is already a huge success and I imagine in a year from now it would have made more than 1 billion in revenue. There are threads everywhere with stock dropping and people upset, and some console players boycott and refunds. Cd Projekt will fix this game and support it properly just like they did with all the Witcher games. The core is great, thats all that matters, the company will stand by this game.

They will make so much cash they wont know what to do with it, witcher 3 will also continue to sell as it has become known as a masterpiece and one of the best rpgs ever made. During 2077's launch day it had reduced price and was 2nd on steam top sellers right behind 2077. Cd Projekt is safe and has become a titan in this industry.

Now...after they do the DLCs for 2077 I hope they give space opera a try, they are one of the few companies I would trust to do a Mass Effect alternative. And I mean a second team to do it, its clear their next and closest release will be a new Witcher game.
 
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THEAP99

Banned
Gamers can boast about user scores on metacritic all day they want but the fact of the matter is it's the critics score is that actually matter to the developers.

And this just proves that. As they're cancelling the 90+ tied bonuses with this game since it's Management's fault the game is possibly gonna drop below that.
 
"a system that some say has implicitly encouraged developers to crunch. (To get tokens, you'd want to show your boss you were working longer and harder than your peers) "
It's a fair criticism, and one that has come up in the past. You're basically expected to repeatedly accomplish "superhuman" feats. It automatically puts pressure on developers to crunch instead of keeping a steady pace. It feeds into a toxic corporate culture where people who do their job, and do it well, are looked down on for not participating in sweatshop culture. It also pushes devs to work harder instead of working smarter.

It's the reason Rockstar employees working on RDR2 would sit at their desks and pretend to work on the game despite the project being off the rails and thus no meaningful work could be done anyway. Gotta look busy.
 
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Fake

Member
It's a fair criticism, and one that has come up in the past. You're basically expected to repeatedly accomplish "superhuman" feats. It automatically puts pressure on developers to crunch instead of keeping a steady pace. It feeds into a toxic corporate culture where people who do their job, and do it well, are looked down on for not participating in sweatshop culture. It also pushes devs to work harder instead of working smarter.

It's the reason Rockstar employees working on RDR2 would sit at their desks and pretend to work on the game despite the project being off the rails and thus no meaningful work could be done anyway. Gotta look busy.

Well... worked for TLOUS2.
 
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kiphalfton

Member
Trying to get ahead by working longer hours is retarded, especially if youre salary exempt. I've seen it several times though, where you get somebody who thinks working 50 hours/week is going to impress upper management. Issue is though if one person does it, management will try and get away with pushing other people to do it too.
 

Enjay

Banned
Jason Screecher is. He hates that people work more than 30 hours a week.

"a system that some say has implicitly encouraged developers to crunch. (To get tokens, you'd want to show your boss you were working longer and harder than your peers) "
Where is the opinion here? edit: nvm.

Jeez we're about to see cyberpunk fans make jason schreier a good guy for a little bit
 
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Well... worked for TLOUS2.
It worked in the sense that all the animators walked out the door and they had to replace them with film animators, yes. Also the game released years later than it was supposed to, LA Noire-style, because it turns out that when people constantly quit and you have to train their replacements, work slows to a crawl. (All the animators quit on that project, too. They had a SINGLE main animator for most of the project as a result.)
 
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Fake

Member
It worked in the sense that all the animators walked out the door and they had to replace them with film animators, yes. Also the game released years later than it was supposed to, LA Noire-style, because it turns out that when people constantly quit and you have to train their replacements, work slows to a crawl.

And? What I seeing are excuses, nothing less.

ND did crunch and get exploration charges against some women employees not to mention some payment problems while homework, but get loads of praise, sales and tons of awards.
That was a pretty huge message whether you like it or not.
 
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good on them for doing right by their employees For doing right by their employees. People can criticize this launch all they want but they were in an impossible situation if they delayed again they'd be given so much crap if they dropped the current gen versions because they don't run well enough they would be given crap. if they only put out the PC version and just delayed the console versions again lots of crap flung their way. you can give your own personal right answer but you're not the only person's opinion that matters.
 

ethomaz

Banned
Gamers can boast about user scores on metacritic all day they want but the fact of the matter is it's the critics score is that actually matter to the developers.

