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[B-universe]

Let's call crunch what it is: modern slavery.

Let's not. Let's be rigorous instead.
So you haven't the faintest idea what slaver entails.
Glad to know.

Those defending this, would you like to be working all the time with little to no remuneration for the extra time? I bet most will not. ( I will not, that is for sure)

This is a glaring lie.
At CDPR, overtime is paid.
Plus, they do get a bonus.

Why not change the company? Well, family, location of a new job, debts, a bad economic situation can make things hard.

Yes, the choices adults must make. This issue is usually framed like this:
If you decide to stay on a given job, then that job, for whatever reason, is the very best you can get at that moment. Why? Because otherwise you'd quit and switch. That applies not only to competing companies but to staying at home paying videogames and living off unemployment benefits as well.

It's up to each individual developer to decide what's best for them. What's best for one developer might not be what's best for another, because people have different values, ambitions, private lives, notions of work/life balance.

CDPR have the right to set the conditions under which they'll employ or keep employing someone. Developers can either take it or leave it. Developer's have the right to set the conditions under which they'll work or continue working for company. CDPR can take it or leave it. The two parties have a talk, concede and come to an agreement. If not, they part ways.

That's how it works.

It is easy to talk about this as nothing much, or say "well that is part of the culture". When you only enjoy the game and do not give a "F" about the conditions developers and their families went through.

There's not a single doubt in my mind yo wake up every day with CDPR developer's best interests in mind. That's because you are such a great human being and I believe you when you say so.

I pay devs the compliment of respecting their decisions. Even according to Jason, Devs were already voluntarily crunching before this last stretch. That means they had taken upon themselves to voluntarily work extra paid hours to make a better game.

Ambition requires effort.
I respect that.
In fact, I admire that.

But I could act sanctimonious and pretend I know about their circumstances and private lives better than they do.

If you are not a part of the solution, then do not be part of the problem.

Bwah. I reject your "solution" and even reject this is even a problem. Freedom is never a problem when the decisions are uncoerced and fall exclusively upon the person making them.

Enjoy your game, but do not complain about the people trying to expose these practices, or make them look as they are nothing.

Oh, but I shall.
I disagree with you and Jason on most points and will let GAF know.
Sorry, I am not following your piece of advice.

I do, why? I saw news in which companies people in terrible work conditions, and I do not purchase from them until they make things better.

Good for you.

I known it is hard to make your own studio. I am trying to make my own games, spending money and working after my job. But big companies which make millions/billions each year, should not be left on the free to exploit their workers for little to nothing for cruching.

Define exploitation objectively.

 

[Raven117]

The journos are just biting at the bit to smear CDProjektRed and Cyberpunk. We will hear about cruch first. Then we will hear about its "problematic" themes. Reset will even think about banning discussion of it (but they wont because it will drive traffic).

And....its still going to go on to sell millions of copies. It may even be the best game of the generation (or not, who knows).

 

[Alebrije]

If a developer is not happy working at CDPR why not just quit?

How many employess does CDPR has ? How many are happy or angry working there?

Media Jurnalist and you tubers does not care about developers working conditions , they are there for the clicks/views.

If CDPR or any other company is so bad just move , if there is not other company to move due to the lack of opportunities think about twice if your current work is really a hell or not , after all what is a hell for you could be a heaven for other.

Yep that is how economy works and I guess in Polland as developer you have little job opportunities so that is why we do see a massive group of people leaving CDPR...specially for just some weeks of extra work.

 

[mindfreak191]

While I would love to get upset about this, seeing that I'm probably bathing in the blood of probably thousands of underpaid workers for all the other things I own (clothes, tech, food) it's not happening. I'm probably gonna play the shit out of this game. Crunch will never disappear and if people think it will then they're being really fucking naive. When I was being "exploited" and doing more work than was mentally healthy, I quit and searched for another job, yeah it sucks that you have to freaking figure out to survive for the time being while looking, but I will never ever be able to feel bad for "crunch culture in game development", people work at construction sites in the middle of fucking winter and get paid pennies. People calling it slavery are hilarious, you can quit whenever you want, the problem is people want to eat their cake and have it too, they want to work for a prestige developer that is known for crunch (Rockstar, CDP, Naughty Dog), they submit their resume, they get interviewed, they accept the offer for employment, and then they're surprised when they see that people are crunching their ass off to do the name of the company justice and get their name in the credits. Don't wanna work crazy hours (while still getting paid)? Don't submit to these companies. They will keep exploiting their workers until they get hit by a new law or something and then they'll stop pumping out huge AAA games and some other company is gonna take their place in the crunch department. Thinking that "boycotting" will do something is even more hilarious because 80% of gamers just sees commercials and trailers, they are completely oblivious to what's happening behind the scene, so they'll buy the game even if the company developing it is sacrificing newborns to Satan in the background. Did Apple stop their shit after people were "boycotting" them for using cheap workforce (so cheap that people were committing suicide at their factories)? No, motherfuckers are now the biggest tech company in the world. Alas, a lot of rambling into a deep abyss.

