Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cyberpunk 2077 has involved months of crunch, despite past promises

polygon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 132 posts

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 has involved months of crunch, despite past promises

#91

Post by rowanG077 »

nonbirithm wrote: post #55
Aeolun wrote: post #3

That’s dissapointing. Especially after they ‘promised’ they wouldn’t do it. I wonder what the solution is here. Boycotting the game is hardly going to help the employees there. I guess this is just one of those things that the law should mandate, but does not for some reason.

The people complaining about it being delayed are probably the people least likely to change their minds because of the delays and not buy the game when it comes out. Empty promises about crunch and lost trust won't matter as much to those people when the game comes out. Also, does the general gaming subculture still care about Red Dead Redemption 2's development and the livelihood and mental health costs it caused t…

Seems more like GTA V online has ruined GTA forever. The entire point of GTA for me (and many other people) was a compelling large single player open world with a nice story. Now that rockstar has smelled microtransactions it most likely means the next GTA will have single player as an afterthought.

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 has involved months of crunch, despite past promises

#92

Post by ekianjo »

0xy wrote: post #41
ekianjo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The delays were sheer incompetence and are far from normal in the gaming industry. Oh, so building something that was never done before and not meeting the deadline exactly is sheer incompetence? I hope you never have to build anything new.

Every game is something "never done before". And I did not say not meeting deadlines is sheer incompetence. I said the way they slipped is incompetence. Less than a month from release while blindsiding their own company and fans.

> Every game is something "never done before"

No, you can't really make that claim. There are thousands of clones of more popular games out there, it's not like the game production is massively original to begin with.

And yes, Cyberpunk 2077 pushes the boundaries of what we expect from games in many ways - it's going to be one of the most complex games we have on the market to date when it releases.

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 has involved months of crunch, despite past promises

#93

Post by 0xy »

ekianjo wrote: post #92
0xy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every game is something "never done before". And I did not say not meeting deadlines is sheer incompetence. I said the way they slipped is incompetence. Less than a month from release while blindsiding their own company and fans.

> Every game is something "never done before" No, you can't really make that claim. There are thousands of clones of more popular games out there, it's not like the game production is massively original to begin with. And yes, Cyberpunk 2077 pushes the boundaries of what we expect from games in many ways - it's going to be one of the most complex games we have on the market to date when it releases.

It cost more to complete and has less content than GTA III. It's not one of the most complex by any metric.

I don't know people bother to defend billion dollar corporations in the habit of lying and misrepresenting their products. People paid them money for a product that was misrepresented in false advertising, I don't know it could be clearer than that as to why they're justifiably outraged.

99.99% of the criticism did not include intimidation, death threats or anything along those lines. CDPR used it as a deflectionary tactic from their own business practices.

And no, delays like this are not common. Games get delayed when they're many months away from release (it's obvious then that it's not done). Less than a month? They're either lying or so incompetent they don't know their own progress. Neither excuse the false claims.

It's a billion dollar publicly listed corporation. This isn't some indie studio.

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 has involved months of crunch, despite past promises

#94

Post by uberman »

orev wrote: post #86
dom96 wrote: post #17

> While long hours would be permitted for those interested in working them, crunch would not be made “mandatory.” Yeah, I'm sure that works well. How can you compete with those that do work long hours when it comes time for performance reviews? The fear of losing your job is very real and I'm sure that creates a culture where in effect everyone is working long hours, no matter what the CD Projekt co-founder says.

This is the same problem with companies that have a “no vacation tracking, just take off when you want policy”. It ends up that no one takes vacation for this same reason.

I see two people with this viewpoint, and I would be interested in knowing more. Is the thought here that a company that offers unlimited vacation would see people take none?

I have never worked in such an environment, and I also don't tend to take all of my allotted vacation anyways, but at first glance, I'm not sure how:

"take off as much as you like"

could possibly be more restrictive than:

"take off as much as you like, but no more that 2 weeks."

Assuming of course we are not talking about mandatory vacation policies (that some companies/countries) effectively have.