And this just proves that. As they're cancelling the 90+ tied bonuses with this game since it's Management's fault the game is possibly gonna drop below that.
There are 50 reviewers to get out yet... they know the meta score will drop.
 
And? What I seeing are excuses, nothing less.

ND did crunch and get exploration charges against some women employees, but get loads of praise, sales and tons of awards.
That was a pretty huge message whatever you like or not.
Numerous films that have won best picture at the Oscars had VFX made under horrible conditions, and sometimes the studios that did the VFX went bust before the puffed up directors had a chance to get up on stage and thank God and their mother and generous tax rebates for helping make the magic happen. Most of the games that get showered in GOTY awards are made under terrible conditions with incompetent management problems. It happens again and again.

I'm a massive OG Perfect Dark fan. Most of the senior developers on PD walked out the door in 1998-1999 due to disagreements over pay, bonuses, contract conditions, etc. They felt that working 100 hour weeks week after week for years should guarantee them certain things. They were excised from the game's credits in punishment. Perfect Dark is a masterpiece that rightfully earned endless adulation from critics and audiences alike. But the idea that winning GOTY and making *dunkey voice* "absolute masterpieces, baybee" justifies the way in which these games are made is not the message to take away.

CDPR's decision to give people their bonuses regardless of scores is the right thing to do. The scores were completely out of the control of the development team. They were forced to push out a game that wasn't ready for release, with that decision being made far above their heads. If the game had been delayed another few months and the older versions cancelled, there would be no question of universal 90+ MC scores on all platforms. But even then, CDPR is an immensely wealthy company. Do the right thing and share some of that wealth with your hard working employees.
 

LectureMaster

Gold Member
What the fuck is the beef between CDPR and Schreier?

And how the fuck he got the internal emails sent to employees? He has some informant or what?
 
Tried it on my PS4 and wow, yeah, what an embarressment. More so coming from the most "pro consumer" developer

What upset me the most, and I was surprised that a much beloved developer like CDPR, did was that they placed an embargo on the console versions until the day before launch, knowing full well that you can't post your reviews on Metacritics until you have played the game for 48 hours. By then CDPR had sold all those 8 million pre-ordered copies, and a hell of a lot more at launch, with most of that for the base XB and PS4, which can't run the game well.
 
If Jason's insider doesn't like the system in place, the insider can go and have a chat with upper management. If that still doesn't work, the insider can quit.

Must be mentally taxing working at a company whose basic work structure you disapprove of.

The email is a good sign, though. Leaders taking responsability for poor decisions can't be overly praised. Hopefully, the right actions will follow soon. I have no idea if they have a position akin to Chief Technology Officer, one whose head would be chopped if what appears to be a pretty significant screw-up had happened on his shift. Most of the complaints from gamers seem to revolve around the tech side of things and QoL oversights, which apparently have also been overlooked by QA, which is especially intriguing because they even called in outside QA:

Apparently, some things need to change internally.

Externally, I'd say their image seems at least temporarily blemished. Bethesda went though a process that looks like this and seemingly has yet to recover. I would expect CD Projekt RED to bounce back and start rolling out free or discounted stuff come 2021.

I think a public statement acknowledging the apparent foul up by next week would also be appreciated.

The bonus system CD Projekt used for developers working on Cyberpunk 2077 was complicated. Every month, team leaders at the company gave out tokens styled after the studio’s logo, a red bird, to members of their team they felt deserved honors, according to three current and former employees. Those tokens would have then been transferred into bonuses if the game met certain criteria, like critical acclaim and a timely release. Under the new system, those payouts will be guaranteed even though Cyberpunk 2077 was delayed and the review score has been mixed. This performance bonus comes on top of regular annual profit-sharing payouts.

So on top of the base salary, they get the "annual profit-sharing payouts." and in addition to that top performers get an extra bonus?

