Cyberpunk 2077 Devs Reportedly Working 6-Day Weeks To Finish The Game

[weirdwayne15]

Now crunch is something that stays in the grey zone, it's almost a form of mobbing, when employees are strongarmed, intimidated and manipulated into working more for unlimited and unspecified periods of time, very often without additional pay. This leads to burnout and toxicity in the workplace. It's usually also much more difficult to prove in court, because of methods used by employers.

That wouldn't be a grey zone. That would be immoral and in most cases illegal and in all cases impractical.

You see if you happen to work your employees like that you can get a productivity boost in the VERY short term. At a cost of moral and energy in the long term which significantly hurts productivity. So I can't see any successful business actually engaging in this, especially when you can't easily replace people like in game development. "burnout" is like the name implies. You've "burnt out" your resource like a candle that has been spent.

What CDPR has been described as having done is requiring an extra day of work. Previously it was optional now it's required. In my previous job I was required to work 7 days a week twice a year. That's no big deal. It does not burn you out. It may suck, but that's not burnout. I'm certain in other game development studios they may be using "crunch" to require 10-14 hour work days. Which may suck, but it's doable. There's also no room to complain if they are upfront about it.

In the case of CDPR they were upfront that any "crunch time" or as we all typically know it as "over time" that employees wanted to put in they were allowed to put in. That they wouldn't be forcing it. It's true that they've gone back on that. However working an additional non-consecutive 7 days because you're absolutely needed is not egregious in any way shape or form. If they had forced them to work the "crunch time" hours for months on end or even for 3 weeks that would be a different story. That would mean they would have lied to them willfully.

Instead there were problems in development, note the developers are the ones engaging in said development so they are problems that they did create that they have to find a way to resolve, so a few extra hours are needed. It's completely understandable.

 

[KakitaTatsumaru]

Of course you are saying that they are equally bad - by simple stating that "CDPR does the crunch". It's not crunch.

Your definition of crunch isn't the same as mine:
(software engineering, slang, transitive) To make employees work overtime in order to meet a deadline in the development of a project.

crunch - Wiktionary

en.wiktionary.org

David Mullich
, International Game Developers Association, LA Chapter Board
Answered March 22, 2020 · Author has 20.8K answers and 33M answer views
“Crunch” means to work overtime in order to meet a scheduled delivery on time.

In video game development, what does 'crunch' mean? - Quora

To me and by definition, it is crunch.
Not the worst, illegal kind, but still crunch.

 

[Metropolice]

Haven't seen all posts (could say I'm on a time crunch myself) but the last and OP criticizing crunch based on prior statements and their views.

And I obviously don't know the situation at the studio.

But I would say this is not the "bad crunch" that may exist out there. Does it impact some of the employees negatively? Probably, surely does. But if stated that they exhausted all other options and want to deliver on time, that's the measure they have to pick. The question is perhaps not so much "crunch yes/no". I mean sure, if it could be avoided it would always be better.

But my point is, I feel that based on statements (that might not be pure marketing based on the conveyed emotions and body language) by many devs that they are immensively proud of their product and their art and work. I can see a difference in working overtime when you are forced to and dont want to vs when you believe in something or see the bigger picture behind it.

Long story short, overtime is usually never good, at least not in the long run but I assume in this case it is perhaps something the staff and devs can get behind. And statements indicate it's not like they get nothing out of it.

I can't obviously speak for all but I don't mind overtime for something I believe, to reach some deadline. I work in civil sector so my work indirectly benefits "the people". If situation arises that demands overtime, I will gladly do so and contribute because it might affect the bigger picture. In this case and for CDPR, "the people" could be all the customers, no, fans, they would reach with their work. Maybe same principle on a difference scale, really.

I'm not saying it would always be easy or fun to work overtime, but I can get behind that notion.

 

[doktor_fleck]

Your definition of crunch isn't the same as mine:
(software engineering, slang, transitive) To make employees work overtime in order to meet a deadline in the development of a project.

crunch - Wiktionary

en.wiktionary.org

David Mullich
, International Game Developers Association, LA Chapter Board
Answered March 22, 2020 · Author has 20.8K answers and 33M answer views
“Crunch” means to work overtime in order to meet a scheduled delivery on time.

In video game development, what does 'crunch' mean? - Quora

To me and by definition, it is crunch.
Not the worst, illegal kind, but still crunch.

There is no negative connotation in this definition of the "crunch" - it basically describes overtime. Overtime which, in contrary to this "definition", is clearly defined and described in Polish work law.

 

[Spockprime]

Call it whatever you wish, as long as the employees are fairly compensated for it, and as long as it isn't the standard work practice.

