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

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I'd love to hear more about all those 9-5, M-F, high paying jobs from people saying 8hr is inhumane. I wouldn't mind changing industry while I still can.

The problem is that no one, no one at all, actually said anything like that.
You are making it sound as if working extray days, extra shifts and through whole nights, is the same as a regular 9-5 job. That isn't what's going on here, that isn't what anybody said was happening.

[...] I don't know, but either way, your post doesn't at all reflect the reality of the situation, NOR what was people here in the thread were discussing.

For me this thread is sadly just another example of people trying to justify wrong behaviour, because in the end all they care about is getting their games or because they love CDPR and won't accept any criticism, no matter how warranted.

I wrote before that I can see why it is happening and can understand it and it's also clearly not the same when you are actually paid for all the overtime, so that means that what is happening at CDPR is not the worst situation.
Yet it is also not a good situation, when on top of people already working overtime and working through nights, the studio still feels the need to implement mandatory crunch policies, that means adding more stress and pressure on people who already have been working under a lot of stress and pressure for at least this year.
I've worked high pressure jobs, with a lot of hours, but at the worst the crunch was about 2-3 weeks a time, not for basically a whole year and then even more in the last six weeks.
I envy anybody who actually can work under this conditions, without burning out, though I think a lot of people are just talking crap tbh.
I worked in a company a few years ago, in the sales department responsible for worldwide exports, which had been shrunk down from 15 people to five in half a year, with the five of us being expected to do all the work 15 people did before, of course the sales broke down in the first quarter under the new conditions, but only 25% (and still they ripped us a new one for it) and we were able to get out of that minus and even get a small plus at the end of the first year, but everyone of us had worked themselves to the bone.
We all did it under the assumption that the company would change the situation, as long as we were able to keep the ship running as long as it took. Supposedly local branches on the other continents and Eastern Europe were supposed to do sales in their regions, that was the plan.
Yet it never happened and when that became clear, that the situation with all this stress and overtime and pressure wouldn't change, I broke down and two of my colleagues did as well (it took them a little longer), so I know how a job situation like this can wear you down, even when you are paid for overtime and even get nice bonuses. It works for a time, for some longer than others, but most people break at some point.
 
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Hardly Schreier being dishonest, the bloomberg article made it clear that it was about the mandatory overtime (the FORCED overtime) and when you say you will implement a non-mandatory crunch policy and then go and do exactly that YOU ARE in fact going AGAINST YOUR WORD, whether the word promise was actually used or not.

This is nothing like "FORCED overtime". Yes, it is mandatory for the employee to perform tasks given by the employer, this is how employment works. The employer has a right to introduce overtime, with its time and payment conditions regulated by Polish labour law. There is nothing FORCED about it, employer instructs employees to perform additional tasks. The employees are protected by labour law and receive overtime pay for that effort. By your logic, every time the employer gives you a task he FORCES you to do something.

Now, FORCED overtime as you call it will actually be crunch. It will be FORCED by strongarming, manipulating and softly blackmailing employees to perform additional tasks without any time limit, payment guarantees and labour law protection. It's unlawful, toxic and should be punished. It is not the case here.
 
This is nothing like "FORCED overtime". Yes, it is mandatory for the employee to perform tasks given by the employer, this is how employment works. The employer has a right to introduce overtime, with its time and payment conditions regulated by Polish labour law. There is nothing FORCED about it, employer instructs employees to perform additional tasks. The employees are protected by labour law and receive overtime pay for that effort. By your logic, every time the employer gives you a task he FORCES you to do something.

Now, FORCED overtime as you call it will actually be crunch. It will be FORCED by strongarming, manipulating and softly blackmailing employees to perform additional tasks without any time limit, payment guarantees and labour law protection. It's unlawful, toxic and should be punished. It is not the case here.

So you say that basically saying:"Do that or else you lose you job." isn't a form of coercion? (Even if as you say perfectly legal)
I thought that many people (not me, through) thought this being suicide worthy.
I remember once when one of my clients tell me she would not renew my contract because she has been fired, she started to cry even if we only was almost a stranger to her and that we were talking on phone, so much that I ended up reassuring her for almost an hour.

To sum it up, I would say it's legal coercion.
 