This is modern-day slavery. This is as exploitative as child labour.
Please rebel. It's a sweatshop over there.



It's a fair criticism,

No, it's not and to his credit Jason doesn't claim it is. He mentions some people finding it unfair, apparently. These people can have a chat with management or type a resignation letter first thing in the morning, if they find the system so aggravating.

and one that has come up in the past. You're basically expected to repeatedly accomplish "superhuman" feats.

Says who?

Where are you getting the "superhuman feats" from, besides a desire to berate healthy ambition and competition?

It's a system that rewards dedication, hard work and results, all laudable qualities. If that's not what you're after, try a 9 to 5 job in the public sector. This is a publicly traded company in the highly competitive AAA space. Your recipe for success is not to encourage hard work and results?

Yeah, seems reasonable.

It automatically puts pressure on developers to crunch instead of keeping a steady pace.

Oh, the language in which you're couching this is truly revelatory.

Don't like, can't stand the pressure? The kitchen is not for you. Stay away from the stove and open your own pop up food truck. But do let those who appreciate the pressure, excel under it and crave the juicy rewards to live and work as they want to live and work, even if you disapprove of their life choices.

It feeds into a toxic corporate culture where people who do their job, and do it well, are looked down on for not participating in sweatshop culture.

Feel free to use up all of the usual adjectives and the striking imagery. That doesn't change the issue. Management has implemented a system. It's their company and therefore their system. Devs can certainly try to persuade them. But if management hasn't been persuaded, developers are not chained to their desks, despite your best efforts to paint the usual 19th century images of potato-eaters. Developrs can quit.

And If enough good devs quit, the company eventually goes down the drain, so the incentive exists to retain the best. I don't know what's the turnover there, but my impressions many devs do end up leaving. Others chose to stay. Apparently, they like the Evil pressure, the Tenebrous system.

Ambition, dedication, hard work and results should be actively encouraged. Don't like the pressure? Why, who's forcing you to work at the company, in the industry,? Who's forcing you to work at all?

It also pushes devs to work harder instead of working smarter.

Bogus allegation. You don't know what they're being rewarded for. You don't know if it's just a matter of monthly hours, or it has to do with results, or a ponderation of the two.

"Sweatshop", "toxic", "work harder instead of smarter", you're really bent on exhausting the long trail of clichés.

It's the reason Rockstar employees working on RDR2 would sit at their desks and pretend to work on the game despite the project being off the rails and thus no meaningful work could be done anyway. Gotta look busy.

See above.

Trying to get ahead by working longer hours is retarded, especially if youre salary exempt. I've seen it several times though, where you get somebody who thinks working 50 hours/week is going to impress upper management. Issue is though if one person does it, management will try and get away with pushing other people to do it too.

Ah, evil upper management.
Those greedy swines.

Do see above.
 

j0hnnix

Member

I'm booking a ticket for Poland tommorow to go see CD Projekt Red myself and boycott outside their studios.

Wake the fuck up, Samurai! We got a developer studio to burn 💅

 
If Jason's insider doesn't like the system in place, the insider can go and have a chat with upper management.
This is a strikingly naive statement. CDPR are well known historically for punishing troublemakers by interfering with their work, isolating them from other team members, etc. They're not Elon Musk-grade evil where the open door policy exists for the sole reason to fire literally anyone with any criticisms, but CDPR have a long way to go to regain trust.
So on top of the base salary, they get the "annual profit-sharing payouts." and in addition to that top performers get an extra bonus?
CDPR is pretty notorious for underpaying "non western" employees. A story I heard is that former Crytek Kiev(?) staff were offered jobs at CDPR, but Wargaming stepped in and offered them reasonable wages and said they wouldn't have to move countries. Nobody went with CDPR. Which isn't really surprising. They have pretty big hiring problems because there are so much better studios to work at. Infinity Ward, for example. Naughty Dog are the same. Word gets out about how bad a studio is pretty quickly nowdays, even if casual consumers (and management) remain in denial and think everything is peachy.
It's a system that rewards dedication, hard work and results, all laudable qualities.
It's a system that rewards incompetent managers for burning through employees like kindling.
Bogus allegation. You don't know what they're being rewarded for. You don't know if it's just a matter of monthly hours, or it has to do with results, or a ponderation of the two.
I mean, we do have fairly extensive explanations from CDPR developers talking about the problems at the studio, and have had these stories for several years.
 
