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[Deleted member 17706]

What a fucking knob this guy is.

 

[Dodkrake]

Aside for the fact that this is mostly a strawman (honestly "How the sausage is made" is none of my business in both cases) there's also a difference between "We didn't sleep at our homes for six months straight" (as the rumors went for ND and TW3) and "Boo fucking oooh, they asked us to work on Saturday for six weeks straight during the final rush!" (as reported for CP2077).

"As the rumors went" vs Actual confirmation.

Cool beans.

Crunch is never good, and should be optional. Period.

 

[pr0cs]

Clearly slow news day. What a pointless thing to make a thread over.

 

[Ulysses 31]

Who crunches prior to the need? Usually it is guided by the project burndown chart and the number of open/unaddressed bugs vs avg bug fix time. Crunching when not needed is a wasting resources as it is well known that there is diminishing returns on work hours.

The crunch I'm talking is the one that comes from bad project management where deadline estimates are done poorly and the workers have to compensate for that, not crunch just to keep busy.

 

[CrysisFreak]

Jim is a fat cuck, not a journalist.
He doesn't know the exact details of CDPR's work environment at all and his viewers are absolute brainlets (communists).
Not a joke btw.

 

[Ulysses 31]

It's getting to the point where I think gaming "journalists" care about this issue WAAAY more than the average gamer. For what ever that's worth.....

How informed do you expect "gamers" to be?

 

[geary]

Yes... it is part of my job.

Actually most of my projects takes years to be implemented... that is why since 2004 it is my 6th or 7th project (I had two years personal retirement between 2015 and 2017 do take care of family company... I'm working again since 2018 with two new projects).

So you know very well that any prediction/schedule and some target are not achieved in the whatever arbitrary way of evaluation the timeline and once a deadline is in place is very hard to move it (and CDPR already moved deadline twice).

 

[mckmas8808]

"As the rumors went" vs Actual confirmation.

Cool beans.

Crunch is never good, and should be optional. Period.

I actually disagree with the bolded. Mandatory crunch or OT sometimes is needed. As long as they are getting "PAID" for it (NOT compensated), then I don't have as much of an issue with it.

How informed do you expect "gamers" to be?

Not too informed at all. The problem I'm seeing is, once these people put out some of these stories it doesn't get much traction at all! Some of the REALLY bad cases of crunch got traction, but the ones like CD Project Red's never do.

 

[BlitzerRadic]

Sorry, I will never feel sorry for software developers who have to crunch while sitting on their ass and getting food served on site when there are plenty of people out there who work just as many hours and/or doing harder work in crappier conditions for a lot less money and no one gives a shit about them.

 

[MiguelItUp]

"Failure of management"? Not always.

Game production is uniquely unpredictable, and sometimes there are no quick or easy fixes for unforseen problems.

Is management imperfect? Sure. But so is everyone else. Should submitting a piece of what turns out to be buggy code be a punishable, even sackable offense? If that was the case there'd be literally nobody left.

EXACTLY. Folks that are just blaming it on "poor management" have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. It's not that black and white.

Game development and production is unpredictable, there are so many variables and expectations that make it a slippery slope. You can also guarantee the larger the team and staff, the more room for error there is across the board.

Not only that, but the entire AAA game industry functions in the same/very similar fashion. The same workflows, procedures, databases and software, etc. So it's impossible to not expect crunch in various forms during a projects birth and going gold. Indie devs and pubs? They can get by just fine. But the AAA is a completely different beast that involves more money, expectations, etc.

 

[Self]

There is a difference between crunching months after months and crunching the month before you ship your product. One is because of poor project management and the other is for fixing last minute problems before going live.

Having to fix last minute problems is the equivalent of poor project management. Good project management would be to anticipate and forsee this kind of situations. These kind of situations are not uncommon.

 

[Kiya's Guard]

I hate that guy, and in general people who make a living of just complaining about everything to make views

 

[Bragr]

What's important is how the crunch is executed and how well it is managed within the companies and how they are compensated. Working an extra shift on Saturday is normal in many jobs and it's not some extreme shock that they had to do this to get it shipped before the holidays. I worked at places where I had to work Saturdays too, but you do it because of the extra money, or else you find another job, it's not rocket science or a brutal job practice.

I have no idea how crunch takes place within CD Projekt Red, but gamers and the media are pretending this is a sweatshop crime. Jesus Christ, it's a normal procedure in the entertainment industry to work extra to push a product out the door.

