So... there will be crunch...

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A question to everyone: Why do you care? If you think there's something illegal happening then contact with legal authorities, otherwise it's dev's choice if they'll work 7/24 and pay to CDPR or 8/5 and get normal salary.
 
A question to everyone: Why do you care? If you think there's something illegal happening then contact with legal authorities, otherwise it's dev's choice if they'll work 7/24 and pay to CDPR or 8/5 and get normal salary.

Already answered: read the topic please.

Seems like topic have begun to go in circles.
 
Already answered: read the topic please.

Seems like topic have begun to go in circles.
It is kind of bound to, this is a REALLY complex issue.

One of the reasons I became a developer is that I'm not so much a workaholic but I've always loved being that person who comes through. I live for the moments that I can make something quicker than a deadline, add additional effort into it to make it better than expected in the same period, or in any way improve the product or company that I work for. I want to have the pride of building something amazing and that includes the products and the business, and in the long run the more profitable the business the better for us the staff (in theory). Now in MANY positions at many businesses, there is no real pay off to this, all I am accomplishing is raising the expectations for the other workers, but there are a few companies who give back to the employees &/or don't raise the bar for others based on what an individual does. So at one job this is a really negative way to act as it negatively impacts the team, but at another it is neutral or even wholly positive, and this is even before you get into things like generous overtime compensation (I currently get no compensation for crunch time), profit sharing options (giving direct incentive to employees to improve company profitability), etc, and it is only from my perspective while other people might have entirely different variables in their calculus on if working crunch is worth it.

Long story short, each individual worker's participation in crunch is extremely complex, and it is very likely that a company's decision to utilize crunch is equally so. As such discussions trying to pin it down as a universally negative/neutral/positive are just going to chase their tails.
 
"Crunch" is just another word for "putting in the extra hours needed". It's something that exists in any creative work. My background is in the Theatre and a some stuff on film. It happens every time.

In the Theatre, we call it "Hell Week", and it's normally two weeks that happen just before a show opens. The first disaster is "Tech Week", which is the first time that things like lighting, sound, and full set will be used on-stage with the actors. As you can imagine, not everything goes according to plan: equipment breaks down...exclusive issues arise, requiring the tech director to rebuild how scenes will work...that creates a domino effect that will affect other parts of the show...whole scenes may need to be re-blocked, which means added rehearsals...the set crew will have to do things repeatedly until they figure out how all the transitions will work...

It goes on, and on...and on...

And people need to be there. There are days that I walked into the theatre at 8:00 in the morning, and I didn't leave it until 3:00 am the next day. There are times where I knew we would have to come in for full days on Saturday and Sunday, even though the contract said "weekdays only" unless there was a performance or we were striking the set and/or painting. There were times that I was both acting and working on one of the crews, and I had drop a rehearsal to do something vital for tech.

THEN the final week starts, which are the "Dress Rehearsals". And the process of discovering and resolving problems for hour after hour after hour continues. And we don't get "overtime pay" in the Theatre. No such thing. It's just part of the artform and needs to be there...or the show will bomb and no one gets any more work.

And it doesn't happen for "just two weeks" -- it happens for those two weeks for every production one works on. So that would amount to several months out of the year that you're in "crunch" if you do 5 or 6 shows every year, like most professionals will. Or more.

It's not for everyone -- and that's the big misconception. Yeeesss, when it happens, we all groan (at least inside), and crack our knuckles in frustration, and rub our head, and start getting sick of it all, and think to ourselves that they do NOT pay us enough for this...and then we buckle in and get to work. It's not about being "forced to stay" or being "victimized" by anything. We stay and work because we want that show to go up and absolutely floor the house. And we know we've got it. It's not the paycheck we're after. It's the sound of the honest-to-god, roaring applause when the curtain falls. It's the sense of personal growth that we get from the experience. I did it for decades. Willingly.

That's part of creative work. No one can "schedule" creativity. The piece your working on needs what it needs when it needs it. And it's not mismanagement, either. Mismanaged productions often fail and are never "released". But I've never worked on a single production that didn't have a Hell Week cycle.

If people want 8 hours a day, nothing to do at home, and pay for every hour they put in with a stipend for overtime...I would recommend steering wide of anything creative.
 
"Crunch" is just another word for "putting in the extra hours needed". It's something that exists in any creative work. My background is in the Theatre and a some stuff on film. It happens every time.

In the Theatre, we call it "Hell Week", and it's normally two weeks that happen just before a show opens. The first disaster is "Tech Week", which is the first time that things like lighting, sound, and full set will be used on-stage with the actors. As you can imagine, not everything goes according to plan: equipment breaks down...exclusive issues arise, requiring the tech director to rebuild how scenes will work...that creates a domino effect that will affect other parts of the show...whole scenes may need to be re-blocked, which means added rehearsals...the set crew will have to do things repeatedly until they figure out how all the transitions will work...

It goes on, and on...and on...

And people need to be there. There are days that I walked into the theatre at 8:00 in the morning, and I didn't leave it until 3:00 am the next day. There are times where I knew we would have to come in for full days on Saturday and Sunday, even though the contract said "weekdays only" unless there was a performance or we were striking the set and/or painting. There were times that I was both acting and working on one of the crews, and I had drop a rehearsal to do something vital for tech.