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Papacheeks

Banned
So....Jason Screecher is upset that people working longer and harder are getting compensated for it?

I'll play devils advocate that how they receive their bonus after so much crunch up to launch has been bullshit.

What the fuck is the beef between CDPR and Schreier?

And how the fuck he got the internal emails sent to employees? He has some informant or what?

Similar to the Crytek issue years back with people not getting paid at all, CDPrj Red have a history of underpaying their employee's and working them hard. So this news in how they are dishing out their bonuses is kind of shitty. It's not setup like it is over in the states for bonuses. Poland is a weird country in terms of economics and pay scale.


Well... worked for TLOUS2.

Naughty Dog is a studio based in US. Pay scale is much different, and bonuses work more differently here as well. There's more options to get more, healthcare, 401k, stock options etc. In poland not so much, especially for anyone who's contract which makes up a lot of their work force over there.
 
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And how the fuck he got the internal emails sent to employees? He has some informant or what?
Numerous employees have been leaking stuff about the studio's poor management and working conditions for a long time. It started with Witcher 3. The game's production was horrible, terribly managed, and CDPR lied through their teeth about the state of the game for most of it. That the highest difficulty is called "Death March" isn't just a cute little joke.

They're not the only studio to do this. It's industry-wide. Bioware were always the same. People pretend Anthem came out of nowhere. They always had terrible management, terrible production cycles, and this idea that you can just bluff you way to the last 12 months of production and then crunch like crazy to deliver the final game (bioware magic), instead of doing the sensible thing and planning the project properly.
 

Fake

Member
Naughty Dog is a studio based in US. Pay scale is much different, and bonuses work more differently here as well. There's more options to get more, healthcare, 401k, stock options etc. In poland not so much, especially for anyone who's contract which makes up a lot of their work force over there.

Crunch is crunch, right? Or are you saying vary between countries?
 

PhoenixTank

Member
Glad they're treating their employees better than Bethesda treated Obsidian for New Vegas. (It was NV that had a bonus tied to metacritic score and missed it, right?)
 
This is a strikingly naive statement. CDPR are well known historically for punishing troublemakers by interfering with their work, isolating them from other team members, etc.

You can bet that if I had someone leaking out internal documents of my company, I would not give the guy a pat on the back. CD Projekt RED are not the government. Don't like it? Go. Work. Somewhere. Else.

They're not Elon Musk-grade evil where the open door policy exists for the sole reason to fire literally anyone with any criticisms,

What a buffoonish remark, but I am not about to be dragged into a discussion about Elon Musk, the visionary.

but CDPR have a long way to go to regain trust.

CDPR is pretty notorious for underpaying "non western" employees.

Will it take you decades to finally come to terms with the fact no one is owed anything in a market economy? As such, CD Projekt can offer whatever salaries they feel like offering, 2 yearly dollars even. You find the salary too low?
Decline the offer. Apparently, some people didn't decline the offer, so apparently they didn't follow your infinite wisdom. Apparently, those salaries were the best they could find, because otherwise they would have taken them, right? Is it possible these outsourcers know something you don't? Is it possible their standards are not yours? Is it possible they don't view life like you do?

Shocking, I know.

A story I heard is that former Crytek Kiev(?) staff were offered jobs at CDPR, but Wargaming stepped in and offered them reasonable wages and said they wouldn't have to move countries. Nobody went with CDPR.

Exactly.

The market is working as intended. Which means that if CD Projekt does want to attract and retain the best, they better start raising salaries or sugar-coating the offer in some other ways. This is exactly my point. In the long run, generally speaking, market economies, competition, is what's best for ambitious high-performance individuals.

