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)

#381

Post by WoahNoun » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:42 AM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #204

vsareto wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No reason to not give the bonuses when accomplishments are recognized then, instead of tying it to the team's success at a singular date (delivery). It forces everyone to work in overdrive. It's plainly not a personal contribution/performance bonus at all. If CDPR makes a bad hire that causes a delay (even outside of development, like marketing?), then everyone suffers for that from a lack of a bonus. This is particu…

Plenty of companies recognise contributions by handing out tokens that can't be cashed in immediately, that have a value that depends on the fortunes of the company, and that might fall in value precipitously. Just usually they name the tokens "stock options" or "pre-IPO shares" I agree there are plenty of shitty practices in the games industry, of course.

In the US, those are regulated. I'm not aware of the details, but I doubt these "certificates" in Poland have the same level of regulation as US securities.

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

#382

Post by freeflight » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:43 AM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #290

lmm wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they fail to deliver in the next 12 months, future sales will be bad. Citation needed. In my experience gamers are very quick to forgive and forget a bad game and will still line up for the next hyped release from the same publisher/studio.

TW3. CDPR dropped the ball (though not quite this hard) but pulled through within a year. No Man’s Sky missed that target but still managed to eventually have a (supposedly) decent product. Ask the average gamer how they feel about No Man’s Sky. Most other big budget case studies either completely failed, were decent within a year, or shipped in a complete state.

Wasn't just TW3, pretty much every Witcher game had issues on release that where fixed over the following time period trough a combination of patching, free DLC and paid DLC, ultimately culminating in the enhanced editions.

In that context CDPR has a very positive track record many people just flat out ignore; I've seen people on Reddit claim the game is an "unfixable mess" and how CDPR will just "cut their losses" by never patching it, it's inane beyond belief.

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

#383

Post by freeflight » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:54 AM UTC

zemo wrote: post #159

_cs2017_ wrote: post #27

Wasn't it obvious to anyone who play-tested on last-gen consoles that the game is nearly unplayable and so will receive horrendous reviews? Presumably CDPR employees are not afraid to convey such bad news to the management. So why did the management still decide to go ahead with the release this year? After reading this transcript, I didn't find the answer to these questions. "Underestimated the scale and complexity…

> Presumably CDPR employees are not afraid to convey such bad news to the management. it seems pretty clear that they're terribly abusive employers, so if anything I would assume the opposite is true: that it's an environment where the QA staff is chronically underpaid, lives in perpetual fear of dismissal, and is told that working on the biggest game ever is the honor of a lifetime.

> it seems pretty clear that they're terribly abusive employers

How so? They changed the revenue based bonuses to be paid out regardless of review averages [0]. They at least tried to make a commitment to less crunch, while over at Rockstar the amount of crunch for RDR2 was something the co-founder publicly bragged about [1].

Now people on forums are citing RDR2 as an example for "How to make a great open world game!", while at the same time lynching CDPR for not living up to their attempt to minimize crunch, after several delays.

The double standards at play here are mind-boggling.

[0] https://www.pcgamer.com/cyberpunk-2077-developers-will-be-pa...

[1] https://www.vulture.com/2018/10/the-making-of-rockstar-games...

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

#384

Post by mhh__ » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:54 AM UTC

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #123

mhh__ wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't game much you made be blind to the fact that the gameplay is a poor, and the AI is about 15 years behind the cutting edge (GTA SA was more advanced)

The PC version has an 89 on Metacritic after 62 reviews and those reviewers play a lot of games, I'm guessing.

Well, the subreddit is literally full of people either complaining or coping. These are people who have actually sunk cost into the game.

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

#385

Post by Hamuko » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:56 AM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #368

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They're not easier to target when your game is very unoptimised. Apparently even the PC version is very unoptimised and that you might be able to get better performance out of it by modding it.

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

#386

Post by freeflight » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:56 AM UTC

allarm wrote: post #336

dogma1138 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't get it, TW3 was unplayable for quite a while on base consoles, sub 30 fps throughout most of the game, and CB2077 is a game with much bigger scope the base consoles couldn't handle the NPC rich areas in TW3 so no matter how much optimization they would do I don't understand who thought that this game will ever be playable on the base previous gen consoles.

This point is incorrect. If they’re releasing the game for current gen, it should be playable on it.

Current gen is the PS5 and Xbox Series, except for occasional crashes the game looks and performs really well on those.

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

#387

Post by _cs2017_ » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:58 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…

"Easier for ask for forgiveness than permission": perhaps, but it's not obvious to me.

One the one hand, a further delay risks losing out a big part of sales. Dedicated fans will buy anyway, but presumably a large fraction of preorders came from people who just jumped on the hype. And who knows if you can recreate this hype after the pandemic ends, after other games come out, after you delay the release over and over. And yes, you can fix some of the damage later.

On the other hand, the company had an incredible reputation for quality, maybe one of the best in the industry. How much of the lost reputation will not be recovered, even after all the refunds and patches? Future games will get less preorders, so less cashflow, so more dependence on external funding - an extra source of risks and tension. Future games will not get as much hype, so will sell less. Even hiring might suffer as the best candidates are quite sensitive to the employer reputation.

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

#388

Post by trymas » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 5:59 AM UTC

mic-kul wrote: post #369

illuminati1911 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> under labour law you take home €5.7k per month - running a company you take home €7k per month

I dunno about Poland, but where I live this type of employment has some caveats:

- You need save for your time off (holidays) yourself. - You save on social security taxes, but it means your salary is not compensated by it when you are ill (or your kids are ill and you need to take care of them), thus you need to save for this yourself. - I would like to say that you would need to save up more yourself for your retirement fund (as you pay less for state pension), but at these level of incomes, usually at both scenarios (self-employed vs being employed) you would like to do that, so it cancels out.

Also it may be illegal, i.e. if you are employed like a full time employee - you cannot work as an independent consultant/contractor. Though AFAIK this definition of "like a full time employee" is not very strict.

IMO problem is that income taxation should be treated (mostly) the same, no matter how you earn the money. Because now (where I live), the wealthier you are, the more elaborate schemes you can run to avoid paying taxes on your income.

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

#389

Post by jevgeni » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:00 AM UTC

_qwfv wrote: post #321

ineedasername wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* it's not really cyberpunk* Having read a bunch of great (and not so great) cyberpunk fiction from the 80's & 90's, that's actually a theme that really shines through here for me. Crazy cybernetics & brain/computer interfaces, hacking, drugs, weird AI doing things like running a transport/security company with some splinter groups that have existential crisis... I really get that original cyberpunk vibe.

Your main character says not all cops are bastards. Strong punk energy. eyeroll It's extremely a game that is pastiche of cyberpunk, diving neither into the cyber nor punk beyond skinning things. Where's the Ghost in the Shell examination of the self? Where's the dive into what it means to have modifiable bodies? Where's the anti-establishment story (oh wait, the game opens with praise of the cops by multiple charact…

Cyberpunk never was cyber + punk.

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

#390

Post by mhh__ » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:00 AM UTC

zyemuzu wrote: post #193

_cs2017_ wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investors don't make money from sales. They just lost 30% of their investment. Literally no one benefited from this.

I feel like I did. Playing on a 3080, minor bugs I've experienced aside it has been a true taste of the next generation of games. Mostly in a visual sense though.

The world is completely dead, though.

It looks very impressive, but I still boot up assassin's creed Odyssey (of all games) just to wander around (i.e. an OK game but an excellent world), Cyberpunk so far feels like what people who don't like games feel games are like.