So you say that basically saying:"Do that or else you lose you job." isn't a form of coercion? (Even if as you say perfectly legal)
I thought that many people (not me, through) thought this being suicide worthy.
I remember once when one of my clients tell me she would not renew my contract because she has been fired, she started to cry even if we only was almost a stranger to her and that we were talking on phone, so much that I ended up reassuring her for almost an hour.

To sum it up, I would say it's legal coercion.

What you quoted is exactly what happens during crunch. People get blackmailed, usually not openly but in a more covert way, that they will lose their job if they don't stay late, work weekends and don't they even dare to mention adequate pay.

This is not what happens here. The employer uses his RIGHT to ask his employees to work more and employees use their RIGHT to get payed extra for that, while having their other RIGHTS protected by law.

I don't understand how you can call a basic concept of a company paying people for performing tasks the company needs completed "coercion". It's not coercion, it's called "employment".
 
So you say that basically saying:"Do that or else you lose you job." isn't a form of coercion? (Even if as you say perfectly legal)
I thought that many people (not me, through) thought this being suicide worthy.
I remember once when one of my clients tell me she would not renew my contract because she has been fired, she started to cry even if we only was almost a stranger to her and that we were talking on phone, so much that I ended up reassuring her for almost an hour.

To sum it up, I would say it's legal coercion.

I don't know how overtime is regulated where you live, in Germany the contract says how overtime is regulated.
Here is a small excerpt from the Employee Protection Act ...

The statutory overtime regulation stipulates that in certain exceptional situations, overtime may be requested beyond the agreed hours. The answer to the question "Do I have to work overtime?" there is therefore the answer: Yes, if they have been agreed or an unforeseen situation occurs that the company could not have avoided.


I think there is a similar regulation in Poland.
Neither of us knows the details of the contracts, so I think it's a little unfair to portray CDPR as the bad guys.
 
I don't know how overtime is regulated where you live, in Germany the contract says how overtime is regulated.
Here is a small excerpt from the Employee Protection Act ...

The statutory overtime regulation stipulates that in certain exceptional situations, overtime may be requested beyond the agreed hours. The answer to the question "Do I have to work overtime?" there is therefore the answer: Yes, if they have been agreed or an unforeseen situation occurs that the company could not have avoided.


I think there is a similar regulation in Poland.
Neither of us knows the details of the contracts, so I think it's a little unfair to portray CDPR as the bad guys.

It's pretty much the same in Poland.
 
Could not have said it better. Totally agree that people just have only ever heard the term "crunch" in articles totally condeming it in situations where its actually a problem and just "call the same shade of pink salmon."

Agreed, well said.

I wasn't going to post about this anymore but there was just one more point stewing away that I wanted to make.

It basically regards what I consider to be Schrier's, and the gaming press in general, use of the word 'crunch' to create clickbait.

I can't remember when the horrific stories of crunch first started. Let's say it was 5 years ago.

So, the main things these reports had in common was that devs were working in conditions that met SEVERAL of the following critreria.

1: Prolonged mandatory overtime. We're talking, say, 6 months to well over a year.

2: 80+ hours a week, or there abouts.

3: Intimidation of loss of work if non-compliant

4: Not being paid extra for overtime or sometimes not at all for extra hours worked

5: 7 day weeks

6: People having to sleep at the office

7: People ending up in hospital

THOSE are the stories that made the word 'crunch' define these terrible work practices.

It's this word, now loaded with emotion and power, that is used regardless of exact context by websites and people like Schreier simply to provoke and create drama, purely for attention and clickbait.

So, how many of the above criteria does CDPR's 6 day week for 6 weeks meet?

Point 1? And even then only partially?

Look at it this way. If Kotaku had, all those years ago, tried to tell us about awful work environments and all they wrote was a story with a headline that read...

"Devs implement mandatory 6 day week for 6 weeks - employees suffering!"

...what do you think the overall reaction would have been? I think it's highly likely people would have ridiculed them.

So if, 5 years ago, we would have said the 6x6 seems reasonable in the push to bug-crunch, what has changed now?

Imho, it's quite simply the fact the word is so emotionally charged combined with 'outrage culture'. It's all 'shoot first and ask questions later' minus the part where they bother to even ask the questions.

Maybe I'll make that the mentality of one of my playthroughs :)
 
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It was a deliberate hyperbole and you missed the point.
What you quoted is exactly what happens during crunch. People get blackmailed, usually not openly but in a more covert way, that they will lose their job if they don't stay late, work weekends and don't they even dare to mention adequate pay.