 

[DonJorginho]

Jim should stop crunching on biscuits and crisps.

 

[Ulysses 31]

Having to fix last minute problems is the equivalent of poor project management. Good project management would be to anticipate and forsee this kind of situations. These kind of situations are not uncommon.

The one where crunch was only needed in the final month is still indicative of being less bad than the one where crunch was needed for multiple months?

 

[Concern]

Talking about "crunching". How about he gets off his fat ass and does some crunches?


Guy just changes with the wind, looking for things to cry about.

 

[Allnamestakenlol]

It's a bad thing, but I can't really bring myself to care unless it's an ongoing thing. We all have to crunch sometime.

 

[Omnipunctual Godot]

It's literally a month and a half, six weeks, of working a six-day week with paid overtime and bonuses after. This is ridiculous.

 

[YuLY]

I used to like Jim back when he was still with Destructoid (one of the few reasons to visit that site) and he did those appearances as Helghast leader cosplay from Killzone. I feel like nowadays hes trying too hard and all he does is whine about everything for clicks. It aint for me anymore.

 

[Self]

The one where crunch was only needed in the final month is still indicative of being less bad than the one where crunch was needed for multiple months?

Yes, but still bad project management.

 

[B-universe]

Yeap it is optional...

If you want to never work in the industry again lol

Yes, because, CDPR has the right and, I would add the moral duty, to, among other things, reward effort, commitment, dedication. All else being equal, how deeply unfair would it be for CDPR to treat someone who didn't put in the extra effort just like those who did put in the extra hours?

I understand some people might want to reward gender, genitalia or sexual orientation. It's an old-fashioned concept you apparently abhor, to, among other things, reward effort.

The shock, the horror.

You know project management has some tools like review the project schedule.
It i s part of project management to review the schedule and make the proper changes regularly.

So yes crunch is a "failure of management".

Whatever professional role you play, that doesn't afford you any special knowledge on how to manage CP2077. You know nothing about their finances, you know nothing about contracts and legal obligations, you know nothing about the state of the game outside of what little they choose to tell you, you known nothing abut other forthcoming projects in the pipeline, you know nothing about the workforce, you know nothing about individual dev's needs, desires, ambitions, goals and private lives, whether they're married, single, with young kids, foreigners, still living at home, with a mortgage, etc.

Frankly, you and I know nothing about the inner workings. Nothing that's important to having an informed opinion and being able to pass knowledgeable comment on how the project has been managed. Still you decided to do it, at your own risk and peril.

I've tried to argue this from a principled perspective : CDPR has the right to set the conditions, developers have the right to accept, to refuse, to negotiate, to go on strike, to move to the competition, to build their own indie studio where Crunch will never ever happen again and they'll make boatloads of money while working 8-hour days, 5 days a week.

I'm still waiting for you to quote people who have criticized other companies for crunch and are now making excuses for CDPR.

So I expect the same will happen with this post of yours.

 

[Clear]

You know project management has some tools like review the project schedule.
It i s part of project management to review the schedule and make the proper changes regularly.

So yes crunch is a "failure of management".

Not always.

Bugs and design flaws are not always immediately apparent, and that being the case the time to remedy such issues are even less predictable. Fixes can further compound this because the process is always implement, evaluate, iterate.

Publishers can switch milestone deliverables on a dime because noone can ever detail such things to the degree of granularity that makes them watertight. Yes, you can negotiate but without agreement you are still behind the 8-ball.

This, of course, is the defining flaw with project management. Goals are set in stone, but the actual condition of the product at the time of delivery is mutable. How many bugs is the producer willing to sign off as KS (known, shipped) and let the consequences be damned? Are you the developer content with delivering less in a timely fashion, or try to do it right even though it might impact deadlines and require stretch efforts?

Its not a simple thing, which is why nobody, nowhere ever releases in a perfect condition, on time, every time.

Glib sweeping statements just do not cut it, because they don't do justice to the awful complexity of an enterprise which has the all the holistic weight of engineering, the artistic needs of multi-disciplinary creation, and the economic demands of high-budget entertainment programming.

 

[Ulysses 31]

It's literally a month and a half, six weeks, of working a six-day week with paid overtime and bonuses after. This is ridiculous.

Their CEO is calling it crunch so I don't think it's just an extra 9-5 work day for six weeks.

 

[Omnipunctual Godot]

Their CEO is calling it crunch so I don't think it's just an extra 9-5 work day for six weeks.

