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CDPR's official response to rumors / talk about morale within studio
- Thread starter Tovarisc
- Start date
This is somewhat unexpected, to be honest. I wouldn't have thought the rumours/Glasdoor reviews were relevant enough to warrant a statement like this.
Yeah, the statement is pretty much "Yeah, making the games we do is difficult", which seems kinda like an excuse for bad morale among some employees.
Yeah, the statement is pretty much "Yeah, making the games we do is difficult", which seems kinda like an excuse for bad morale among some employees.
metalslimer
Member
Yeah.. also this game totally isn't coming out this gen
I remember that "insider" (did mods ever check on him if he was really CDPR dev?) posting on GAF about how TW3 is one functional small map and gameplay demo 2 months from release. Or something like that.
Those who wanted to drag down CDPR and hate on TW3 really ate that stuff up and copy pasted to every possible thread. Those were old good days...
Blackage
Member
I always pictured game development like raiding in a MMO. Progression and figuring shit out is a drag and it's like "oh god sit me for this, I don't want to be here." and you miss out on friends and family for a while but then you get it down and you're like "Fuck yes, victory!" and you enjoy farm status for a while until the next tier(game) needs comes out and decide if you wanna do it again.
JonnyDBrit
Member
The closest it gets is basically handwaving departures as being a result of staff acknowledging their differences with the direction of the project and/or how it's done, and so electing to leave. Which may or may not be a morale thing depending on how that affects their outlook of working for the company.
This. It's good that they are commenting on this, but it's a shame that the actual comment is so vague, and seems to evade some areas of the issue entirely. There is no mention of management issues, nor the mistreatment of lower-level employees like the Glassdoor reviews mentioned.
Didn't even know there were morale rumors......and honestly I don't care when they release Cyberpunk because they are the greatest in the game atm.
They can take their time while I still figure out how to deal with all the amazing games I have anyways. If they deliver on anything equal or near Witcher 3 levels with Cyberpunk.....the wait will easily be worth it and the 2k+ hours I put into it will be enjoyed.
But also.....that response doesn't mention morale lol
They can take their time while I still figure out how to deal with all the amazing games I have anyways. If they deliver on anything equal or near Witcher 3 levels with Cyberpunk.....the wait will easily be worth it and the 2k+ hours I put into it will be enjoyed.
But also.....that response doesn't mention morale lol
To be fair, the user that posted those claims (Anaxymenes, if I'm not mistaken) probably meant that in relation to the graphics, and from that point of view he wasn't wrong. His choice of words was certainly ambiguous, though.
Or maybe I'm just giving him too much credit.
Exentryk
Member
Yeah, was my first thought.
But regardless, I am really excited to see how epic Cyberpunk ends up being! And the work required to make that happen can't be easy, and not for everyone.
There was a thread about it a few weeks ago:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1435875
But it looks like Glassdoor reviews should be taken with a grain of salt.
Even Mike Pondsmith himself commented on Reddit:
Honestly though, would you really expect them to admit they have such problems? I know they have this image of 'good guys', but they're still a business. I'm actually quite surprised they even acknowledged it.
In a way they aren't wrong. Just look at e.g. Naughty Dog and their notoriously long and demanding crunch cycles to deliver games at quality they do. That kind development environment does require very specific kind personalities and could apply to CDPR too as their process to develop could be very demanding in other ways.
That doesn't excuse alleged poor top down management and giving impression that input on project doesn't matter.
Spacecowboy77
Member
So 2020?
FrontalMonk
Banned
True, and when you say "decide if you want to do it again", the majority of the time you chase that dragon. If you wanted a Dev job that was stable, paid well, and had a normal work week, there's plenty of jobs that aren't gamedev that would fit that bill.
Z
ZombieFred
Unconfirmed Member
To be honest that's not fair to say that's 100 percent confirmation from them just posting an article to give a decent response and explain than they should. Rather insulting to put that against them.
Unfortunately when dealing in generalities this kind of comment made by people is hard to parse on whether it is acceptable or not. The fact of the matter is that sometimes input doesn't matter, and people will be ignored simply for bandwidth reasons. Which they may or may not be able to deal with. This says nothing of whether their concerns are valid or not and it is hard to really extrapolate the experience of a few people to a whole team, especially on our side, which all we see is mostly a black box.