 

[Slurpy2k20]

I do, why? I saw news in which companies people in terrible work conditions, and I do not purchase from them until they make things better.

I known it is hard to make your own studio. I am trying to make my own games, spending money and working after my job. But big companies which make millions/billions each year, should not be left on the free to exploit their workers for little to nothing for cruching.

Please list the brands of all your electronic devices, clothing, etc.

Just want to make sure you're not contributing to any "modern slavery" and worse, because thats what you defined crunch as.

 

[Topfuel]

I do, why? I saw news in which companies people in terrible work conditions, and I do not purchase from them until they make things better.

I known it is hard to make your own studio. I am trying to make my own games, spending money and working after my job. But big companies which make millions/billions each year, should not be left on the free to exploit their workers for little to nothing for cruching.

I think we have to do a bit of everything. Consumers to vote with their wallets and give devs alternative opportunities to get work/experience away from the big prestige developers. That is just why I mentioned Ember Lab and Inertial Drift guys. But in the end the devs need food on the table like others.

 

[WakeTheWolf]

Good on the devs for standing up against the media's woke narrative. A major shift within these companies is ensuring they mostly hire though diversity quotas. And whilst they may have the basic ability to do their work you miss out on people who are talented and committed. So 9.5/10 you end up hiring lazy bastards who will demand more for less. They will also look at other companies and get their noses in with those too.

If companies were smart they would re-shuffle their work and have the majority of employees work from home (when applicable of course). This will alleviate most issues of a crunch. But then if companies were smart they wouldn't hire based on diversity in the first place.

 

[Fake]

'Hi, CDP developer here'.

I love this.

 

[NoLootBoxDev]

I think we have to do a bit of everything. Consumers to vote with their wallets and give devs alternative opportunities to get work/experience away from the big prestige developers. That is just why I mentioned Ember Lab and Inertial Drift guys. But in the end the devs need food on the table like others.

I know everyone needs food on their tables, I have a family. If there is an injustice in a workplace people should complain about it.

 

[Saruhashi]

Let's call crunch what it is: modern slavery.

"Let's call crunch what it is: modern slavery."

You should be absolutely ashamed of this comment.

At the end of the day people have to take personal responsibility for themselves and their well being.

CDPR can't force anyone to work more than set out in the law and in their contracts.

So employees can refuse to do OT or even just quit.

If they're good enough to get the education, qualifications, get through the recruitment process and get themselves working on this game then they will be well equipped for getting a different job, even if it's in a different industry.

Describing people doing paid overtime as "slavery" is beyond idiotic. You absolute moron.

 

[B-universe]

I know everyone needs food on their tables, I have a family. If there is an injustice in a workplace people should complain about it.

Let me ask you again.
Maybe you'll answer this time around.

Developers have voluntarily signed contracts. They voluntarily decided to do overtime back then. Overtime is paid and above regular time. Mandatory Crunch entails 6 extra days of work on top of whatever they were already doing , all paid. Plus, they will get a bonus. Developers can also quit.

Derail the injustices.
Please be as specific as you possibly can.

 

[Saruhashi]

I think we can all agree on a few points here.

We all have sympathy for the developers and workers who have to work long hours and how feel pressured into doing overtime to get projects done etc. I am sure many of us are in similar situations.

We all agree that they entered into contracts voluntarily and had opportunity to review said contracts before signing.

We understand that Cyberpunk 2077 is a prestigious project and the people working on it are being paid for their extra hours.

We are aware that certain individuals and forums seem to have personal beef with CDPR and this along with political leanings could potentially lead to biased reporting.

What we don't agree on is the acceptableness of having people work long hours to get projects done on time.

I think comparisons to slavery are unhelpful and frankly stupid.

I think there needs to be acknowledgement that developers at CDPR are not being paid or treated like 3rd world sweatshop or factory workers from which we probably all get at least some consumer goods.

There also needs to be recognition that the people who work there are grown adults who are capable of standing up for themselves and that we actually don't know just how many employees are unhappy there.