THEN the final week starts, which are the "Dress Rehearsals". And the process of discovering and resolving problems for hour after hour after hour continues. And we don't get "overtime pay" in the Theatre. No such thing. It's just part of the artform and needs to be there...or the show will bomb and no one gets any more work.

And it doesn't happen for "just two weeks" -- it happens for those two weeks for every production one works on. So that would amount to several months out of the year that you're in "crunch" if you do 5 or 6 shows every year, like most professionals will. Or more.

It's not for everyone -- and that's the big misconception. Yeeesss, when it happens, we all groan (at least inside), and crack our knuckles in frustration, and rub our head, and start getting sick of it all, and think to ourselves that they do NOT pay us enough for this...and then we buckle in and get to work. It's not about being "forced to stay" or being "victimized" by anything. We stay and work because we want that show to go up and absolutely floor the house. And we know we've got it. It's not the paycheck we're after. It's the sound of the honest-to-god, roaring applause when the curtain falls. It's the sense of personal growth that we get from the experience. I did it for decades. Willingly.

That's part of creative work. No one can "schedule" creativity. The piece your working on needs what it needs when it needs it. And it's not mismanagement, either. Mismanaged productions often fail and are never "released". But I've never worked on a single production that didn't have a Hell Week cycle.

If people want 8 hours a day, nothing to do at home, and pay for every hour they put in with a stipend for overtime...I would recommend steering wide of anything creative.
I agree with most of this.

Still, I maintain that making it non-mandatory and adequately compensating people for putting in those extra hours is a "bare minimum" thing you can do just as a decent human being and manager.

After all, most creatives are going to put in those extra hours anyway. Saying "you don't have to" does little more than give them, and others, an out if they decide they need to cut back for family, health, or other equally valid reasons, without forcing them to quit or take time off.

By the way, it's not like the other 260 days of the year (Assuming the last few months of game dev is crunch heavy) is a cakewalk for game devs. There's plenty of stress. There's internal deadlines to meet, work to get done, and mistakes to avoid. If normal game dev is Blood & Broken Bones, crunch is Death March.

One thing I differ from you slightly on is the whole "if you don't like it, steer clear." I can agree with this in principle, since one should always pick the field that best lines up with their work/life balance needs, but in practice, the last thing I want to do is deter fantastic and talented game devs with families from joining a team just because they, well, have a family. If a company cannot effectively utilize an employee's 40-hours-a-week (perhaps a bit more, say, 50) work time, I'd say you can chalk that up to crappy management, not the creative pursuit as a whole.
 
For the exact same reason that lead many country to forbid things like organ selling: because the two parts doesn't have the same weight when negotiating.
Besides it actually already have been discussed in this message:

I actually know one ex-mercenary whose job was the make people sign contracts. Sure, people could still refuse to sign those contracts but then they would be dead or members or their family would be.
And there is a lots of figurative "gun against the head" situations.

I mean come on. You're not being serious now if you compare CDPR to some mafia. That is ridiculous. Such things do not happen in Poland. Just because Poland and Serbia are both Slavic countries does not mean they are the same, Poland is vastly different from Serbia.

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Still, I maintain that making it non-mandatory and adequately compensating people for putting in those extra hours is a "bare minimum" thing you can do just as a decent human being and manager.

That is what CDPR does. Polish law prohibits unpaid overtime
 
I mean come on. You're not being serious now if you compare CDPR to some mafia.

You totally missed the point. I was referring to the fact that often contractors doesn't have equal weight when making a contrats and that that fact made some kind of contracts illegal, hence the example.

Personal example: I'm have more than 20 000€ of debts, If my bank was pressuring me about selling one of my highly valuable O- kidney to erase the debt, even if I signed it would it really be considered willfully signed? Even more as my kidney is worth actually more than $262,000.
That's why as a safety in many countries organ can only be given, not sold.

And that's the reason why contracts doesn't warrant that things are done by free will.
 
You totally missed the point. I was referring to the fact that often contractors doesn't have equal weight when making a contrats and that that fact made some kind of contracts illegal, hence the example.

Personal example: I'm have more than 20 000€ of debts, If my bank was pressuring me about selling one of my highly valuable O- kidney to erase the debt, even if I signed it would it really be considered willfully signed? Even more as my kidney is worth actually more than $262,000.
That's why as a safety in many countries organ can only be given, not sold.

And that's the reason why contracts doesn't warrant that things are done by free will.

I don't get the point you're trying to make. No one forces those employees to work at CDPR, and that's literally why there's so much turnover at video game companies. People join and leave them all the time due to dissatisfaction with the work culture there. It's fully a choice, so when someone stays there, you know he wants to.
 
I don't get the point you're trying to make. No one forces those employees to work at CDPR, and that's literally why there's so much turnover at video game companies. People join and leave them all the time due to dissatisfaction with the work culture there. It's fully a choice, so when someone stays there, you know he wants to.

Ok so for exemple if someone has to pay for a member of his family cancer treatment, you still thinks he has the choice to say "No, I won't sign." ?

