More like: "if you are faking outrage, to get some brownie twitter points, you are really wasting your time here"
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More like: "if you are faking outrage, to get some brownie twitter points, you are really wasting your time here"
I'm sorry that my comments were not clear enough for you.
You know, in the course of history, humanity has been able to call the dangers of a lot of jobs as "being part of it".
Men and children would work 7 days a week in a mine and the occasional gas pocket blowing up would "come with the job".
Women and children would work 7 days a week sewing together fabrics at the 8th floor of a warehouse without a safety ladder, and when those would go up like a tinder box, it would "come with the job".
Police/Firefighters would ask for bribes to save your house from burglars/fire, not even bother when it was too dangerous for them, and despotic rulers would throw away their countrymen in pointless military wars. You'd die from scurvy or get your limbs hacked off in the navy.
And then there were people who said, "hang on here. We could make things slightly better!".
"Hyperbole!" you say? Well, the solutions of these things came in tiny baby steps across centuries of improvement too.
One day, the miners and sewers got safety features. Police and fireman were expected to do their job and were given shiny new equipment so that they could do their jobs a lot safer too. Media and democracy decreased the risk of pointless wars for the military and every death is now a tragedy, while sailors in the navy have been given a better diet and more access to medicine.
I'd like to think that our human society, is based around making life better for people, just a tiny bit better everyday - even if just a little - and people not to sit around shrugging.
Game Industry Crunch? I don't expect it to vanish overnight, but let's at least commiserate with each other that: Yeah! We could make that better over the course of another century, if not this decade!
We have at the very least, the incremental urge towards it.
Kings among men!
I'm not looking for a revolution, or to adorn myself with a halo forged in the fires of righteous indignation. I'm just looking for the INCREMENTAL *URGE* towards improvement and a world where no-one has to work overtime. Can I get a millimeter towards that? Half of one? How hard do I need to squeeze the stone for the milk of human kindness? You guys must be able to envision or desire a world where everyone has it a little bit better? I don't get the reactionary urge to defend the negative as part-of-the-course, the reasoning that our present society is as good as it could possibly get, and judging any kind of societal improvement as just snowflake thinking.
Alright, tone it down now.I for one am not so ethical that I won't buy the game in November. Just that I would've been okay waiting a little longer and not willing to have this news go buy without at least mentioning it here.
We are in agreement. This is sad and/or not-ideal. That's all I wanted to point out here.
I'm a centrist myself, so yeah, calling things an evil corporation because of it this is a BIG stretch. Still, you are talking my language. Thing got better in the past. I just harbor a hope they'll get even better in future. CDPR tried, failed and let's hope they do better next time.
Go, Go, CDPR!
Well, a world without overtime would require revolution.
Look, this is real life, not a fantasy utopia where everything is rainbows and kittens.
Did you know people crunch on their own working on personal projects?
The problem with overtime and crunch isnt just that they exist. Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with either. Why is talked about as a bad thing in the context of the gaming industry is because its at unhealthy levels and embeded in the culture, and people are not being compesated fairly a lot of the time either.
None of that is happening here. This is a few weeks of extra work to push the product into completion. It sucks sure to not have a few weekends in a row, but that is life. This is what happens in reality. And it really, is not a big deal. I am, 100 percent sure that people on the interenet feel hundres of times worse about it and are more outraged about it that anyone working there.
Dont just hear "crunch" and shout abuse. Actually gauge your reaction to the situation and context. In this case, its literally just a few weeks of one extra 8 hour day to get it done.
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If overtime is payed well, i don't see the problem. A lot of people complaining need a reality check. And you know what? it's not like these people are busting their ass for some iphone cases, this is arguably one of the biggest games to release ever and a great addition to your resume.
It's fun how "reality check" is always called about the worst examples and never the bests.
Who said anything about bad working conditions?
They work one extra days until game release with paid overtime.
If only people showed this much care about the countless starving children that work in India their whole lives or africa or some other asian countries.
Basically they will work 7 days extra in total until the game releases.
Pretty sure the devs aren't exactly ' mad ' about it.
They worked on this project for 8 years and more or less many of them did voulentary overtime due to the passion they have for the project.
Did you see how many people started complaining when they delayed the game last time? No matter the choice delay or push for the finish it seems people cant be content and they 'look bad' in all the scenarios
So long as it wont cause someone health problems, they get compensated, and have everything such as food/water breaks and opportunities to perhaps opt out incase of emergency I feel like doing a little extra now is not too unethical.
They want this game to define gaming and their company for years to come.
I love CDPR too!Hang on CDPR team !
You're really close to the finish line.