Deeke[VRZ]
Member
Cyberpunk 2077 is the biggest thing CDPR has ever done. And the game is currently slated to release alongside ANOTHER major AAA RPG by 2021.
That's four years of time. Cyberpunk 2077 is progressing very, very slowly, and by now they're probably working on that other AAA RPG (if it still even happens, not sure if it's been cancelled, and we probably won't know until if/when they reveal anything in future earnings reports).
I would imagine morale being low-ish is just a staple of any big games publisher making absurdly huge, technical and infinitesmally complex video games. I'm sure the leads are happy, but the grunts in the trenches? No idea.
That's four years of time. Cyberpunk 2077 is progressing very, very slowly, and by now they're probably working on that other AAA RPG (if it still even happens, not sure if it's been cancelled, and we probably won't know until if/when they reveal anything in future earnings reports).
I would imagine morale being low-ish is just a staple of any big games publisher making absurdly huge, technical and infinitesmally complex video games. I'm sure the leads are happy, but the grunts in the trenches? No idea.
It's rather insulting of them to say: "well article X said that the morale is really low and we'd like to respond to that".
Only to have them say" Working in this business is exhausting and we have our standards... so there".
It explains nothing, it doesn't add anything to the discussion.
They just have differing opinions of what is okay and what isn't. Sure if you're an insider things will be more complicated.
But just keep those things private and don't add fuel to the fire. Would've been 100% okay for them not to respond to that article.
funkystudent
Member
cleveridea
Member
"all the hours we put in" is basically an admission of people working overtime right?
odd to put that in a PR about morale being bad typically due to crunch
odd to put that in a PR about morale being bad typically due to crunch
He turned into James Gunn?
I wasn't aware of such rumor and they way they avoid the question make it's actually seems true. Bad move from the PR team there
That's absolutely not true for artist, game/level designer and and many more... you want to/are good at 3D, well enjoy all those jobs that will likely destroy you social life, health and more
That's absolutely not true for artist, game/level designer and and many more... you want to/are good at 3D, well enjoy all those jobs that will likely destroy you social life, health and more
The à¹ÛBronx
Member
"We heard that people were worried about our working conditions and progress of the game, so here's why the game is going alright"
Nothing statement, just a weird thing to put out lol.
Nothing statement, just a weird thing to put out lol.
Blam
Member
This very much is a much more accurate representation of the morale then anything.
Spacecowboy77
Member
The fact that they even address these rumors is very telling imo
BLAUcopter
Gold Member
lol.
Baron_Calamity
Member
Wasn't worried about it till now.
Gunblade47
Neo Member
Talking around the concerns of the well-being of their employees isn't suspect in the slightest.
"Tomorrow's unethical business practices today!"
Edit: Personally, I'm hoping it's just an unintentionally vague statement.
"Tomorrow's unethical business practices today!"
Edit: Personally, I'm hoping it's just an unintentionally vague statement.
Theslammer
Member
EDIT: Wow, I'm dumb. They talk about morale right in the tweet, haha. Disregard this.
AtomicShroom
Member
Not a fan of that statement one bit.
I interpret it as What were doing is difficult, therefore were totally justified in treating employees harshly and expecting them to sacrifice their every waking minute to our mandatory crunch culture of endless overtime and pressure!
They sound like abusive parents.
I interpret it as What were doing is difficult, therefore were totally justified in treating employees harshly and expecting them to sacrifice their every waking minute to our mandatory crunch culture of endless overtime and pressure!
They sound like abusive parents.
Welcome to AAA game development. I'm not apologizing for it but labor exploitation is like the bread and butter for 95% of this industry. You get what you pay for.
Sentenza
Member
The rumor itself said virtually nothing, honestly.
"A big development team with a lot of crunching is a stressful work environment who's wearing down some people".
Now, to be clear I don't doubt for a minute that's probably very true. It's also something that I'd expect to be true pretty much in any similar environment... And I don't think it's necessarily telling on the quality of their output.