"“Starting today, the entire (development) studio is in overdrive,” Badowski wrote, elaborating that this meant “your typical amount of work and one day of the weekend.” The extra work would be paid, as required by Polish labor laws. Many other video game studios don’t pay for overtime. "

Cyberpunk 2077 Publisher Orders 6-Day Weeks Ahead of Launch

Polish video game developer CD Projekt Red told employees on Monday that six-day work weeks will be mandatory leading up to the November release of the highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077, reneging on an earlier promise to not force overtime on the project.

www.bloomberg.com

 

[BusierDonkey]

Are CDPR employees complaining about crunch, or is crunch just happening before a major release and other people are complaining on their behalf?

 

[Aggressive Carrot]

He sure does love to whine about things. I wonder how long it took to think of something as clever as CD stands for crunching developers. He is super smart.

 

[diffusionx]

Welcome to the real world Jimbo.

Sometimes shit just has to get done. Nobody complains when they end up with a brilliant game now do they.

 

[Deleted member 740922]

That fucking fat nonce should consider how hard takeaway workers have to slog away to keep his 50,000 calories a day habit going before whining about anyone else.

 

[The Hamburglar]

You realize CDPR are adding in that trans genderfluid stuff as a negative view on it? Night city is meant to be completely degenerate, and CDPR are saying in a fallen morally destroyed city like nighty city, stuff like trans/genderfluid/genital/diversity stuff would be normal BECAUSE everything is so bad.

Dystopia is the one genre the sjw stuff makes sense

What a bizarre way to pretend this game isn’t going woke because you hate woke but like this game way

 

[jakinov]

"abuse" , "unethical", "exploitative behavior", "nasty behavior", "overworking staff in hostile conditions".

A lot of negative hyperbolic language to describe over-time work during the last stretch of development of a 7 year project. Where employees are paid 150% - 200% of their regular pay to work to get something done.

 

[Fake]

• The developers get compensated appropriately

This I still don't get. If they get compensated for the extra work why do people Game Journalist complain?

 

[Ulysses 31]

"“Starting today, the entire (development) studio is in overdrive,” Badowski wrote, elaborating that this meant “your typical amount of work and one day of the weekend.” The extra work would be paid, as required by Polish labor laws. Many other video game studios don’t pay for overtime. "

Cyberpunk 2077 Publisher Orders 6-Day Weeks Ahead of Launch

Polish video game developer CD Projekt Red told employees on Monday that six-day work weeks will be mandatory leading up to the November release of the highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077, reneging on an earlier promise to not force overtime on the project.

www.bloomberg.com

Devil is in the details, what is considered a typical amount of work in these last couple of months?

I hope for the best but in the corporate world, unless it's in black and white, assume to be taken advantage of.

 

[Fuz]

• The developers get compensated appropriately
• If they don't deem the overtime to be worth it then they can leave, they are not forced to stay at the company against their will
• The game has just gone gold and will break sales records, employees are set to get a cut of this

Cry me a river.

You forgot "pretty much every other job has even worse crunch".

 

[mr.dilya]

That fat piece of garbage needs to do a few crunches of his own.

 

[Fuz]

It's literally a month and a half, six weeks, of working a six-day week with paid overtime and bonuses after. This is ridiculous.

Six days total. Paid handsomely.
Booh-fucking-hooo.

 

[jaysius]

I'm going to crosspost, because the video is too awful to go unnoticed.

__________________________________________

Ah, poor, Jim Sterling, the King of Strawman.

Ah, poor Jim, trying to conflate indentured servitude with a voluntary relationship between employer and employer, which the latter is free to terminate, as in, quit.

Ah, poor Jim, insinuating there's no possible principled defence of crunch. That it's just hypocritical teenagers who wouldn't be able to stand another delay rationalizing CDPR's behaviour. Poor Jim, he's probably never been exposed to proper arguments in defence of crunch down at the local pub, he might actually believe there aren't any.

Ah, poor Jim, suggesting gamers should not trust Adam Badowsli when he says developers are satisfied for the most part, because that's just what devs and management would say. Let me apply this infallible logic of Jim to Jim himself: Sure, gamers should trust Jim Sterling instead, so he can keep on making controversial videos complaining about the ills of a popular video game company, thus keeping his channel alive, right?

Ah, poor Jim, oblivious to individual rights, which extend both to developers and management. Poor Jim, can't stand the free market, because it's so unfair to poor developers. He just can't fathom other people having other values, other priorities, other goals. Please, Jim, would you accept the a possible pungent Sorry with which developers might apologize for not being Jim Sterling?

