It’s with sad news that CD Projekt Red announced that staff creating Cyberpunk 2077 over the next while will be working a full 6 day work week in order to get the game out in time for it’s delayed November release date and that due to this developers would certainly be crunching to get everything done. Many people have stated that this is ok as it’s what is expected from the industry and at least they are getting paid for this but in my humble opinion this is just sad.
Crunch is almost always the failure of time management due to not scheduling development time properly or not setting correct goals over a period of time which means that the people on the front lines are the ones usually who have to take the brunt of the damage rather than the people in higher positions. Ultimately this will just make people who work on the game feel burnt out and may leave them to leave the industry entirely once this project is completed. It sucks even more considering the fact that CD Projekt Red are considered very pro consumer which makes them taking such drastic and bad decisions for their staff feel like a stab in the back when they really want to do the right thing.
Ultimately this is essentially just seeing how the sausage is made as apparently this is so prevalent in all aspects of big budget gaming companies and surely that in itself is a massive failure. Speaking as someone who has had jobs in which I felt pressured to work mandatory overtime or face losing my job it’s an incredibly demoralising situation as you place your physical and mental health on the line just so you can ensure a constant stream of income to just survive at home. The industry as a whole needs a change and they should be more willing to delay projects and not give concrete release dates, this shouldn’t be accepted as just ‘something that happens everywhere’.
That’s all for now, and as always. It’s not just a game, It’s a Life.