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 has involved months of crunch, despite past promises

#95

Post by [deleted] »

uberman wrote: post #70
dom96 wrote: post #17

> While long hours would be permitted for those interested in working them, crunch would not be made “mandatory.” Yeah, I'm sure that works well. How can you compete with those that do work long hours when it comes time for performance reviews? The fear of losing your job is very real and I'm sure that creates a culture where in effect everyone is working long hours, no matter what the CD Projekt co-founder says.

Those that work harder or longer than others get ahead. This is a universal truism and also very distinct from the mandated overtime dictated by many developers.

[deleted]

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 has involved months of crunch, despite past promises

#96

Post by geofft »

uberman wrote: post #94
orev wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same problem with companies that have a “no vacation tracking, just take off when you want policy”. It ends up that no one takes vacation for this same reason.

I see two people with this viewpoint, and I would be interested in knowing more. Is the thought here that a company that offers unlimited vacation would see people take none? I have never worked in such an environment, and I also don't tend to take all of my allotted vacation anyways, but at first glance, I'm not sure how: "take off as much as you like" could possibly be more restrictive than: "take off as much as yo…

Here's the dynamic: When you don't take all your allotted vacation, and someone else does, there's no possible claim that you were a harder or more dedicated worker than they were. They did exactly what they were permitted to. And, therefore, I'm guessing that if you wanted to take your vacation, you wouldn't have too much trouble finding time to take it, and nobody would complain that you did.

If there's unlimited vacation, and someone takes two weeks of vacation when the whole company tends to take one, and they were on vacation during a critical project, once time comes for performance reviews, people will say "I'm not sure how committed they are to the company" / "They don't have a great work ethic" / etc. etc. Because it was their choice to decide that two weeks was reasonable, it's easier to hold them responsible for the consequences of that choice.

So, everyone feels like they need to take at most as much vacation as average, possibly less.

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 has involved months of crunch, despite past promises

#98

Post by jakelazaroff »

geofft wrote: post #96
uberman wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see two people with this viewpoint, and I would be interested in knowing more. Is the thought here that a company that offers unlimited vacation would see people take none? I have never worked in such an environment, and I also don't tend to take all of my allotted vacation anyways, but at first glance, I'm not sure how: "take off as much as you like" could possibly be more restrictive than: "take off as much as yo…

Here's the dynamic: When you don't take all your allotted vacation, and someone else does, there's no possible claim that you were a harder or more dedicated worker than they were. They did exactly what they were permitted to. And, therefore, I'm guessing that if you wanted to take your vacation, you wouldn't have too much trouble finding time to take it, and nobody would complain that you did. If there's unlimited v…

One thing I've wondered is how the dynamic would work if you combined unlimited vacation with a minimum requirement. Would that be enough to foster a culture of taking the time you want/need and not worrying? Or would your minimum essentially become the expected amount, with any excess frowned upon?

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 has involved months of crunch, despite past promises

#99

Post by claudeganon »

ekianjo wrote: post #89
claudeganon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Los Angeles County contributed $656 billion in gross domestic product, or 27 percent of California’s economic output, in 2015, according to a Bloomberg analysis of the most-recent data available from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That’s the largest amount of goods and services produced among 3,000-plus counties in the U.S. and equal to the economic might of Saudi Arabia." https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/se…

I'm talking about profits, not revenues.

The entertainment industry makes plenty of money, they just disguise the profits through all kinds of trickery that make what tech companies do with tax shelters look childish by comparison. There’s a whole colloquial term for it, “Hollywood accounting”:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

Re: Cyberpunk 2077 has involved months of crunch, despite past promises

#100

Post by Exmoor »

vvanders wrote: post #42

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Once with a 6 months crunch, second time closer to 10 months of 14 hour days. That was enough for me to swear off the entire industry despite working towards it for most of my younger life. Saw it what it did to our team, destroyed multiple relationships, the product suffered for it and overall both titles we're a disaster. It cuts in more than one way, aside from some really r…

I did some game testing when I was a teenager (paid in free software). A couple nights playing a game that either sucked or just wasn't my cup of tea was enough to show me that playing games was a lot better than working on games.

Anytime I hear a young person say they want to be a game developer I want to grab them by the shoulders and try to shakes some sense into them. If you're smart enough to do game development, you're probably smart enough to go make twice as much to work half as hard somewhere else. You can go work your 8 hour day, and play whatever game you want the rest of the night. Or do something completely different.

Post reply on HN