This is not what happens here. The employer uses his RIGHT to ask his employees to work more and employees use their RIGHT to get payed extra for that, while having their other RIGHTS protected by law.

I don't understand how you can call a basic concept of a company paying people for performing tasks the company needs completed "coercion". It's not coercion, it's called "employment".
The problem is the word "crunch" has a negative connotation derived from past experiences elsewhere, where the said crunch was (and in some areas, still is) a problem. The fact that it also encompasses all forms of OT doesn't help the cause either. I might be wrong, but I think it was you who said the line between "crunch" and "OT" is being blurred, and that's exactly what is happening.

People don't care about facts, though... they don't care that the shutdown caused by the pandemic might have interfered with the production. They don't care that CDPR obeys Polish labor laws. None of it matters.... they see a word "crunch" (because some colorful article online wouldn't be able to generate clicks otherwise) and they pick up the pitchforks before learning anything about the situation.
 
It was a deliberate hyperbole and you missed the point.

The problem is the word "crunch" has a negative connotation derived from past experiences elsewhere, where the said crunch was (and in some areas, still is) a problem. The fact that it also encompasses all forms of OT doesn't help the cause either. I might be wrong, but I think it was you who said the line between "crunch" and "OT" is being blurred, and that's exactly what is happening.

People don't care about facts, though... they don't care that the shutdown caused by the pandemic might have interfered with the production. They don't care that CDPR obeys Polish labor laws. None of it matters.... they see a word "crunch" (because some colorful article online wouldn't be able to generate clicks otherwise) and they pick up the pitchforks before learning anything about the situation.

This, 100%.

I really feel the criticism should fit the complaint and a lot of what I've seen is ridiculosly disproportionate.

I'm not even sure many of them have read the articles. They just read the word crunch and off they went.

One way you could tell is when they said, 'Just delay it until next year!' or 'take another 6 months to finish, don't kill your employees!', even though CDPR made it clear the game was going through certification and about to go gold.
 
When I come in to engage with a topic but see that folks are ignoring the context.
 
An employer can -always- say, "do this or you lose your job." If it's legal and safe-ish. Usually. I run a demo company, so, yeah.

A nice one says, "do this and you get paid." Really though, we are saying the same thing to you.

It is up to every employee or contractor to decide if the job is worth the pay and working conditions.

A reasonable culture and civilization provides protection against predatory employers.

Occasional employer-instructed overtime is not the hallmark of a predatory employer. If it were, we would all be predatory employers. We are not, even if we ask you to work extra hours from time to time. Especially if we pay you for them, which, frankly, most of us hate, as it eats into revenue a fair chunk. Payroll is a big part of any business' expense and 1.5 times regular pay is ouch-time. Generally it is done to meet obligations to customers. Yes, it means something went wrong or was not planned for. This is life and business, that happens.

However, in the end, every employee/contractor must either do the tasks the employer gives them, during the days the employer mandates, or find a new job. This is the nature of working for someone else.

If you -run- the business, the odds are very, very high you went into stratospheric overtime in your first couple years and never returned. So there's that.

You can bet that the Bosses at CDPR aren't happy with this at all. Bad PR, extra cost, fatigued crew. It's not a great time. Sometimes, you have to push hard to get the job done though. That's the biz.
 
What you quoted is exactly what happens during crunch. People get blackmailed, usually not openly but in a more covert way, that they will lose their job if they don't stay late, work weekends and don't they even dare to mention adequate pay.

This is not what happens here. The employer uses his RIGHT to ask his employees to work more and employees use their RIGHT to get payed extra for that, while having their other RIGHTS protected by law.

I don't understand how you can call a basic concept of a company paying people for performing tasks the company needs completed "coercion". It's not coercion, it's called "employment".

And the concept of employment, of course, doesn't at all implies balance of power. Both side are perfectly equals at imposing their point of view, and both sides have as much to lose. That's the reason why employees on the planet whose company respect their country law have nothing to complain about.

As long as the law agree about something, it is always just.
That's why some country didn't ratified Convention No. 154 concerning the Promotion of Collective Bargaining , nor accepted Article 6(4) of the European Social Charter of 1961, nor ratified the Revised European Social Charter of 1996, nor ratified the Collective Complaints Procedure Protocol, (and probably other things) so everything remain perfectly lawful.
 