The point is: not everybody have the luxury of choices, that's the reason why contracts doesn't guarantee the will of the one signing it and that's the reason why we as people have to care about each others working in decent conditions.
 
I don't get the point you're trying to make. No one forces those employees to work at CDPR, and that's literally why there's so much turnover at video game companies. People join and leave them all the time due to dissatisfaction with the work culture there. It's fully a choice, so when someone stays there, you know he wants to.
Some people might be able to go without having a job for an extended period of time. Most can't. If the choice is to work crunch that is damaging to them or not being able to pay rent... possibly going homeless... yeah, it's not exactly an unweighted choice.
 
It's not for everyone -- and that's the big misconception. Yeeesss, when it happens, we all groan (at least inside), and crack our knuckles in frustration, and rub our head, and start getting sick of it all, and think to ourselves that they do NOT pay us enough for this...and then we buckle in and get to work. It's not about being "forced to stay" or being "victimized" by anything. We stay and work because we want that show to go up and absolutely floor the house. And we know we've got it. It's not the paycheck we're after. It's the sound of the honest-to-god, roaring applause when the curtain falls. It's the sense of personal growth that we get from the experience. I did it for decades. Willingly.

So you're saying you're totally ok with slav... I mean crunch? Well, (hope you don't think this as an insult or something) my suggestion is go see a doctor. I'm serious, I can understand your goal however with that amount of crunch you're only damaging yourself. I refused the treatments for my ADHD and it caused mass destruction on me, don't think I'll recover for a long time.

And specially on applause part, I want to share my story: In my military service, loads of VIP's was coming to our base every damn week. That meant clean everything in the base. There was days I did other people's job just because they were hiding somewhere, escaping from job (In fact, they were smart. I am the stupid one, none of my efforts was worth it).

And one day, they announced highest ranked general of our military branch is going to visit us. Well, that's the definition of hell for us. I don't remember the amount of swears I told to entire military BS. Clean there, clean there again, nope clean there again... and for +12 hours. That hell took 2 days, and he finally arrived. Guess what, he didn't bothered with checking everywhere. He just went to briefing room for briefing with our commanders and left. All we did was for a "thanks for your hard efforts".

I wanted to say "What? That's all? WTF?" but couldn't because of obv reasons. And few days after I said "There's no way I'm doing this BS anymore, send me to jail (mandatory service sigh, punishment is jail) IDGAF" and they sent me to a doctor instead. And I deemed ineligible for military service, thus leaving entire BS behind on me.

Am I happy? Hell yes! Am I going to work any job that requires crunch? Hell no.
 
So you're saying you're totally ok with slav... I mean crunch? Well, (hope you don't think this as an insult or something) my suggestion is go see a doctor. I'm serious, I can understand your goal however with that amount of crunch you're only damaging yourself. I refused the treatments for my ADHD and it caused mass destruction on me, don't think I'll recover for a long time.

And specially on applause part, I want to share my story: In my military service, loads of VIP's was coming to our base every damn week. That meant clean everything in the base. There was days I did other people's job just because they were hiding somewhere, escaping from job (In fact, they were smart. I am the stupid one, none of my efforts was worth it).

And one day, they announced highest ranked general of our military branch is going to visit us. Well, that's the definition of hell for us. I don't remember the amount of swears I told to entire military BS. Clean there, clean there again, nope clean there again... and for +12 hours. That hell took 2 days, and he finally arrived. Guess what, he didn't bothered with checking everywhere. He just went to briefing room for briefing with our commanders and left. All we did was for a "thanks for your hard efforts".

I wanted to say "What? That's all? WTF?" but couldn't because of obv reasons. And few days after I said "There's no way I'm doing this BS anymore, send me to jail (mandatory service sigh, punishment is jail) IDGAF" and they sent me to a doctor instead. And I deemed ineligible for military service, thus leaving entire BS behind on me.

Am I happy? Hell yes! Am I going to work any job that requires crunch? Hell no.
That's an unfortunate story, but if anything, it proves the point Sigi was making. Crunch isn't for everyone. Some can stomach it, some cannot. You could not and won't do so in the future -- others will feel differently.
 
Some people might be able to go without having a job for an extended period of time. Most can't. If the choice is to work crunch that is damaging to them or not being able to pay rent... possibly going homeless... yeah, it's not exactly an unweighted choice.

Again, this is Poland, not America. Pay is mandatory during a 3 month long notice period.
These software developers are guys who find jobs in under 3 months. They can leave CDPR and join another company if they want, no problemo
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Ok so for exemple if someone has to pay for a member of his family cancer treatment, you still thinks he has the choice to say "No, I won't sign." ?

In Poland healthcare is funded by taxpayers. There's no need to pay for any type of treatment.

The point I'm trying to make is that these software developers are very sought after and are in no pressure whatsoever to work *precisely* in CDPR.


The bottomline is - some can do crunch and some can't. If you can't - that's fine.
But don't force others to produce less just because you can't produce more.

There is no other way, legally speaking, to regulate crunch aside from requiring formal written consent and compensation for overtime. So this discussion is futile.
 
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