About the employees themselves, all I know is this. If I were in their place (and I have been), with just a few weeks left I would be begging to work the additional hours to perfect the thing that I've invested the past five years of my life doing. For example, if I were one of the car artists, I'd be desperate to fix that last line that's slightly out of place on the door. It may take a while before a consumer notices the flaw, but eventually they'll see it. More importantly, I see it, and it reflects the quality of my work. I'm a professional. I want to fix it, and I'm running out of chances to do it.

I suspect that most of the people working at CDPR consider themselves professionals and have that same mindset.

 

[KakitaTatsumaru]

About the employees themselves, all I know is this. If I were in their place (and I have been), with just a few weeks left I would be begging to work the additional hours to perfect the thing that I've invested the past five years of my life doing. For example, if I were one of the car artists, I'd be desperate to fix that last line that's slightly out of place on the door. It may take a while before a consumer notices the flaw, but eventually they'll see it. More importantly, I see it, and it reflects the quality of my work. I'm a professional. I want to fix it, and I'm running out of chances to do it.

I suspect that most of the people working at CDPR consider themselves professionals and have that same mindset.

Your explanation would works wonder if it wasn't "mandatory".

Post automatically merged: Oct 4, 2020

There is no negative connotation in this definition of the "crunch" - it basically describes overtime. Overtime which, in contrary to this "definition", is clearly defined and described in Polish work law.

You don't see negative connotation, I do.

 

[gogmeister777]

They explicitly stated they would not make their employees perform crunch time and then they decided to do it anyhow.

Ok, I'm quoting you but this reply goes to so many people as I've seen this said many times.

Afaik, they never said there would be no crunch. They said they would do their best to avoid it but it would probably be needed. This was reported back in Jan, I believe. They never promised no crunch.

If we work with the notion that full production started in 2016, then we could say that dev time has been 4 years. So, they said they'd do their best to avoid crunch and managed to do that for, roughly, 202 weeks out of 208 - oh, the horror, the treacherous planning.

If there was contradicting info released later that I'm not aware of, then I apologise.

So, why have so many people got this idea? I can only imagine it's because of Schreier's article that dishonestly implies they went back on their word. Because 'drama', I guess.

People can criticise all they want but it's only fair to keep things accurate and work with the facts.

Post automatically merged: Oct 4, 2020

With clickbait reporting like the Schreier's article, things will only get worse.

First and foremost, I can see a line being blurred between overtime and actual crunch.

Those situations/phenomenons are different. Overtime is legal, regulated by law (at least in Europe) - and paid extra. It's a simple, "honest", straightforward transaction - employee works more = gets paid for it. There are state agencies that are dedicated to audit employers' practices and take legal action if any rules were broken.

Now crunch is something that stays in the grey zone, it's almost a form of mobbing, when employees are strongarmed, intimidated and manipulated into working more for unlimited and unspecified periods of time, very often without additional pay. This leads to burnout and toxicity in the workplace. It's usually also much more difficult to prove in court, because of methods used by employers.

So, by falsely equating overtime with crunch, it will only get worse for employees. Companies will have less motivation to implement legal, paid overtime because they will get blasted for it anyway(just like it is the case with CDPR). And with lines being blurred, it will be harder for the employees to prove mistreatment in courts, knowing corporate lawyers' methods.

Couldn't agree more, as I've mentioned previously, and I'm glad you called out Schreier's clickbait wording.

He obviously, and predictably, felt that saying employees were facing mandatory overtime just didn't sound juicy enough. I also think he crossed the line saying CDPR reneged, unless there's an article that backs up that claim.

 

[ajje]

at this point it’s an expectation that anyone wanting to work in the gaming industry should have. Like injuries in football, being on call as a Doctor, and your life being on the line as a cop/firefighter/military. It just comes with the job, at least CDPR is paying them for the extra hours.

I would say it's not just an expectation in the games industry, but in any software development job.
The more ambitious the project, the longer the time horizon, the higher the risk that actual falls way outside the projected span of target dates. During development, you mitigate by trimming scope or pushing deadlines.

At a certain point however, many projects run into a sort of frozen core set of features that simply must work and ship together as a whole, else the product will not work. The other element that manifests when a project gets closer to the initial projected target date is that expectations get locked. Those expectations typically get locked to dates that coincide with key events planned by your main stakeholders. E.g. christmas shopping window for a publisher, new model launch by a car vendor, live demo of a weapons system, firmware update window of a partner's products, which may be your only chance to get your product to market etc.