People who just merely want to collect paychecks have plenty of alternatives. And they can create their own.

Which isn't really surprising. They have pretty big hiring problems because there are so much better studios to work at.

See above.

Infinity Ward, for example. Naughty Dog are the same. Word gets out about how bad a studio is pretty big, even if casual consumers remain in denial and think everything is peachy.

Let's not pretend relocating to Warsaw, Poland, is not likely being factored in.

It's a system that rewards incompetent managers for burning through employees like kindling.

Possibly, but certainly not because it'd be inherent to a system that rewards dedication and results. Something went awry and until evidence comes along all I can confidently say is that, ultimately, it's the responsability of the board. Even taking into account Covid, at the end of the day, either the board failed to do the right thing or actively did the wrong thing.

It's on them. That they are acknowledging it is at least encouraging.

I mean, we do have fairly extensive explanations from CDPR developers talking about the problems at the studio, and have had these stories for several years.

Yes, "we" have Jason's carefully curated sample of roughly less than 3% of the workforce and then "we" also have current devs going public and disagreeing with Jason's sources.

I suppose "we" won't have to blindly trust the ideological filter through which Jason views reality. "We" will have to think though this for ourselves.
 

Hugare

Member
Executives did what was needed in order to save their heads

Imagine after thousands of hours worked, your boss comes to you and say :" welp, we have to ship it on December 10th". Even when the game is unfinished, and you know, for sure, that it shouldnt be shipped.

Now your boss will give you a bonus, but only if the game becomes critically well received. That game that you KNOW that is not finished, but your boss told you that its shipping anyway.

If I didnt get a bonus because of my boss decision to ship the game anyway, I would be mad furious. There would be lawsuits probably.
 
Executives did what was needed in order to save their heads

Imagine after thousands of hours worked, your boss comes to you and say :" welp, we have to ship it on December 10th". Even when the game is unfinished, and you know, for sure, that it shouldnt be shipped.

Now your boss will give you a bonus, but only if the game becomes critically well received. That game that you KNOW that is not finished, but your boss told you that its shipping anyway.

If I didnt get a bonus because of my boss decision to ship the game anyway, I would be mad furious. There would be lawsuits probably.

You do know CDPR board includes two of the biggest individual shareholders, right? Shareholders own the company. It's their company. Who were board members trying to save themselves from? Themselves?

They're in the minority, as far as I can remember, and I don't know whether they have Golden shares or not.

So your big takeaway from the email is that people won't be getting their bonuses because of middle and upper management?

How peculiar.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
Shows respect for the worker bees, seems good to me. Doesn't even matter if it was a self-serving move to quell an incipient revolt(and I have no evidence whatsoever to show that it was, btw).
 

Hugare

Member
You do know CDPR board includes two of the biggest individual shareholders, right? Shareholders own the company. It's their company. Who were board members trying to save themselves from? Themselves?

They're in the minority, as far as I can remember, and I don't know whether they have Golden shares or not.

So your big takeaway from the email is that people won't be getting their bonuses because of middle and upper management?

How peculiar.
Wtf? Of course not. Employees are getting their bonuses, arent they?

My point is: it was their decision to launch the game at this state, so employees would be obviously enraged if they didnt get their bonuses because of the executives
 
You can bet that if I had someone leaking out internal documents of my company, I would not give the guy a pat on the back. CD Projekt RED are not the government. Don't like it? Go. Work. Somewhere. Else.
I have to assume you're American, and view this issue through the lens of America's basically non-existent worker protections and kind of bonkers work culture where, for example, tipping is a thing. I don't mean that as an insult or to sound smug, but rather as the base reason we'll never see eye to eye on this. The dominance of America in discussions around videogame labour issues is a problem because America's labour laws are a joke. America's work culture is a joke.

You seem to think that "Just get another job" is a workable solution in an industry that will blacklist anyone who steps out of line. This is why devs will only speak anonymously. Anything else will attract the wrath of the robber-barons.