It sucks if they have to work so much. Definitely. I certainly wouldn't work some of the hours being speculated.

Its not some great evil though.

 

[AetherMage]

Those poor people have to work OT like everyone else in the real world? So sad.

 

[NoLootBoxDev]

Let me ask you again.
Maybe you'll answer this time around.

Developers have voluntarily signed contracts. They voluntarily decided to do overtime back then. Overtime is paid and above regular time. Mandatory Crunch entails 6 extra days of work on top of whatever they were already doing , all paid. Plus, they will get a bonus. Developers can also quit.

Derail the injustices.
Please be as specific as you possibly can.

First, I am bad at explaining things or explaining my idea properly. I will do better, and sorry for those who believe I am talking about CD project, I never mentioned them on my first post, even though it is a thread about them. (it's a bad habit of mine)

I am talking about those companies who abuse it, which they do not give payment, bonus, for the extra time or abuse their workers, for me that is modern slavery (maybe not the best way to put into words, but it is how I see it, anyone is welcome to disagree with the term, and I may change it).

If they have a contract with the employees and are paid properly, giving extra PTO due to the extra work, then I have no problem with it.

I complained about the people who defend this, but I was more generally speaking of the problem. I have been in some threads where people defend terrible practices to workers, and take the side of a company no matter what.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Crunch is terrible and really isn't comparable to regular "OT" (as in staying a bit longer after your shift is over).
The difference is that a lot of developers bought into the delusional narrative that working from 9 to 21 is "just part of the culture".
They don't feel like they can say no in these situations, even if it winds up affecting their health.

About 8 years ago I worked at a small studio and they would tell me to clock out and go home, even if I stayed as short as 15 minutes extra, simply because OT pay would cost too much, and if it winded up affecting my health, it would cost them a fuckton more.

CDPR seems to follow their labour laws, and 6 days of paid overtime doesn't really sound like "crunch" to me, as long as they don't feel pressured by company culture/managers to do even more than that.
I'm also gonna assume they informed their employees a long time beforehand, so they could ease into it.

 

[Denton]

Ultimately, every company is beholden to two groups: their employees and their customers. If either of these groups is unhappy, company goes bankrupt. There may be some individual people in either group who are unhappy..but if it's not a majority, company can go on. We'll see what happens with CDP and their projects.

As I said, if the CDP management is as horrible/incompetent/greedy as portrayed by those anonymous reddit posts, then I legitimately hope their employees will all quit and join Techland, Bloober, People Can Fly, Warhorse and dozens of the other companies in the region that are all hiring, or start new studios. CDP management can go fiddle with their yachts and what not.

But somehow, I have my doubts that this will happen.

 

[Dick Jones]

Is that Reddit person meant to be Polish? I imagine that Polish people would use a capital letter for Polish (you know have a bit of fucking pride in the country), and as Europeans the English language they would learn would use British spelling, for example "Polish Labour laws" not "polish labor laws". I'd appreciate a Polish person to clarify that for me.

Either the developer is a Yank (how many worked in CDPR) or it is full of shit post using second-hand rumour? Is there any update on this developer or are the posts in the last page everything?

 

[chris121580]

Let's call crunch what it is: modern slavery.

Those defending this, would you like to be working all the time with little to no remuneration for the extra time? I bet most will not. ( I will not, that is for sure)

Why not change the company? Well, family, location of a new job, debts, a bad economic situation can make things hard.

It is easy to talk about this as nothing much, or say "well that is part of the culture". When you only enjoy the game and do not give a "F" about the conditions developers and their families went through. If you are not a part of the solution, then do not be part of the problem.

Enjoy your game, but do not complain about the people trying to expose these practices, or make them look as they are nothing.

You’re a fucking moron. That’s all. Slavery compared to people working overtime on a game??? Take that shit over to Reeeee

 

[NoLootBoxDev]

You’re a fucking moron. That’s all. Slavery compared to people working overtime on a game??? Take that shit over to Reeeee

I did not attack you or anybody here. You are welcome to disagree with me. Please go back and read my last post:

First, I am bad at explaining things or explaining my idea properly. I will do better, and sorry for those who believe I am talking about CD project, I never mentioned them on my first post, even though it is a thread about them. (it's a bad habit of mine)

I am talking about those companies who abuse it, which they do not give payment, bonus, for the extra time or abuse their workers, for me that is modern slavery (maybe not the best way to put into words, but it is how I see it, anyone is welcome to disagree with the term, and I may change it).

If they have a contract with the employees and are paid properly, giving extra PTO due to the extra work, then I have no problem with it.