Love to all of you
Everyone, PLEASE watch this video by lastknownmeal. I feel like it's the most fair and balanced and honest and non-biased LEAST clickbait-est review of this whole situation. I really felt like they made a lot of sense in this video out of many different videos I watched on the subject, and I felt they made a lot of really good points. Also I think there are huge motives for other people out there to say bad things about CDPR, I wont say who, or what those motives may be though. All I'm saying is I think this is all some overblown clickbait hit piece on CDPR specifically BECAUSE they're the best good guys in the whole industry.
I like the way lastknownmeal puts what they have to say in their own way. I really appreciated their fair take on it. Everyone that's freaking out, just relax and breath for a moment. Think about it. Someone even said they're working only 6-7 extra days.... that's it. And it's payed. (good laws) The game is about to release anyway. The devs want us to play this game that they worked hard on. Boycotting the game is also silly because it means less money gets split between the team that worked so hard on it. This is a labor of love, but sometimes giving birth hurts. Being born hurts too. Creation is a difficult process for humans. I am just grateful that this is supposedly only just very well paid overtime for a couple of extra days (about a week?) under CDPR which are very nice, in comparison to 100% unpaid crunch-hell that lasts years and years at some company where there are no laws and regulations to ensure employee well being. Remember, this is CDPR right? Not... well I shouldn't say. Lol.
LMAO
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Yea, I think most of these people I think are young armchair activists who don't hold jobs in real life. A week later they will find something else outrageous and complain about it on Twitter. I have been seeing different content creators talk about this issue and most youtubers and commenters seem to agree that this is not crunch but overtime. Also, they are getting payed for it.
Also, for clarification, I wasn't talking about people on this forum more like people on twitter and Youtube going crazy because of this new revelation.
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Honestly, this is just the way project based jobs go. Most of my adult life has been spent in project work, and no matter the specific nature of the job (professional, academic, whatever), every project based job I've ever worked has had slack time and crunch time. That's just the way things are, because you can't always successfully predict which of the thousand sub-components will end up taking more time and effort than you planned, and there are some elements that can't be done until those longer-than-expected components are completed.
If you're working 80 hour weeks standard, then there's a fundamental problem. But if you're in the final portion of the project, long work hours are normal. Anybody who can't deal with that aspect of the job needs to find a new profession. If the folks at CDPR had been pulling all-nighters for the past year trying to make a deadline (that's already been moved twice to prevent such an overload, but ...) then I'd be pretty annoyed at them. But the game releases in a month, and has be finalized pretty much right now. So at this point, something would be askew if they weren't working long, hard hours.
TLDR; I don't doubt that they're working 6 day weeks right now. They probably should be.
If you're working 80 hour weeks standard, then there's a fundamental problem. But if you're in the final portion of the project, long work hours are normal. Anybody who can't deal with that aspect of the job needs to find a new profession. If the folks at CDPR had been pulling all-nighters for the past year trying to make a deadline (that's already been moved twice to prevent such an overload, but ...) then I'd be pretty annoyed at them. But the game releases in a month, and has be finalized pretty much right now. So at this point, something would be askew if they weren't working long, hard hours.
TLDR; I don't doubt that they're working 6 day weeks right now. They probably should be.
This is completely dumb. They are working their normal hours plus one extra day a week. They are sharing the profits of the game with these employees making them independently wealthy. I would be one of the ones volunteering for crunch time all the time. Heck, in Japan the work weeks get ridiculous for FAR less compensation. So no I'm not going to be all "poor employees you are being forced to put in the extra work that is NEEDED to get the game out so we can all reap the benefits and not disappoint the fans some of whom have taken vacation days off just to play our game."
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Well said.
And here we have the example of "these people have it worse so it's okay to force overtime". This isn't a question of getting paid for work. It's about caring about employee health and welfare. Forcing a time crunch leads to stress and overexertion. Stress and overexertion lead to mistakes. It doesn't have to be the number of hours, the knowledge that you are forced into working to a fast approaching deadline is more than enough. Tag on a 48 hour work week and the stress can (and most often does) boil over.
They explicitly stated they would not make their employees perform crunch time and then they decided to do it anyhow. Is it in the last two months before release? Yes. Does that change the fact that they did it even though they said they wouldn't? No.
The thing is that the work hours are arbitrary anyway to provide a reasonable baseline for a contract, but are in no way realistic compared to the way software is done. Sometime you do 20 hours of productive work a week, sometimes 70 because a new regulation is shat by your country and you have to change everything or lose a fuckton.
Nobody is forced into working, and while that sounds easy to say because yes people need it for food, there's always ways to accept something difficult for a while and leave as soon as opportunities present themselves - or actively create these opportunities. The best way I found to be happy at work is consider it a market and remind my overlords that if they cross my limits I may have to propose my services elsewhere.
For instance, I was recently politely asked not to take holidays I planned months ahead, because it would be more convenient for everyone if I split them in 2, a bit later. Well you weigh the pros and cons, you say yes because it's not like you have a choice but then you decide if really that's gonna be a problem. It's not prison yet, and the employees can now face the choice: do they think it should be done another way and do their own studio, or stick to it because they agree with the higher purpose...