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This is a very fair sentiment, too!

I certainly am not implying that only the Arts suffer from times where people need to be putting in extra hours. Talk to any teacher, any police officer, any lawyer, any doctor or nurse...talk to anyone running their own business, any farmer or rancher, any one that lays concrete for a living...any parent raising children full-time, etc. There's overtime. There's lots of overtime.

But, due to the wonders of modern, human society -- we have other options! It is totally possible for people to simply focus on getting a relatively stable job in an office, working retail, working remotely, or in the service industry that not only pays a healthy living, but also comes with relatively stable hours and scheduled vacation time. (And even those jobs will wind up having to call for overtime now and then. However, it's not going to be anything like the careers I list above. A surgeon doesn't have the luxury of saying, "No, I'm not coming in now. Ask someone else." A teacher can't decide, "Marking these 250 examinations by Thursday is taking too much of my personal time; I'm not doing it." A farmer doesn't get to decide, "You've gotta be kidding me that taking in the harvest is going to require 14 hours per day. No way. Just do half." And an artist doesn't get to say, "Yeah, the film still needs 5 pickup scenes and it hasn't gone to post yet, so just release the rough cut as is. I want my weekends." Wrong careers for certain people. Luckily, there are many other paths to pursue. We must always be true to ourselves.)




That's a good summation of the mentality surrounding a lot of the heat and upset, and I think you're largely correct about the people that tend to voice these arguments being those that are speaking vestigially about it.

Although, it's also not that they're totally wrong! The 80-100 hours per week pulling families apart is exactly what was happening with certain studios. Plus, due directly to the obscene amounts of money flowing from it and the corruption that always results from that, it went on for over a decade. Anyone who tried to challenge it would never be able to afford the litigation. They would be drowned in the army of legal teams that were being handsomely paid by the very mega-corporations that had illegally seized the money the victims had earned for them. (It's the classic story, as old as time itself.)

That abuse, however, is a totally separate thing than the nature of the Arts. Inherently and inevitably, there's going to be a release date, and that date is the make-it-or-break-it for your project, whatever it is. It comes down to this: if the final result does not really speak to people, then all of the months or years of work put into it are going to mean very little in the end. So, that date of release is approaching...what do we do? Do we leave the obvious holes in the work? Or do we all chip in and pull to ensure we fulfill our vision? (I'll repeat, personally, that I have never in my life been involved in a film or stage production that didn't keep people working until 2-3 am on the weekends for at least 2-3 weeks. And we never saw a single cent in return for that extra time. And almost everyone came back for more. [Though it would have been really nice to get some extra pay -- especially when the box office struck it big. :disapprove:])

Of course, they arent totally wrong about some of it, if thats actually what was happening. Of course I have seen a lot saying that about just the 48 hours as well.
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The problem is that no one, no one at all, actually said anything like that.
You are making it sound as if working extray days, extra shifts and through whole nights, is the same as a regular 9-5 job. That isn't what's going on here, that isn't what anybody said was happening.

You are misrepresenting the issue, so that it fits the narrative you are selling.
Do you do that because you are a CDPR fanboy or because you don't care how your games are being made, as long as they are being made? I don't know, but either way, your post doesn't at all reflect the reality of the situation, NOR what was people here in the thread were discussing.

For me this thread is sadly just another example of people trying to justify wrong behaviour, because in the end all they care about is getting their games or because they love CDPR and won't accept any criticism, no matter how warranted.

I wrote before that I can see why it is happening and can understand it and it's also clearly not the same when you are actually paid for all the overtime, so that means that what is happening at CDPR is not the worst situation.
Yet it is also not a good situation, when on top of people already working overtime and working through nights, the studio still feels the need to implement mandatory crunch policies, that means adding more stress and pressure on people who already have been working under a lot of stress and pressure for at least this year.
I've worked high pressure jobs, with a lot of hours, but at the worst the crunch was about 2-3 weeks a time, not for basically a whole year and then even more in the last six weeks.
I envy anybody who actually can work under this conditions, without burning out, though I think a lot of people are just talking crap tbh.
I worked in a company a few years ago, in the sales department responsible for worldwide exports, which had been shrunk down from 15 people to five in half a year, with the five of us being expected to do all the work 15 people did before, of course the sales broke down in the first quarter under the new conditions, but only 25% (and still they ripped us a new one for it) and we were able to get out of that minus and even get a small plus at the end of the first year, but everyone of us had worked themselves to the bone.
We all did it under the assumption that the company would change the situation, as long as we were able to keep the ship running as long as it took. Supposedly local branches on the other continents and Eastern Europe were supposed to do sales in their regions, that was the plan.
Yet it never happened and when that became clear, that the situation with all this stress and overtime and pressure wouldn't change, I broke down and two of my colleagues did as well (it took them a little longer), so I know how a job situation like this can wear you down, even when you are paid for overtime and even get nice bonuses. It works for a time, for some longer than others, but most people break at some point.

