CD Projekt Red responds to "mandatory crunch" allegations

Six-day working weeks are reportedly mandatory.



Read more about CD Projekt Red's response to "mandatory crunch" allegations.

This is pretty typical for gaming, as people are fairly passionate about video games. For established companies there's no shortage of applicants and start-up companies are fairly unstable and most end up failing.

Developers would get paid and treated much better writing some boring business code. Though artists and especially game designers don't have such an abundance of good alternatives.

Anyone thinks they would deliver first-class game working 3 days a week, 5 hours a day?

jcchg said:

Anyone thinks they would deliver first-class game working 3 days a week, 5 hours a day?

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Well it's been studied that 6 hours, 5 days a week without interruptions other than a lunch break is very productive.
I have a pretty unpredictable schedule of weekend work, very long days and then easier weeks with normal workdays - I don't stay productive for 10+ hours let me say that.

No need to take it to extremes, there's alternatives between 3*5 hours and 6*10 hours.

looz said:

Well it's been studied that 6 hours, 5 days a week without interruptions other than a lunch break is very productive.
I have a pretty unpredictable schedule of weekend work, very long days and then easier weeks with normal workdays - I don't stay productive for 10+ hours let me say that.

No need to take it to extremes, there's alternatives between 3*5 hours and 6*10 hours.

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My Company has also proven that 4 day work weeks are more efficient than 5day 9-5 jobs. Moral, productivity etc are all far higher.

From working 12 hours 6 days for the most of my working life and a few 16 hours maybe I should got into game making it seems better hours

looz said:

Well it's been studied that 6 hours, 5 days a week without interruptions other than a lunch break is very productive.
I have a pretty unpredictable schedule of weekend work, very long days and then easier weeks with normal workdays - I don't stay productive for 10+ hours let me say that.

No need to take it to extremes, there's alternatives between 3*5 hours and 6*10 hours.

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The reason these studies show this is because people have become very self entitled and severely lazy.

I have routinely worked 12+ hour days for 6 days of the week, I'm still here, It didn't kill me, It didn't cause me stress, I got paid for my time, There are very few jobs where you can go up to the boss or organiser and say "I only want to work 6 hours today for a total of 3 days a week" well good luck with that as you're about to be fired and replaced, Even with that aside you'd have to have a very high paying job to only work 3-4 days per week which for 99% of the population is simply not feasible.

Dicehunter said:

The reason these studies show this is because people have become very self entitled and severely lazy.

I have routinely worked 12+ hour days for 6 days of the week, I'm still here, It didn't kill me, It didn't cause me stress, I got paid for my time, There are very few jobs where you can go up to the boss or organiser and say "I only want to work 6 hours today for a total of 3 days a week" well good luck with that as you're about to be fired and replaced, Even with that aside you'd have to have a very high paying job to only work 3-4 days per week which for 99% of the population is simply not feasible.

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Depends on the job, something like programming can't be done effectively without full focus, and you can't maintain that for longer than a few hours a day.
Something you can zone out to like warehouse work etc, sure, why not. But quite a few people who have bragged about working long hours have also been fairly slow and inefficient while working, with lots of time spent chatting, chugging coffee and so forth.

looz said:

Depends on the job, something like programming can't be done effectively without full focus, and you can't maintain that for longer than a few hours a day.
Something you can zone out to like warehouse work etc, sure, why not. But quite a few people who have bragged about working long hours have also been fairly slow and inefficient while working, with lots of time spent chatting, chugging coffee and so forth.

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That's usually office workers, When I used to go round to different offices installing computers, Replacing equipment, Printers etc... you would see them making every excuse to not work, Drink coffee, Walking slowly to and from the toilet XD

looz said:

Depends on the job, something like programming can't be done effectively without full focus, and you can't maintain that for longer than a few hours a day.
Something you can zone out to like warehouse work etc, sure, why not. But quite a few people who have bragged about working long hours have also been fairly slow and inefficient while working, with lots of time spent chatting, chugging coffee and so forth.

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You're right about programming jobs. It requires intense focus and it's constantly a problem solving puzzle. It's a very mentally taxing profession. It's also why many tech companies offer free food, gyms, or even beer/whiskey/etc around the clock for free. It's to relax and keep you mentally healthy. That's how it is in the US at least. You may end up working longer hours with more breaks but in the long run you end up providing more useful labor than a quick one month burn out. Which is very easy to do even if you love doing it.

Dicehunter said:

The reason these studies show this is because people have become very self entitled and severely lazy.

I have routinely worked 12+ hour days for 6 days of the week, I'm still here, It didn't kill me, It didn't cause me stress, I got paid for my time, There are very few jobs where you can go up to the boss or organiser and say "I only want to work 6 hours today for a total of 3 days a week" well good luck with that as you're about to be fired and replaced, Even with that aside you'd have to have a very high paying job to only work 3-4 days per week which for 99% of the population is simply not feasible.

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I do 4 days a week And flexi time so I work the hours I want as long as my tasks get completed, the innovation moves forward and I keep on top of the ever evolving telecommunications industry.

Not to brag, but I do love my job

It's amazing to see people commenting here with such a blasé attitude.

