Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier claims to have gotten hold of an email that CD Projekt RED’s management sent out to staff, mandating overtime ahead of Cyberpunk 2077‘s release.
The interesting part about the email is that studio head Adam Badowski acknowledged that he is walking back on a promise that he made a year ago to not force crunch. He also mentioned that he is prepared to receive backlash over this decision.
“Starting today, the entire studio is in overdrive,” reads the email. This means “your typical amount of work and one day of the weekend.”
“I take it upon myself to receive the full backlash for the decision,” Badowski continued. “I know this is in direct opposition to what we’ve said about crunch. It’s also in direct opposition to what I personally grew to believe a while back – that crunch should never be the answer. But we’ve extended all other possible means of navigating the situation.”
A developer reached out to Bloomberg to report that, contrary to CDPR’s previous statements, developers have been working night shifts and weekends for over a year already. The studio will pay employees for the overtime, but it’s unclear how long they’ll be required to crunch.
Back in 2019, CDPR told Kotaku that it’s striving to be “more humane” towards its employees.
“We do have private lives as well,” Badowski said back then. “We are getting older, and most of the people who are responsible for crunch, they have families, little kids, and they feel exactly the same.”
CDPR has yet to respond to Bloomberg’s report.
[Source: Bloomberg]
