CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14) • Hacker News Board

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#361

Post by swat535 » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

vlunkr wrote: post #334

artellectual wrote: post #279

As someone who works as a leader of a tech team building a financial engine, from my personal experience. When teams are doing overtime it means some bad management happened somewhere. Either someone under-estimated the scope and was never adjusted / communicated, or someone couldn't keep promise of not changing things as a result the developers and final product suffer. Software projects are very difficult to estima…

It seems like in the games industry they really want to advertise release dates or at least a release window for marketing purposes. Which results in the bad cruch periods, since you can only delay so much once you've stamped that date on it. This happens all the time, but this is an exceptionally bad example. On the one hand, I wish companies wouldn't do this kind of crap, but on the other hand, the consumers need t…

Exactly and this whole thing really solidifies the concept of never giving out specific deadlines unless you've basically completed the product and just doing minor touchups and even then you _still_ pad it by 2x.

The problem however is that execs want exact dates and meanwhile marketing is just hyping up the product which yields to crazy expectations from consumers and this forces the engineers to even more crunch and degrade the quality of the whole thing. Vicious cycle indeed.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#362

Post by nynx » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

setpatchaddress wrote: post #248

deeviant wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think the bugs/performance issues are helping CDPR right now. Everybody is talking about them rather than how bad the game actually is. The combat is simplistic. The AI opponents are basically broken. The quickhack system does indeed feel like a quickly hacked together game mechanic. V is stuck in a weird state between existing background (a la witcher) and player action defined: I didn't get the feeling o…

I'm pretty happy with it (on a high-spec PC). I've never seen a great interstitial "hacker" interface in a game. Unless you go full Shenzhen I/O, it has to be simplified into meaninglessness. I wonder if some people just prefer dirt and elves and magic to steel and glass. I like Witcher 3 well enough, but it's not a world I want to spend endless time in. I see the charm, but I'm not that interested in that world. Sha…

Ha! I'd love if a big game like this had Shenzhen I/O style hacking.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#363

Post by tgtweak » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:10 AM UTC

cbozeman wrote: post #355

pavlov wrote: post #7

This company has probably the shittiest gamified bonus system that I've ever heard of: "CDPR leaders would hand out tokens every month to staffers who went above and beyond, and those tokens were supposed to be transferrable into bonuses if the game met “certain criteria, like critical acclaim and a timely release,” according to the report." [1] Get paid in "crunch mode experience points" handed out by middle manager…

Awful? This is miles ahead of nearly ever other game studio out there. How do I know? One of the people I served with aboard the USS Honolulu is a game designer for Darkpaw Games. They have nothing like this. Not even close. Another person is a high-level executive at Activision-Blizzard. He has compensation that is generous, but it took him 17 years to get there. Yet another personal friend is a junior developer at…

Changing the terms post-hoc is pretty scummy. Logically you would assume having something is better than nothing, as I assume most would - simple math. The reality is anticipating more than you actually receive can be more detrimental. You make sacrifices you normally wouldn't if you are lead to believe there is a reward. Perhaps you turned down another job offer since you had been factoring those extra projektbucks and then they suddenly devalue at the end of the race. Maybe you treated yourself or your loved ones to a gift as a small token of appreciation for the effort spent on this rather than them. That $2000 in fairy-bucks turns out to be $500 and those extra hours amount to less-than-legal-minimum-wage.

Regardless of whether it's better than nothing - there is a tangible risk to having something accounted for that turns out to be short.

The game development industry has been a cesspool for worker exploitation for the longest time and this adds to a long list.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#364

Post by shawnz » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:15 AM UTC

cbozeman wrote: post #359

jay_kyburz wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question remains, why did Microsoft and Sony certify them?

You have to ask? Its holiday season in the middle of the worst pandemic in 100 years, with hundreds of millions of people worldwide being on lockdown, or some form of lockdown, with absolutely jack shit to do other than work from home (if you even can), learn something (most people will not do this), or play video games. New movies and television have been woefully shitty. Its always easier for ask for forgiveness th…

As someone who bought the game as a Christmas gift, I am more concerned about how it will play at a Christmas-day patch level. I am actually happy I was able to get the physical media ahead of time, even if what they shipped at launch was buggy.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#365

Post by elgatonegro » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:16 AM UTC

zemo wrote: post #357

Pfhreak wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can play games for reasons other than fun or enjoyment. Spec Ops: The Line isn't a 'fun' game, but holy shit I couldn't stop playing it.

uh I'm a gamedev at my dayjob and I'm working on a game design mfa so ... I know? my favorite game is INSIDE and it's a total chore to play. But I think it has a LOT going on and is extremely interesting. OP is saying Cyberpunk is not fun -and- it has nothing going on intellectually -and- they played it all the way through twice? Really, that's a mixed set of signals. If you think it's not fun -and- it has nothing go…

> If you think it's not fun -and- it has nothing going on, why play it -twice-?

"If you think the car is no fun to drive, why take it for a spin, twice?"

Playing it twice is what allowed me to form this opinion. The game offers multiple "paths" after all. It's called giving it the benefit of the doubt.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#366

Post by cbozeman » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:16 AM UTC

TheGuyWhoCodes wrote: post #42

Having played cyberpunk on PC it's mostly a fancy light show and not a lot of substance. You can't even customize anything past the creation screen, no car paint jobs no hair cuts and no body modification, no transmog system.. They tried to hide the console issues while reaffirming time and time again that current-gen console will be a first class citizen, that's an EA tactic not something that CDPR I thought I knew…

So fortunately I've never played any open-world game except for Skyrim, which just didn't really hold my interest... or maybe it was the fact I lost my save game due to a faulty SSD, I dunno.