CDProjekt is a bad company, for many more reasons than overtime, and their guys have to spin off at some point, or the output will suffer. But asking for a sacrifices is normal in human groups be they transactional companies or religious camps, charity groups or government agencies, because the future can't be planned and the past can't be changed.
Nobody is forced into working, and while that sounds easy to say because yes people need it for food, there's always ways to accept something difficult for a while and leave as soon as opportunities present themselves - or actively create these opportunities. The best way I found to be happy at work is consider it a market and remind my overlords that if they cross my limits I may have to propose my services elsewhere.
For instance, I was recently politely asked not to take holidays I planned months ahead, because it would be more convenient for everyone if I split them in 2, a bit later. Well you weigh the pros and cons, you say yes because it's not like you have a choice but then you decide if really that's gonna be a problem. It's not prison yet, and the employees can now face the choice: do they think it should be done another way and do their own studio, or stick to it because they agree with the higher purpose...
CDProjekt is a bad company, for many more reasons than overtime, and their guys have to spin off at some point, or the output will suffer. But asking for a sacrifices is normal in human groups be they transactional companies or religious camps, charity groups or government agencies, because the future can't be planned and the past can't be changed.
Without the company there won't be any employees. Have you thought about that? CDPR do care. They are paying extra for the overtime, even if they don't have to. They do care, because they want their product to be as successful as possible, which means the employees will still get their jobs and there won't be any cuts. I'm baffled that so many people don't understand the world they are living in.
Based on this, sounds like game development is cakewalk. Release the game once or twice a decade, and have to work OT for a couple of weeks? Sign me up. In the meantime, people in accounting have to work OT every month/quarter to close the books. Doctors in hospitals work endless hours all the time... police, fire department, IT... the list goes on. But... OMG... poor game devs have to work extra 8 hrs for a month or two... oh, the humanity... the poor souls, under so much pressure... give me a break.
I guess anything with OT in game development is considered a crunch time now. And the people arguing about CDPR not carrying about their employees are either blind or naive. Poland is home to more than one dev studio, not to mention neighboring countries. If any one of them was so poorly treated like some of the people here and elsewhere have suggested, wouldn't you think they would've quit by now? So why haven't they? Do you think the employees at CDPR can't think for themselves, and need you to outrage in their name? Don't kid yourself... the only people benefiting from this are the weasels with click bait headlines, getting your clicks.
I think it's because of the contrast between their daily job and their output. People who play games find it fun and cool and then look at how it is to actually work there. It must be better than their shitty job answering angry calls, or serving clients, or this or that and then realize the guys work hard, in constant brain drain, on solving mathematical problems and dealing with absolute production chaos, like a B movies studio mixed with a chinese WoW gold farming sweatshop.
Imagine if you could build a building with 10 architects that hate each other and change anything at any point of time without seemingly damaging the past work: buildings would never be finished, change shape all the time, construction workers would die at 30 and every building would crash after a few years. That's what software dev looks like and maybe that shock people who didn't expect to see the grind.
But from the inside, CDP looks like they have it alright. I've seen companies with worse churn and no deliverable to show for it... that's already something to be making money, let alone progress lol
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Then explain me why?
Explain me why missing working hours cannot lead to using more employees instead, like my previous company did.
Explain me why deadlines doesn't take that extra needed time from the start, even through the company itself can choose the deadline (in opposition to jobs where multiples companies compete for the same job, like construction sites where being the fastest can gets you the contract).
Because bringing more people will not automatically speed up the project? Because deadlines are imperfect and are not able to include all possible issues which may happen? Because it's not only about bringing your product, but also all the other stuff, like marketing campaigns, 3rd party products, getting your financial stuff together and so on?
I mean this is basic knowledge for anyone who did at least one project which involved more than 5 people. How you cannot understand that?
It depend on tasks.
If usually doesn't works very well with creative part of work, but works well with technical aspects.
And by CDprojekt own declarations they have finished the game long ago and now are polishing technical aspects since then.
And?
If systematically there is crunch, that means your planned "$hit happens" time is always underestimated.
That also means that if you don't make it bigger each time it happens, then you becomes responsible for it: You cannot plan only 10% of "$hit happens" time when there is never under 30% of "$hit happens" time and say you're not responsible for it.
Normally those articulates around the main project (minus the financial stuff, but financial stuff are also equally screwed by reports resulting from bad planification anyway) and not the other way around.
That's actually another reason why "$hit happens" time should not be underestimated.
Because I worked for a company who did it just right (and should work there again when I will get vaccined against Covid-19), and that in my previous business planning "$hit happens" time was one of the thing I did right.
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