It's disgusting. No, if they were working 5hour days, 3 days a week they would not be able to turn out an amazing game in that timeframe.

But we're talking about a corporation. An entity that employs people to help produce a product. They KNOW how long it takes to make something. They have people there, like project managers, who are paid 7 figure salaries to manage workloads and plan. CB has spend years in development. It's not like they didn't realise that there would be a push toward the end.

That's what makes this so bad. Because they went on record and promised that this would not happen. And that is a disgrace. Why promise something if you know you can't keep the promise?

Anybody who says the devs should feel lucky or that they are passionate are just spewing BS. It is poor treatment and abuse of labour cut and dry, no it's, no buts. If you don't see it that way that is fine, but know that you are part of the problem.

A game does not have to abuse workers to be good. It could be just as good if more people were working on it or they simply took longer to make it. But that all costs money. Make no mistake, it's only about money. This game is going to take a boatload of it whenever it releases, but rather sooner than later, no matter the human cost. People are cheap and expendable.

Syphadeus said:

It's amazing to see people commenting here with such a blasé attitude.

It's disgusting. No, if they were working 5hour days, 3 days a week they would not be able to turn out an amazing game in that timeframe.

But we're talking about a corporation. An entity that employs people to help produce a product. They KNOW how long it takes to make something. They have people there, like project managers, who are paid 7 figure salaries to manage workloads and plan. CB has spend years in development. It's not like they didn't realise that there would be a push toward the end.

That's what makes this so bad. Because they went on record and promised that this would not happen. And that is a disgrace. Why promise something if you know you can't keep the promise?

Anybody who says the devs should feel lucky or that they are passionate are just spewing BS. It is poor treatment and abuse of labour cut and dry, no it's, no buts. If you don't see it that way that is fine, but know that you are part of the problem.

A game does not have to abuse workers to be good. It could be just as good if more people were working on it or they simply took longer to make it. But that all costs money. Make no mistake, it's only about money. This game is going to take a boatload of it whenever it releases, but rather sooner than later, no matter the human cost. People are cheap and expendable.

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I agree. Except the bold comment. No one will ever know how long a product takes to produce unless you have made that same identical product before. Otherwise it takes all amounts of trial and testing and refinement processes. These alone can delay things indefinately.

I agree, if a company doesn't have enough manpower to complete a task within a given time, then they should hire more staff, rather than forcing the employees into intensive 6 day weeks that will certainly harm their per hour productivity, not like there's any shortage of people willing to do the work. While they wouldn't have known the exact timeframes and resources they'd need, it's not like they haven't delayed this game and been hit this exact issue in the media a couple of times before. But yep, cheaper to just push current staff to their limits than do the work expanding teams and integrating new members.

But hiring new people would cost a lot in the long run, and dumping them isn't trivial in Poland. Capable people likely wouldn't want a temporary contract.

There's no shortage of people just looking for some work experience to prove their skills, a lot of people in the game industry will actually do essentially volunteer work at the moment, assisting with passion projects just to put something on their CV, I'm sure many would be happy with a temp paid position. Similarly there's no shortage of freelance artists, programmers or game developers out there more than happy to work under strict NDAs if they were willing to outsource.

But tbh theres no reason why some of these shouldn't also be viable as long term hires, the game is gonna be under continuous development for a while with their roadmap and CD Projekt Red seems to have staff complaints issues with every game they release.

Ultimately this is a practice that saves (When referring to large established) companies money but harms the constituent country & community in reduced employment(More people requiring state aid, less people spending into economy, paying taxes, ect) and citizen health and happiness, with all the long consequences that can have on state health and mental health infrastructure use.

looz said:

But hiring new people would cost a lot in the long run, and dumping them isn't trivial in Poland. Capable people likely wouldn't want a temporary contract.

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There are so many trying to break into this industry that they need the resume details more than anything. "worked on product X for CDprojektRed" is far better than "graduated 2 years ago but not had opportunities yet"

You have freelance coders, interns, and all sorts willing to work for the bare minimum to get that experience,and who knows, those who excel can find themselves with a permanent placement.

Warchild said:

There are so many trying to break into this industry that they need the resume details more than anything. "worked on product X for CDprojektRed" is far better than "graduated 2 years ago but not had opportunities yet"

You have freelance coders, interns, and all sorts willing to work for the bare minimum to get that experience,and who knows, those who excel can find themselves with a permanent placement.

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More likely that their workflow takes some time to get accustomed to, and they realised that the deadline won't be reachable way late. And they decided that sticking to the deadline > worker health in this case.

looz said:

More likely that their workflow takes some time to get accustomed to, and they realised that the deadline won't be reachable way late. And they decided that sticking to the deadline > worker health in this case.

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Seems more like it. With the crunch time scandal at netherrealms you would think companies would not go that route

Well, this is the 5th (Edit: 6th sorry) time in less than 18 months there's been a big round of media focus regarding a staff crunch and worker conditions for this game. And this isn't the first game they've had these issues on. Once or twice you can forgive mistakes, but this is a consistent behaviour of relying on multiple crunches to meet several deadlines along the way.