But your making that up though lol. Where is your evidence that all the devs were already working crazy over time? Im sure a few did at some points, but "workling through nights" ? lol? You just want to make it seem as though the devs are miserablely clawing through insane work hours and all nighters, only for the bosses to step on their backs on say "more!"

Im not going to deny that its likely some overtime hours were already being worked by some devs. But up until this point it was up to the devs themselfs to balance how they managed it in a healthy way if they choose to work those hours. I dont think they have been crunching 48 hour weeks this entire time up until now.
 
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This is not what happens here. The employer uses his RIGHT to ask his employees to work more and employees use their RIGHT to get payed extra for that, while having their other RIGHTS protected by law.

I don't understand how you can call a basic concept of a company paying people for performing tasks the company needs completed "coercion". It's not coercion, it's called "employment".
However, in the end, every employee/contractor must either do the tasks the employer gives them, during the days the employer mandates, or find a new job. This is the nature of working for someone else.

Bingo. It's also dedication and commitment.

There's so much consumerism in the modern world, that people somehow think it's an inalienable "right" to never need to do anything extra. I mean, yes, running a grocery store or a fashion boutique is pretty straightforward. Open shop at 9 am. Morning shift is 9-5. Afternoon shift is 11-7. Evening shift is 1-9. Close store at 9 pm. Repeat daily. For much of human history, this was a idle daydream. (And even in a retail shop -- if it's crazy busy one day -- I may still get a call from my boss to come in for an unscheduled shift! If I like the job and want to keep it, I better go in, unless there is an extremely good reason not to.)

Other careers don't work like that. There are far too many things that can change with the weather. (Sometimes...it's literally based on the weather.) And if the brand new plumbing I just installed on Thursday and Friday happens to burst...I'll get a call from the boss...and there goes my weekend. Getting ready.

If someone signs on to do a job like that, then that's the job. If they stay, they can't start arguing that they shouldn't have to do their job because it's "too much". If they can't deal with it, they can quit and go find something else. Just because things didn't work as planned and everyone needs to put some extra hours in, it doesn't mean anyone is being abused or taken advantage of. They knew (or should have known) what they were signing on for.

The only time it's an issue is when it's being done intentionally and unnecessarily, people are not being allowed to balance it if there's a more important need, and they're not being fairly compensated for their time. I'm detecting a great amount of confusion here between "...being taken advantage of!" and "...don't wanna!"
 
To avoid a quote war, I will generalize a bit and softly reference to recent posts. I also don't blame anyone skipping the post because it seems long but I wanted to share my thoughts and elaborate a bit more.

Let me start with one from recent pages asking if people give more leeway because they want "grubby hands", figuratively, on the product, the game.

This isn't wrong or a bad question, from a neutral standpoint. As someone who has waited since the very first teaser trailer, 'bout 8 years ago, I very much look forward to this. I understand this point of leeway. You could say it's a form of bias. Sometimes we should stop ourselves, take a deep breath and try to see it from another perspective. This would only be fair or objective. And you are right that just because some negative things might become established, they shouldn't become acceptable by default.

But now comes the "but".

But that doesn't mean any concern or stance is realistic or without flaw. I read some comments on social media too. In the end, I can't help but agree with @SigilFey 's latest postings. To avoid making this post too long due to quotes (and yet, the post got long anyway, so I guess it's damage control, heh) I will simply refer to them, they are some posts before on page 7 and so on. Let me actually quote one I largely agree with:

But it's not "them" -- it's the industry. And if you go back in time 4,000+ years, you'll find that the Ancient Greeks had to "crunch", too, in order to pull off the best theatrical performances they could for the yearly competition. That's part and parcel of the Arts, whether it's on stage, on film, part of some exhibition, or a video game. If you're going to achieve the goal of the Art, it's going require the artists to pull at times.

