Cyberpunk 2077 devs reportedly chose to work 6-day weeks over delaying the game | Hacker News Reader

Cyberpunk 2077 devs reportedly chose to work 6-day weeks over delaying the game

gamesradar.com

27 pointsvaland12 comments

As pointed out previously, IGDA doesn't like that https://igda.org/news-archive/igda-statement-on-cdpr-mandato...

And most studios do not pay from overtime, so you only get back "flexible" hours that you cannot even use when you want to use those.

Only shine of light in this case is that CD Projekt Red is a publicly-traded company so if they are giving stocks to their employees, then employees can cash out and leave. Most game companies aren't publicly-traded, so employees do not get any benefits of this.

> As pointed out previously, IGDA doesn't like that

Yes, but as a fellow dev on game industry I'm choosing to believe the actual dev's word over dev-mixer's (IGDA) word. Here's what the lead designer of CDPR says regarding this "phenomenon" https://m.facebook.com/adrian.chmielarz/posts/43940758439677...

I mean, I wouldn't want people to trash talk the company I work on, because of one bad day in between the mostly good years, with inaccurate accusations. That might hurt my company's value and my equity too.

> And most studios do not pay from overtime, so you only get back "flexible" hours that you cannot even use when you want to use those.

Let's not stray from the context. Fortunately CDPR is not a member of the "most studios" set you mentioned. Here's a summary of Polish overtime policy. https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/comments/j2uadv/about...

So this one is a "shine of light" too, I guess.

I know some game companies pay 250% hourly rate for weekend work or OT if crunch for release.

If that's the case most devs will actively want this.

That plus fact that after launch you're basically on paid vacation with lot less work and stress...

250% hourly rate shows those companies highly values the devs time.

I assume it was just business concerns rather then caring too much about devs.

They probably just realized devs don't cost too much compared to licensing and other costs.

The actual % might have been a sweet spot to avoid improper incentives (like people sabotaging production to get OT)

Ah I was unconsciously comparing that to what's happening around my place, which is less humane (but not in the inhumane realm). Overtimes here are sometimes only incentivized with just an addition to PTO credit. And it's still a lot better than overtimes in other sector of work.

That's why to me with the additional %, 16-0 is more expensive then 7-16. Therefore the conclusion.

> Finally, Ruppert stresses there's a big difference between the American and Polish work cultures, and that "no one I spoke to over there saw it as crunch."

Is anyone familiar with Polish work culture or more specifically Polish game development culture? I would love to get context here.

From the employee handbook of a Polish law firm [1]:

> Generally, an employee cannot refuse to work overtime, because it is part of the employee’s duties. The PLC imposes the obligation on the employee to work conscientiously and to follow the directions of superiors on how to work, unless they are contrary to law, or the contract of employment. Legal writers and case-law of the Polish Supreme Court opine overtime can only be refused when the overtime limit on hours has been exceeded.

[1] https://www.lexmundi.com/images/lexmundi/PDF/LaborEmployment...

I would expect a lot of the CDPr employees to not be actual employees but contractors (forcing people to set up a single-person company, „jednoosobowa działalność gospodarcza”, is a poular practice here) which would put the workers in an even worse situation. At the same time, while refusing to work overtime may be a bad look at some companies, a lot of others have very strict policies on actually being able to have their overtime even classified as such (because overtime results in either extra pay or holiday time). Honestly, I don’t believe most of the developers, QAs, etc really want this crunch but they know their careers might be silently ruined if they don’t agree with those higher in the ladder.

Dunno about gamedev, but in regular software development there's very little overtime (meaning most everyone just works 40 hours per week, unless you're in a shitty/struggling company) and, if OT is needed, it usually compensated with time off work later (as opposed to extra pay).

Why working for >40h for any non_game_dev company is acceptable, but here this is big problem? especially that their biggest product of last half of decade is about to be released in next month?

Acceptable where?

In this side of the Atlantic, most employees can be ensured to be properly remunerated and if it is a recurring situation, place a complaint in the government agency that regulates work law, which will proceed to do the respective investigations on work abuse.

So if employees choose to be exploited, that is their own problem and should not complain if at the end get shown the door when hard times come up.

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