I complained about the people who defend this, but I was more generally speaking of the problem. I have been in some threads where people defend terrible practices to workers, and take the side of a company no matter what.

 

[ryan13ts]

Good on the devs for standing up against the media's woke narrative. A major shift within these companies is ensuring they mostly hire though diversity quotas. And whilst they may have the basic ability to do their work you miss out on people who are talented and committed. So 9.5/10 you end up hiring lazy bastards who will demand more for less. They will also look at other companies and get their noses in with those too.

If companies were smart they would re-shuffle their work and have the majority of employees work from home (when applicable of course). This will alleviate most issues of a crunch. But then if companies were smart they wouldn't hire based on diversity in the first place.

This is about as desperate of an attempt I've ever seen to work in some bullshit "diversity is bad"/"see, they ARE lazy" garbage into a conversation, that has jack shit to do with it... and that's saying a lot for here. Takes some dedication and imagination to stretch something that far out of your ass, great work.

As far as the actual topic goes, crunch isn't a good thing, in any line of work. Not wanting to slave away 80+ hour weeks for undetermined amounts of time doesn't make anyone lazy or unappreciative of their job, it just makes them rational. Who would want to live in any office for potentially years at a time? Just because you're getting paid OT doesn't mean it's any less stressful and draining to your physical/mental health. I think a lot of people making it out to be an "Who cares" deal hasn't had to experience those type of hours, otherwise they'd know how bad it is for nearly anyone, especially people with families.

And there seems to be a disconnect from upper management and the lower devs at the company, especially based on the reddit post and it wouldn't be the first time something like that's happened with studios. Crunch is so ingrained into development culture, especially on AAA games, it's become practically expected, but that doesn't make it any less shitty at the end of the day.

 

[Vtecomega]

How is it modern slavery if they are getting payed to do the job? Not to mention getting payed over time.

 

[Danjin44]

Game development is hard and lots unexpected things can happen even if you planned ahead. I'm sure CD didn't want to crunch if they didn't have to, but things can happen and I'm sure it was CD's last option.

 

[oagboghi2]

Yea. about that..........................

CDPR developer speaks out against toxic workplace conditions during Cyberpunk 2077 development News

thanks to Mazzle for the grabs: credit to Toumari for grabbing these:

www.resetera.com

Many of the accusations stated make no sense. We are supposed to believe they were working 16 hours a day, including weekends since 2018 straight? Despite that being explicitly illegal

And that the project just started 2 years ago? Which means pre production was on-going the same year they showed their E3 debut? We are supposed to believe they built this game in under a year with crunch?

 

[WakeTheWolf]

This is about as desperate of an attempt I've ever seen to work in some bullshit "diversity is bad"/"see, they ARE lazy" garbage into a conversation, that has jack shit to do with it... and that's saying a lot for here. Takes some dedication and imagination to stretch something that far out of your ass, great work.

As far as the actual topic goes, crunch isn't a good thing, in any line of work. Not wanting to slave away 80+ hour weeks for undetermined amounts of time doesn't make anyone lazy or unappreciative of their job, it just makes them rational. Who would want to live in any office for potentially years at a time? Just because you're getting paid OT doesn't mean it's any less stressful and draining to your physical/mental health. I think a lot of people making it out to be an "Who cares" deal hasn't had to experience those type of hours, otherwise they'd know how bad it is for nearly anyone, especially people with families.

And there seems to be a disconnect from upper management and the lower devs at the company, especially based on the reddit post and it wouldn't be the first time something like that's happened with studios. Crunch is so ingrained into development culture, especially on AAA games, it's become practically expected, but that doesn't make it any less shitty at the end of the day.

When your core values on work hire are based on a diversity quota you aren't basing your hire on pure talent. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that perhaps that is not the best way to go around hiring. You essentially miss out on incredible talent. Now, I work in PR and I witness companies hire via diversity quotas all the time. At the center of this issue is the HR department who are notoriously out of touch with the core values of a company. This method includes shortlisting which is a far cry from hiring someone based on talent. My observation is that when companies hire based on diversity quotas the workplace turns to absolute shit. Mostly because their diversity quotas aren't based on true equality but rather politically motivated or based on sexual orientation. And yes I have seen HR hire based on this radicalised version.