Aside from freelancing CRUD website instantiators, most non-trivial SW dev work runs into this sort of situation. As a developer, you know this is the norm. You take that into account when you accept the position. And as the PP mentioned, crunches are not something unique to the SW/HW dev professions. Long term planning is hard. Factoring in all unknowns that will surface across the span of several years is impossible, and with external expectations you can not just push dates forever. You always have someone to whom you need to honor commitments. When you have agreed on a shipping date, and have the expected feature set signed off, you are locked in. That's when a crunch is your only practical way out.

There are of course different ways of managing and preparing for crunches. Good PMs, aside from trying to avoid locking expectations for as long as possible, also plan for these events far in advance, to help reduce the strain on the teams and to keep morale up (incentives) during the period. From what I've read, it seems CDPR has been doing just that, so I doubt the rumored crunch the team is in came as a complete surprise to anyone involved.

 

[superpunked2077]

I don't remember saying somewhere that employees should be hired at the last second.

right here.

Then explain me why?
Explain me why missing working hours cannot lead to using more employees instead, like my previous company did.

It is currently last second.

 

[KakitaTatsumaru]

right here.

It is currently last second.

And it should have been done earlier.
Getting late is a tendency you see early, not something that suddenly appears.

 

[superpunked2077]

And it should have been done earlier.
Getting late is a tendency you see early, not something that suddenly appears.

No offence, but you have literally no idea what its like inside cdpr or what lead to this final run being required, and probably what its like inside any game dev studio at all.

They originally thought they could release in april. *april*. Remember. Things arent as easy as you assume.

 

[KakitaTatsumaru]

If there was contradicting info released later that I'm not aware of, then I apologise.
So, why have so many people got this idea? I can only imagine it's because of Schreier's article that dishonestly implies they went back on their word.

Adam Badowski:

“I take it upon myself to receive the full backlash for the decision,” he wrote. “I know this is in direct opposition to what we’ve said about crunch. It’s also in direct opposition to what I personally grew to believe a while back"

 

[ReptilePZ]

Deadline-driven development in a nutshell, what else is new?

As long as people are compensated for the extra hours they put in, and those extra hours are reasonable and within the limits provided by the law, then I don't see what the problem is or what's so unusual about it. In fact, the only problem I see is that the media is trying to paint this as CDPR breaking a promise, when all I remember is them committing to attempt to reduce crunch - and only the devs know if CDPR has delivered on that promise.

The other important thing is what this final push is for - crunching just to deliver the MVP is an issue because it usually means a broken/poor product (e.g. live service mentality - deliver MVP now, fix it with patches later). But if they're making this push for final polishing of an already-complete product, which appears to be the case, then I don't see an issue.

 

[doktor_fleck]

Adam Badowski:

Adam Kicinski direct quote: "To some degree, yes – to be honest. We try to limit crunch as much as possible, but it is the final stage. We try to be reasonable in this regard, but yes. Unfortunately. "

They never promised that there will be no "crunch". They've tried, they've failed, and Adam has the balls to be on the receiving end of the mob. Kudos to him.

 

[gogmeister777]

Adam Badowski:

Thanks but I'be already read that - after all, it was in the announcement that started this. I'd prefer a link to an article where they promised no crunch since that's what so many keep claiming.

Doing something that goes against what you believe in or what you had hoped to avoid isn't the same as a promise or giving your word, so to speak.

Here, a link from January.

Cyberpunk 2077 developers will be required to crunch following its delay

Overworked developers have plagued CD Projekt Red for years.

www.pcgamer.com

EDIT: Just read doktor_fleck's post and realise he has already given this info. Sorry for the repetition.

 

[KakitaTatsumaru]

I will ask it here because I don't want to pollute the "GOLD" topic, but if the game has really gone gold, why overtime instead of normal hours for the future patch?

 

[gregski]

I will ask it here because I don't want to pollute the "GOLD" topic, but if the game has really gone gold, why overtime instead of normal hours for the future patch?

Just to make sure that Day 1 patch catches as many bugs as it can?

 

[KakitaTatsumaru]

Just to make sure that Day 1 patch catches as many bugs as it can?

It cannot just be that, can it?

 

[weirdwayne15]

It cannot just be that, can it?

I think you don't understand the scope of game development and exactly how big and complicated Cyberpunk 2077 is. Yes, there are a vast multitude of bugs in normal game development. Some are minor like you press B as soon as you sell an item and you keep the money and the item. Others are "if you jump while someone is speaking in the street across from you the game crashes" You can have 10s of thousands of these bugs and sometimes when fixing one 3 more appear. Unfortunately Bugs can't be crushed while developing it MUST wait until the game is finished otherwise you can't progress and can create more problems.

 

[gregski]

It cannot just be that, can it?

I can't imagine it being anything else. 7 weeks to launch, nothing means more than releasing a product that is as polished as possible.