Those interested in a 9-5 job with a set schedule and plenty of vacation time should very seriously consider another career path.

The "crunch" that created the issue with this is the outright extortion that was happening with certain studios in certain countries once video games started becoming as financially successful (then more financially successful) than Hollywood. We're not talking a month of 6-day weeks...we're talking 80+ hour workweeks as a rule. We're talking outright abuse of workers and workers' rights without the offer of compensation, and the threat of termination and blacklisting if complaints were made. We're talking those same individuals then being summarily terminated anyway and denied not only their bonuses, but often their contracted salaries and severance packages. That's the "crunch" culture that initially started gaining all the attention. (Now, I strongly feel that people are simply latching on to whatever they happen to see that's the same shade of pink and calling it all "salmon".)

But I promise you, no matter how much work is done to avoid "crunch" in the future -- that's not how creative projects work.


What's my stance, what issue do I see?

The "issue" I see, without trying to be a 'fanboy' or company defender: As I stated I looked up many posts on social media. I got the impression that some people who generally criticize crunch - rightfully so from a default position, it shouldn't be "normal" - themselves have possibly:

  • perhaps no personal experience in IT or IT projects with deadlines (or any comparable branch or job, not just IT related)
  • do not count in unforeseeable delays or changes
  • do not factor in respective company practice and national work laws
  • the expectation that (professional) life depending on job and branch is always predictable, plannable, scheduled
  • think that the employees in question at CDPR are being driven with a whip and yelled at, figuratively
(To those it obviously concerns, no one has to jump in and say "Objection" if those aspects don't apply to them)

But honestly, what do people expect in some jobs or situations? I work in civil sector. While it's maybe not fully comparable to the entertainment industry, there are similarities. My work directly or indirectly benefits the people. Now I guess neither the public nor the private sector can, on average, afford to have a huge number of people sit by idly for when critical situations arise. Hardly anyone "over-hires" and then has people sit around or be in 'reserve'. What usually seems to be the case for my branch is that you are rather under-staffed.

I couldn't even think or fathom complaining about crunch in my area. It's usually a regulated office job but when the need arises and you have to finish things or relay things and work some overtime you do that, because you do that for the people in the large end to varying degrees, whether directly or indirectly. This has little to do with "accepting bad practices", it's simply reality as no one over-hires to be like "Well now, this situation arose where we need to focus efforts on finishing this, let's get our reserve employees out of the basement, this will be done in no-time, haha!"

The key is, it's not the default case and it's covered by law and thus compensated. Don't worry, the post is ending soon, so let me get to my last point, the similarities ... or responsibilities, rather. I can't just go "Meh, I dislike crunch and will not finish on time". It could, in the worst of all cases, have disastrous results. "But it's not comparable", you could say. It is, I say. How so?

Simple: People, whether "the people" or "customers" or anyone else, rely on you. Your own employer relies on you, to deliver timely if need be when it matters. Sometimes you cannot delay a process (any longer), whether it's a project, a task, a game release and since you cannot fetch your stored reserve employees or quickly hire more to compensate, you'll have to invest more work hours.

Some jobs and branches simply have more "crunch" than others and this is the reality we lived in, live in and might live in. The key is how this "crunch" is treated and how the people in question deal with it.

---------------------

We can generally debate this topic but I personally, due to having a bit of crunch experience myself, hardly see a big issue or an outcry here. Especially in this branch and game development, this is likely more to occur than elsewhere. Since in this particular case I don't think it's overly horrible (I could be wrong, but if so, it would be leaked anyway) for the CDPR employees in question, it will be compensated, and thus ...


... thus I feel we shouldn't blow this out of proportion or, sorry if this might seem rude or cocky, be lectured by people - to those in question, again - who don't even have any realistic experience from the branches in question nor any crunch experience and who don't even know how it is at a specific workplace.

Yes, crunch is often bad, thanks for that statement, I know myself. But sometimes you cannot avoid it and not always are you literally exploited under shi*ty conditions.

Due to generally good work place conditions in my branch in general (public sector, civil servant) I actually do it gladly if need be, because I know my work adds to the bigger picture even if it might be a trivial thing, a puzzle piece. I feel that most employees affected by this at CDPR right now will also see the bigger picture. I can't speak for them, but if I was in their shoes I'd probably be very proud of being about to deliver the this piece of art to all the fans in time, with some additional work until release.