Crunch is a great thing because essentially you aren't working like that all of the time (I'm applying that to game companies mostly.) Only lazy people would have an issue with a temporary crunch. Entire industries in media survive purely on crunch. And one who is committed to a project so passionately would not have a issue with crunches on the whole. If a employee is stressed constantly from a industry that relies on these crunches then they aren't right for the industry. Companies help relieve work stress during crunches and have a system set in place to ensure they have their workers well being at the forefront. If that's not enough and its tough on your mental health you should be in a different industry. It does not mean the industry must pander to the workers. Just the same way key workers are congratulated working on the frontlines during the covid-19 pandemic, they are cheered on not told to sit it out. In logistics your belief of it being too 'stressful' would collapse the system and essentials would not be delivered. But we don't care about people in logistics we only care about people who work in the office on passion projects such as games it seems. In PR you have to crunch sometimes and the hard work pays off.

You have every right to feel like working for a company under crunch is stressful and exhausting for your well being. But in reality, these companies shouldn't pander to people like you and shouldn't hire you. Yes they should alleviate any issues and look into making it easier but they shouldn't be demonised for it. They could easily alleviate crunch by having more people work from home (when applicable). If crunch on the whole is an issue to you, then you shouldn't be working in that industry. You can't bend companies and how they operate to your will. You can come up with more efficient ways to make it easier for both employees and the company. If you was presenting ideas then we wouldn't be having this kind of talk. The media like Kotaku are easy to demonise but never come up with any remote solutions to make it easier. Changing crunch by working less in the games industry leads to poor output and can lead to lazy products despite more time to develop. Just look at Star Citizen or early access messes. Also consider that being paid for OT is a godsend to some families.

 

[B-universe]

This is about as desperate of an attempt I've ever seen to work in some bullshit "diversity is bad"/"see, they ARE lazy" garbage into a conversation, that has jack shit to do with it... and that's saying a lot for here. Takes some dedication and imagination to stretch something that far out of your ass, great work.

At least here you're allowed to counter with your decisive points.

As far as the actual topic goes, crunch isn't a good thing, in any line of work. Not wanting to slave away 80+ hour weeks for undetermined amounts of time doesn't make anyone lazy or unappreciative of their job, it just makes them rational. Who would want to live in any office for potentially years at a time? Just because you're getting paid OT doesn't mean it's any less stressful and draining to your physical/mental health. I think a lot of people making it out to be an "Who cares" deal hasn't had to experience those type of hours, otherwise they'd know how bad it is for nearly anyone, especially people with families.

What about people who, miraculously, don't share your take on life and your take on a balanced life and your take on the necessity of having what you see as a balanced life?

I realize people who disagree with you are automatically wrong but should these people be allowed to live according to their values or should they be gently forced into submission to your kind 12 rules for Life?

What about people without families? What about people who could use the money? What about people whose marriages are going through a rocky time and don't want to spend nearly as much time at home? What about people who want to prove themselves? What about people who have underperformed in the past and are seeking to make a comeback? What about people who're in the so-called creative zone, where they're most productive and having so much fun they've lost track of time?

I've done intensive overtime, don't regret it in the slightest and would do it again. Your suggestion that only people without intimate knowledge of crunch would ever defend it is therefore proven false.

And there seems to be a disconnect from upper management and the lower devs at the company, especially based on the reddit post and it wouldn't be the first time something like that's happened with studios.

It's possible there's a disconnect alright, but it's by no means the only possibility.

Crunch is so ingrained into development culture, especially on AAA games, it's become practically expected,

Interesting.
So crunch hours, which I'm told are paid 1.5x above regular time are by design, not a last resort? Management wanting to spend more money, as opposed to less money, sounds just about right.

I think this is by far your most convincing argument.

 

[Nico_D]

Just a quick notion about how overtime is slavery and all that. In my understanding it seems like there's huge differences in how laws in different countries obligate businesses to compensate overtime. I don't know how it is in the States, for example, or Poland or whatever but i know how it is here.

Regular worktime in my counry is 8 hrs/day and 40 hrs/week. For the first two hours of overtime you get +50% and from there you get +100%. Sundays are always +100%. Also, you always need to get a permit from the employee for them to do overtime, overtime can't be written in the contract you sign when getting the job. The employee is never forced to do overtime against his/her will. The employee has an option to take his overtime as holidays as well instead of money.

So from my perspective calling "crunch" or overtime slavery or big evil seems ridiculous. But as I said, I don't know how it is in other countries and me not understanding this whole thing is just a sign of my ignorance. What I do not like though is generalizing. These things are not so simple some people would want to make them seem to be.

 

[CleverCaviar]

apologies for the bump. For those who cannot, or would rather not visit Facebook, Adrian Chmielarz has also posted his lengthy blog post to Medium. Medium may not be folks' bag of cats either, but hey ho.