The AAA games industry has a broken model that treats employees like garbage, so they burn out, and are replaced with fresh faced "passionate" recruits. The industry is constantly bleeding talent as a result. Most devs don't last longer than a few years. Job security is almost non-existent. Ship a game that sells 10 million copies, and get laid off anyway, while the executives reap the benefits. Anyone who leaves a project is punished by having their name removed from the credits, a practice considered unacceptable in mediums such as film which have unions.

Videogames need unions. They need government intervention. The Australian government should have come down on Team Bondi like a ton of bricks, for example. So much of what they were doing was immoral and illegal. But the videogame industry is adept at weaseling out of responsibility, finding ways not to pay bonuses, avoiding local labour laws by forcing employees to sign waivers, and so on.

Many AAA publishers and devs are extremely abusive, exploitative workplaces, with a few bright spots like Electronic Arts, who treat their employees extremely well because people in leadership believe in the welfare of their employees.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
Crunch is crunch, right? Or are you saying vary between countries?

Pay scale wise everything is different in how companies from different countries handle salaries/bonuses/healthcare etc., Poland is a low economic country, with very little going on commerce wise. So it differs to how we do salaries in the states let alone in the entertainment industry which video games fall in.

But yes you are right crunch is crunch. it's just amplified because in Poland there are more things going against workers.
 

oagboghi2

Member
I have to assume you're American, and view this issue through the lens of America's basically non-existent worker protections and kind of bonkers work culture where, for example, tipping is a thing. I don't mean that as an insult or to sound smug, but rather as the base reason we'll never see eye to eye on this. The dominance of America in discussions around videogame labour issues is a problem because America's labour laws are a joke. America's work culture is a joke.

You seem to think that "Just get another job" is a workable solution in an industry that will blacklist anyone who steps out of line. This is why devs will only speak anonymously. Anything else will attract the wrath of the robber-barons.

The AAA games industry has a broken model that treats employees like garbage, so they burn out, and are replaced with fresh faced "passionate" recruits. The industry is constantly bleeding talent as a result. Most devs don't last longer than a few years. Job security is almost non-existent. Ship a game that sells 10 million copies, and get laid off anyway, while the executives reap the benefits. Anyone who leaves a project is punished by having their name removed from the credits, a practice considered unacceptable in mediums such as film which have unions.

Videogames need unions. They need government intervention. The Australian government should have come down on Team Bondi like a ton of bricks, for example. So much of what they were doing was immoral and illegal. But the videogame industry is adept at weaseling out of responsibility, finding ways not to pay bonuses, avoiding local labour laws by forcing employees to sign waivers, and so on.

Many AAA publishers and devs are extremely abusive, exploitative workplaces, with a few bright spots like Electronic Arts, who treat their employees extremely well because people in leadership believe in the welfare of their employees.
first, saying "your American" is a shitty defense, especially when talking about a Polish company.
second, EA? Really? Do we need to bring up their past?

No, they don't need unions nor government intervention, We are talking about some of the highest-paid industries in most countries, with a quality of life that is far better than many others.

I agree that the avalanche of available talent can drag down wages in some rare scenarios, but data has shown for years that the wages of most programmers are still sky-high, including in videogames. Crying for a union in a thread about developers getting paid thousands of in bonuses is a bit tone deaf.
 
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I love CDPR and I hope all goes well and everyone gets compensated.

It sucks especially in this current pandemic atmosphere.

I know this might get a pass, but seriously I feel developers need to release in a functional state on release.

I'm sick of day one necessary or "highly recommended" patches.
 

K.S v2.0

Banned
Jason Screecher is. He hates that people work more than 30 hours a week.