I know this is perhaps easy to say for someone without a family so I won't pretend I know how parents or couples would feel but it's not like they are locked away in a room to code or organize things 24/7 without contact to the outside world or without being able to go home.
 
And the concept of employment, of course, doesn't at all implies balance of power. Both side are perfectly equals at imposing their point of view, and both sides have as much to lose. That's the reason why employees on the planet whose company respect their country law have nothing to complain about.

As long as the law agree about something, it is always just.
That's why some country didn't ratified Convention No. 154 concerning the Promotion of Collective Bargaining , nor accepted Article 6(4) of the European Social Charter of 1961, nor ratified the Revised European Social Charter of 1996, nor ratified the Collective Complaints Procedure Protocol, (and probably other things) so everything remain perfectly lawful.

So, are you now arguing that CDPR bad, capitalism bad, having to work bad or something else?

Seriously, you are just rambling now.
 
I'm not even sure many of them have read the articles. They just read the word crunch and off they went.

What do you expect? Such behavior has been inherent to humanity since we left the trees. It only appears worse in modern times because information flows more freely. Yes, objectively crunch isn't innately good or bad. It depends on the circumstances, how it's being applied, why it's being applied and things of this nature. For the record, by crunch I mean a disproportionate amount of work needing to be done at the tail end of a task. No, I don't think it makes sense to define it as unfair forced overtime.

I work in civil sector. While it's maybe not fully comparable to the entertainment industry, there are similarities. My work directly or indirectly benefits the people. Now I guess neither the public nor the private sector can, on average, afford to have a huge number of people sit by idly for when critical situations arise. Hardly anyone "over-hires" and then has people sit around or be in 'reserve'. What usually seems to be the case for my branch is that you are rather under-staffed.

Over-staffed, appropriately staffed and under-staffed are three different concepts though. I'm sure you'd agree. The latter has become increasingly common over the years in a lot of fields. It's often not due to lack of talent or "employable" people either. It's called penny pinching. Hiring more people = paying more people. It's more financially desirable to hire less than you need and work them to death.

Of course, this particular issue is a bit of an oddity in game development. Most problems aren't solved by throwing more carbon units at them in that industry. At I understand it anyway. This is not to say the aforementioned penny pinching isn't present there. It's just a more opaque conclusion to draw.

I couldn't even think or fathom complaining about crunch in my area. It's usually a regulated office job but when the need arises and you have to finish things or relay things and work some overtime you do that, because you do that for the people in the large end to varying degrees, whether directly or indirectly. This has little to do with "accepting bad practices", it's simply reality as no one over-hires to be like "Well now, this situation arose where we need to focus efforts on finishing this, let's get our reserve employees out of the basement, this will be done in no-time, haha!"

In fairness, if crunch is required to complete a task either something unforeseen occured or someone screwed up. Yeah, it's more common in certain professions. It can happen in any profession really. The fact remains a timetable being set to finish a task indicates the expectation the task will be done within the timeframe. If it's a constant issue someone isn't good at their job.

I vehemently disagree with the notion there is some unbreakable, physical law dictating crunch must happen within certain industries. Even though it often does. This is only the case because certain industries involve a lot more difficult to pin down variables, basket weavers setting completion dates, and a number of other issues. Aka, inefficiencies and/or poor planning or execution.

So, are you now arguing that CDPR bad, capitalism bad, having to work bad or something else?

I think the first part is saying if an employer tries to coerce an employee into excessive work said employee can tell them to shove it where the sun doesn't shine.

The second part sounds like it's insinuating certain countries intentionally design legislation in a way where employee abuse remains legal. I'm not sure what this really has to do with the thread. The only rationale I can come up with is it's raising questions in regards to defending practice A, B or C exclusively because it's technically legal (the law isn't naturally infallible). It wouldn't be surprising if it were true somewhere out there on the great blue ball though.
 
So, are you now arguing that CDPR bad, capitalism bad, having to work bad or something else?

This:
The only rationale I can come up with is it's raising questions in regards to defending practice A, B or C exclusively because it's technically legal (the law isn't naturally infallible).
 
This:


We've already established the fact that CDPR compensates their employees above that, what is required by Polish law. Law, which takes care of the employees better than law in like 90% of other countries.
 
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