Ah, poor Jim, claiming that when developers can speak freely they've "describe[d] a culture of misery". Really, Jim? How would you know that? How many did? What percentage? Did you verify their claims? How did you verify the claims?

Ah, poor Jim. using "Fucking" as commas, therefore he must the right. His self-righteous tone can only mean the arguments are on his side. No other possibility exists. Workers must unionize. Why oh why won't developers listen to Jim once and for all? Who could possibly distrust Jim?

In terms of quality of the arguments Jim's made, watching this video is the equivalent of inspecting a sewer.

Ah, poor Jim.

Jimmothy is a troll parser, it's how he makes his money, he probably doesn't even believe half the shit he spouts, it's his "brand" and it's annoying. The quicker we ignore this chump the better.

 

[recursive]

Yes, but still bad project management.

Or shitty worker performance, workers took some sick days, etc. It is not always management's fault but they will be blamed.

 

[Mossybrew]

I just don't have it in me to care about any of these "crunch" stories. If it's too stressful on the employee, they should probably reevaluate what industry they want to work in and go do something else.

 

[Edgelord79]

Jim reminds me of someone who might hang out on ledges.

 

[Clear]

Jim reminds me of someone who might hang out on ledges.

Nah, pure bottom-feeder in everything he does. Just another cynical purveyor of negativity for profit.

 

[Edgelord79]

Nah, pure bottom-feeder in everything he does. Just another cynical purveyor of negativity for profit.

In that case he's the guy helping people jump off the ledge. Either way, he's way up there.

 

[Oida di Figgiano]

Having to fix last minute problems is the equivalent of poor project management. Good project management would be to anticipate and forsee this kind of situations. These kind of situations are not uncommon.

Even the best project management is only as good as the people involved, and as long people (meaning humans) are involved you will always have relatively subpar results that make the best project management the theory it is on paper. because humans and as long as there are humans, there will be avoidable mistakes which lead to problems that have to be ironed out mostly at the expense of significant amount of other humans. When you can erase as much human material from the actual work and automize it the better results you will get and the better project management will be possible to implement/work out compared to what was thought out initially. But then again, without human material there is no need for anything to be considered "crunch" because machines can work around the clock. So in the end its their fault when it comes to crunch, shouldn´t have made so much mistakes and worked better then i guess.

 

[Clear]

In that case he's the guy helping people jump off the ledge. Either way, he's way up there.

Need to be a big ledge to fit his morbidly obese ass...

 

[KingdomHeartsFan]

Fat ass over here probably thinks doing 6 extra shifts over 6 weeks is like climbing mount Everest.

 

[Edgelord79]

Even the best project management is only as good as the people involved, and as long people (meaning humans) are involved you will always have relatively subpar results that make the best project management the theory it is on paper. because humans and as long as there are humans, there will be avoidable mistakes which lead to problems that have to be ironed out mostly at the expense of significant amount of other humans. When you can erase as much human material from the actual work and automize it the better results you will get and the better project management will be possible to implement/work out compared to what was thought out initially. But then again, without human material there is no need for anything to be considered "crunch" because machines can work around the clock. So in the end its their fault when it comes to crunch, shouldn´t have made so much mistakes and worked better then i guess.

Define crunch.

 

[FunkMiller]

In Jim’s case the CD stands for Coronary Disease, or possible Coma Diabetes.

 

[Insane Metal]

I'm not watching this cunt ever again. He's such a ridiculous character.

 

[FunkMiller]

...possibly Cholesterol Death.

 

[lifa-cobex]

 

[Oida di Figgiano]

Define crunch.

i couldn´t care less especially since everybody uses this term as he wants to push agendas. Mainly snowflakes regard to it as having to work longer than your average 9to5.

in this case, as i understood the people employed and attached to the development of cyberpunk are asked to work on saturdays while being compensated for it and those not willing to do this are free to leave. With RDR2 (or was it gta v idk) there were stories about some upper echelon people working over 100 hours per week in the final cycle before release, others have other definitions as well...

But as i said, i don´t care, even if they would be forced to do and pay for it themselves i wouldn´t care. The world is cruel and unfair place.


edit: so coming back to your question about definition: its used for "having to work more than usual". And with my point of having human material erased from the equation it wouldn´t matter because i doubt machines will have a problem with long working hours or heavy workloads.