At any rate, I love this game. I love the story. I love Night City. I love the graphics. I won't lie and say I'm a huge Cyberpunk pen & paper fan; I'm not. I knew more about Shadowrun than Cyberpunk, and that was from the old SNES game and Shadowrun Returns. However, I've talked with hardcore Cyberpunk pen & paper players, and they say its un-fucking-believable how well CDPR has brought to life the Cyberpunk universe in this game.

Yes, there are bugs. I have every confidence though that CDPR will iron all this shit out like they did with The Witcher III. This will be a great game by mid-to-late 2021, in every sense of the word.

I genuinely hope in Cyberpunk 2077 II that they'll be able to flesh out the game world, because I really love this game and this world.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#367

Post by Agentlien » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:19 AM UTC

SeanBoocock wrote: post #333

munk-a wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CDPR sounds like a relatively progressively run game company tbh. A lot of game dev companies deny you overtime during the run up to a major release and massively layoff staff after releases. Up here in British Columbia all technical workers[1] are overtime exempt because EA ran roughshod over our labour laws a number of years ago and people are too afraid to change them for fear of driving off businesses. 1. Vaguely…

Not true of EA, at least in the United States. EA hires junior employees as non-exempt for their first couple of years. They are also in my experience among the most progressive big publishers when it comes to overtime and work/life balance. Not perfect, but certainly trying in a real way across most of its studios. Source: Worked for, but not currently employed at, several EA studios over the last decade, including…

I worked at EA for five years (2015-2019) in Sweden and during that time I heard a lot of talk about minimising overtime and new measures to prevent it. Every game new alternatives and policies would be introduced. Then, when it became clear that we couldn't deliver on what everyone always said was over scoped, all of that was thrown out the window and we went back to ordinary crunch.

We did sometimes get compensated, but always in comp days, never money, and it was usually very uncertain ahead of time if and how it would work.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#368

Post by ashtonkem » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:21 AM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #111

dotdi wrote: post #9

I see CDPR being bashed a lot and I wanted to chip in: I bought the game on release day on GOG and am playing it on a Macbook Pro via Geforce Now. It's running very well for me. I've had 0 crashes. Very few glitches, and if, then they were cosmetic i.e. didn't cause any gameplay problems†. The visuals are absolutely amazing. Combat is very nice. The skill tree is interesting. Night city is beautifully immersive and t…

You're not seeing the issues because you're not playing the affected versions. Notice how all of the positive anecdotes are coming from PC players? IGN went so far as to split their Cyberpunk 2077 review into two separate reviews: One for consoles, and one for PC. Quote from the console review: > The Xbox One/PS4 version is nearly unrecognizable compared to the PC version. The PC version scored 9/10 and the console v…

... shouldn’t consoles be an easier target to develop for, since they’re more consistent and stable?

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#369

Post by mic-kul » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:22 AM UTC

illuminati1911 wrote: post #287

munk-a wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CDPR sounds like a relatively progressively run game company tbh. A lot of game dev companies deny you overtime during the run up to a major release and massively layoff staff after releases. Up here in British Columbia all technical workers[1] are overtime exempt because EA ran roughshod over our labour laws a number of years ago and people are too afraid to change them for fear of driving off businesses. 1. Vaguely…

I'm not familiar with Polish labour law, but it could be that in Poland like in many other European countries concepts such as "denying overtime" are inherently illegal.

In Poland most of developers run own companies to pay linear income tax (19% flat) plus €350 a month for state pension instead of paying 18% tax for first €20k earned plus 32% for overages plus mostly hidden to employees installment for pension scheme. So when your cost to the employer is €100k a year: - under labour law you take home €5.7k per month - running a company you take home €7k per month

For a country with a minimal wage of €610 this is a significant difference.

Most of the companies will offer paid time off to contractors, end even companies offering high-paying jobs like pilots do in do the same: https://www.ft.com/content/b8f77f16-d865-11e8-ab8e-6be0dcf18...

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#370

Post by cbozeman » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:23 AM UTC

jpsalm wrote: post #300

meddlepal wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PC here, agree it's fun and I think some people are definitely expecting GTA from a developer that has absolutely no experience making something like GTA. GTA is GTA because Rockstar perfected the formula and the engine over several iterations of the game. I'm sure every GTA is a mountain of work to create, but its a considerably smaller mountain than starting from scratch. But putting GTA aside, I don't think CDPR e…

>One thing that's always worked for me is to amortize the cost of purchase by time played. If I get only six hours of Cyberpunk 2077 played at $60. That's 10/hr for entertainment... which is better than a lot of stuff. I'll probably sink 50 or 60 hours into the game completing the main story. That's $1/hr of entertainment... ridiculously good value. The amount of time we have is finite, attaching a dollars per hour f…

I agree.. its very much a quality of experience for me.

I paid $250 for a six person table with dinner at the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra while they played all the best pieces of John Williams' music from his many film scores. Only a two hour concert, but the Jurassic Park theme made me tear up, and I was only 10 feet from the orchestra.

I paid $300 for two Conductor's Box seats at the MSO for myself and a girl I was dating to see the Harry Potter in Concert series, where you watch a Harry Potter movie while the orchestra plays all the music from the film live. For me, it was hit or miss, since I was too old to really get into Harry Potter, but the lady I was seeing was 15 years younger than me, so it really affected her, which of course really benefited me.

Both cases, money well spent.