CD Prokekt Red have come under criticism after revealing that their development team would have to work “6 day weeks” ahead of the upcoming release of their most anticipated release of the year, Cyber Punk 2077.
The backlash comes as a result of a statement put out from former graphic designer and editor, but now team leader, Adam Badowski, that stated, although it was originally promised staff working on the upcoming release would not be forced to work more than their scheduled hours, they would now be required to work more than their normal 40 hours per week.
Mr Badowski stated “I take it upon myself to receive the full backlash for the decision. I know this is in direct opposition to what we’ve said about crunch.”
Under Polish law (and with CD Projekt Red being a Polish company) , working more than 40 hours a week is unconventional, unless the employer is in special need, and with the release of Cyber Punk 2077 being released on November 19th, the studio feels the need to impose a “crunch” to get the game ready on time.
Users from the Steam community, an online video game distribution platform, argue that the backlash is unnecessary and that “the employees are paid a lot for the extra work that they put in according to a user known as “Slan”, whilst another user known as Yamato stated “The practice is bad for the industry and the workers involved”.
CD Projekt Red are accredited for their outstanding fantasy role playing game franchise, “The Witcher” with their last Major release being “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” which achieved critical acclaim and won Spikes Game of the year award back in 2015 whilst also selling over 30 million copies worldwide.
CyberPunk 2077 was originally meant to be launched on April 16 of this year but was then pushed back to September 17th as the team stated “We are currently at a stage where the game is complete and playable, but there’s still work to be done,”. It was then revealed that the game would be pushed back a further 2 months due to getting “The right balance of game mechanics and a lot of bug fixes”.
The game is now scheduled to launch on November 19th of 2020, with a lot of weight from critics and gamers alike resting on its shoulders.