More Bad News for the Beleaguered Studio
There’s been a lot of talk recently about CD Projekt Red. The acclaimed gaming studio has made big waves in recent years for its beautiful and vibrant games, and their latest effort – Cyberpunk 2077 – is one of the most anticipated games of the year. The issue is that, after two delays, we found out that staff at CD Projekt Red are being required to work overtime to get the game out on time.
Of course, it’s not unusual for people to work overtime or long hours, especially in creative fields like filmmaking or video game design, and in a game as complex as Cyberpunk 2077 we have to expect some level of crunch, but a recent Reddit post – the veracity of which has been confirmed by Bloomberg’s Jason Schrier – has shown that things might be worse than we could have expected.
I think this Reddit comment from someone who worked at CD Projekt Red is worth sharing, especially since folks out there still think their overtime is limited to 48 hours a week. I can confirm they used to work at CDPR (just got off the phone with them): https://t.co/kWdSzlTUCI pic.twitter.com/XCDjqo2KsH
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) October 14, 2020
If the post is to be believed, the crunch has been going on for a lot longer than we thought – since around May/June 2019, with some departments working weekends or sixteen-hour days up to a year previous to that. In fact, those familiar with the inner workings of CD Projekt Red have apparently been dreading such a crunch for a long time.
Also tellingly is the fact that the user states that there are communication difficulties between management and the rest of the team, with news of both delays, and any announcement since the game went Gold, being announced on Twitter before the creative team working on the game were informed.
We don’t know how long these unethical business practices have been going on for, but with the spotlight on CDPR as they gear up to release perhaps their biggest game yet, we may see a change in how they conduct themselves in the future.
Will you be checking out Cyberpunk 2077? Let us know down in the comments.