"a system that some say has implicitly encouraged developers to crunch. (To get tokens, you'd want to show your boss you were working longer and harder than your peers) "

No surprise, he's never done a day of actual legit proper work in his life. All he's ever done is screech and cry using the platform he has and lean on the merits of others.
 
first, saying "your American" is a shitty defense, especially when talking about a Polish company.
Most game companies regardless of where they're located attempt to skirt local laws to behave like American companies. Because America is the bottom tier when it comes to protection of workers. Game companies try to operate like they're in America, and use things like waivers to try to get employees to give up hard earned legal rights because "If you really loved the game you'd work 12 hours a day on it and sleep under your desk, dontchaknow."
second, EA? Really? Do we need to bring up their past?
Of course. Electronic Arts used to be terrible, but after the EA Spouses incident, they began to rethink their entire culture, and as a result are now one of the best places to work in the games industry. The only blemish in recent years has been Bioware, who were left to their own devices and carried on doing the same terrible stuff they'd always been doing. Hopefully EA have put a stop to that.
No, they don't need unions nor government intervention, We are talking about some of the highest-paid industries in most countries, with a quality of life that is far better than many others.
Pay and conditions and job security in the games industry are garbage compared to, for example, normal software development. That's why so many game developers quit to work for non-gaming companies. The games industry exploits "passion". The dream of working on a big game because you love games so much, to exploit their workforces.

Incidentally, Crytek used a similar bonus token system to CDPR. It'll be interesting to see if anyone pretends the way Crytek was run was in fact totally fine and nothing to worry about.
 
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Overview of Polish labor laws.

When do you work overtime in Poland?
In Poland you work 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week. Every hour you work more than 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week counts as overtime work.

Regulation of overtime working
According the Polish Labour Law, you are not allowed to work more than 8 hours extra hours per week and a maximum of 150 hours overtime per year.

Unless CDPR is breaking the law, nobody is working more than 48 hours per week, and you are legally prohibited from working more than 18.75 extra days at 8 hours a day per year.

Now the constant 100 hour weeks of the bad old days are bullshit unless you're the CEO (people who think CEOs of large companies have "personal lives" are hilariously misinformed), but let's cut the shit about the 'sweatshop' conditions of 48 hours per week.

I can't remember the last time I only worked 48 hours.
 

oagboghi2

Member
Most game companies regardless of where they're located attempt to skirt local laws to behave like American companies. Because America is the bottom tier when it comes to protection of workers. Game companies try to operate like they're in America, and use things like waivers to try to get employees to give up hard earned legal rights because "If you really loved the game you'd work 12 hours a day on it and sleep under your desk, dontchaknow."
"Behave like American companies" this is hilarious. I had no idea crunch is foreign everywhere in the industry but America. It's an idea we are exporting :rolleyes:


Of course. Electronic Arts used to be terrible, but after the EA Spouses incident, they began to rethink their entire culture, and as a result are now one of the best places to work in the games industry. The only blemish in recent years has been Bioware, who were left to their own devices and carried on doing the same terrible stuff they'd always been doing. Hopefully EA have put a stop to that.
What are you talking about? They still crunch.

And why is EA given a pass for Bioware? "Best company around" allows multiple studios under their employ to crunch at the same time, but that's okay because...?

Pay and conditions and job security in the games industry are garbage compared to, for example, normal software development. That's why so many game developers quit to work for non-gaming companies. The games industry exploits "passion". The dream of working on a big game because you love games so much, to exploit their workforces.

Incidentally, Crytek used a similar bonus token system to CDPR. It'll be interesting to see if anyone pretends the way Crytek was run was in fact totally fine and nothing to worry about.
Okay, before you go any further, you should know I work in "normal software development" so don't try this crap on me. The wages of most programmers are close to, if not identical to many other software fields. Your company, your ability to negotiate, and probably most importantly your location, is the biggest influence in terms of pay one can realistically expect to get. Not the field you work in.

also, crunch is everywhere in tech. Fucking everywhere. To pretend it is unique to games is a lie, and not even a good one.

If you are working on a product, especially one with a fixed date, there is always a possibility of overtime and crunch. No union or government intervention is going to change that.

people quit the game industry for many reasons, but if I had to guess, it is because there is a wave of talent entering the field every year, and you can work for a much smaller company, using a completely different, and easier, tech stack at a slightly lower wage outside of a large city in a much wider variety of industries. It's that simple. If you don't like crunch, you shouldn't enter software development and work on retail products
 
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