So that's how they created content for this massive game. Other studios, take note. Work smart, not hard, you cruch-crazies.
General Crunch Time for Projects *spawn* [2020]
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So that's how they created content for this massive game. Other studios, take note. Work smart, not hard, you cruch-crazies.
They are not the only one to do this and CDProjekt is with Naughty Dog and Rockstar one of the most heavy crunch studio.
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Based on sources ... what we know for sure is that employees got forced into doing 6 day work weeks for 2 months. Industry standards will have to get a lot more friendly before I call that crunch.
No based on sources they crunch since much longer than this. See the last mail of the CEO Jsson Schreier posted on twitter, they crunch since end of 2019, nearly one year. I can find you the tweet of Bart Wronski who quit game industry because he find the work with tons of crunch and underpaid as a programmer compared to other sofware engineering opportunity. He works for Google Research now but he worked for Ubi Soft and CDProjekt and he called Cdprojekt a bad experience with tons of crunch.
From what I heard following twitter account of dev, EA and Activision have less crunch than ND, CDProjekt or Rockstar.
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I thought the Devs got paid overtime for the extra hours worked according to Poland labor laws. Where as in the US if you're a salary employee, you get no extra pay for extra hours.
Anyways, this should be it's own entire topic, so probably shouldn't continue that discussion in this Game Dev Presentations.
Anyways, this should be it's own entire topic, so probably shouldn't continue that discussion in this Game Dev Presentations.
Just to be clear can we agree on this?
- Wronski said they suspended vacations.
- The CEO didn't mention squat of what exactly constituted the extra effort they were putting in.
- The rest is all unnamed sources.
EDIT: if mods start moving posts to another thread start do please start at post 573
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And again unamed sources is often better than public sources because they can talk freely. This is not like Jason Schreier is a bad journalist. Rockstar admit the work condition were not good and change part of it after an article by Jason schreier.
Unnamed sources were how the Ubi soft harassement were showed with men groping women without consent during work party and without any punishement. Bad company aren't friend ofthe employee.
When I talk about Bart Wronski, I don't speak about the current situation but about the experience he had about working on the Witcher 2, part of the problem being to be inefficient because they were a team of junior. He had an interesting discussion about if with Rich Geildrich about bad usage of Perforce versionning system and so on.
EDIT: If a mod can create another thread about the subject.
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How does the crunch differ from the typical software engineering in usa? Well, at least people crunching have overtime compensation
All the jobs I have had in the USA were Salary, which means I get paid a base salary regardless of how many hours I work. I do not earn anything more on that periods paycheck for working more hours than 40.
The only time I brought in more income for working more was when I was contracting or consulting. Even at that, it was entirely straight time, so work an extra 10 hours and get paid for an extra 10 hours. No time and a half, no double time.
If I work 40 hours its a very light and easy week. If I work 50 hours its a typical 5 day week. If I work an extra 30 hours over the weekend its a typical project deployment weekend for our larger projects. This happens multiple times a year, maybe 3 to 6 times, depending on scope and business strategy alignments.
The past decade has been like this. There is a once a year review that everyone undergoes. This is where you may earn a raise of anywhere from 0.5% to 3%, depending on company earnings and budgets and your existing salary.
When I was early in my career, I had times of earning a 25% raise and then being promoted a position for another 15% raise on top of the previous raise for an almost 44% increase in pay. There was also a one time 12% company-wide bonus.
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CD Projekt not only pays overtime hours at an increased rate, they also share the profits with the employees, 10% IIRC (which according to some calculations I did it could go as high as 100k per employee)
In the case of the latest 6-week crunch, there was a vote at CDP about it and the overwhelming majority of the devs voted in favour.
I don't know about Witcher 2, but there were plenty of CD Projekt devs coming out against Jason Schreier for his latest hitpiece on CD Projekt.
In the case of the latest 6-week crunch, there was a vote at CDP about it and the overwhelming majority of the devs voted in favour.
I don't know about Witcher 2, but there were plenty of CD Projekt devs coming out against Jason Schreier for his latest hitpiece on CD Projekt.
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There was a similar conversation on crunch in the EU over in the Cyberpunk thread. Employment law in the EU is very different to the USA.
This I agree with is ridiculous. How do you get no extra pay for overtime?
They were which said to him anonymously it is shit and the condition are not the same if you are polish or foreigner. This is always the same, some will be happy and other not at all.
If you are programmer you will earn more in other industry and money is not everything. I remember a guy working now for Google and ex Naughty Dog told to junior dev to work out of the game industry. He said less hour and better salary.
Bruce Straley(TLOU and UC4 director) did basically a burn out.
From someone working in marketing part, he said he earn more now than he quits game industry. I think the average carrer in game industry is 5 years if I remember well. It means next project many people quits and the team do some errors due to lack of experience.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/318588/The_great_video_game_exodus.php
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...ong-with-the-games-industry-and-how-to-fix-it
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Part of the perks of being Salary. Its not entirely bad, since Software Engineering positions have pay that is substantially higher than hourly figures for any other job. Typical job with benefits has maybe 2 weeks of paid vacation, nearly all SE start with 3 weeks without negotiating.
What can be nice is in the right job, you're not micro-managed and no one is hounding you on the hours you work, so you can start a little later or leave a little early for appointments or can work from home (all that was pre-pandemic). You're also working with good people and not put into stressful spots.
In Ohio the price of a typical nice house is anywhere from 125K to 250K, cheaper in some regions and more expensive in others, and excluding the Beverly Hills style insanely priced mansions. Data from here for those who want quick glance, its a few years old but it hasn't changed much: https://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/2017/12/ranking_every_ohio_city_county_9.html
The median household income is around 58K in Ohio. Meanwhile there are many experienced level SE salary positions well over 100K, some top positions into the 140K region.
Glassdoor reports average country wide base pay around 96K and 68K in Ohio. I feel like that is low or for those who don't have talent, charisma, or know how to negotiate: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/ohio-software-engineer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,4_IS2235_KO5,22.htm
My last 2 years in previous job and my 2 first year in current job I pulled probably average 50h weeks over 4 years. No overtime compensation. It wasn't that unusual to hit some 60hour weeks to balance out the easier weeks which were around 40 hours. Silicon valley is a crunch factory. To me it's much worse to do these long hours all the time versus having regular weeks and then crunch for a shorter period. The upside is that I got very well compensated either in bonuses or stocks to do that though rewards come year(s) after the hard work is done. You might for example get a lot of stock in yearly review but it vests over 4 for years so you work hard a year and wait another year for stocks to start vesting. Though that has effect of stocks piling on top of stocks so,...
Valley mentality and compensation is great if you can do it and be the top performer. It really sucks for non top performer who also puts hours in but doesn't get the monetary rub. I'm starting to be in point where work is not only content for my life and struggling to figure out a way to have manageable workload. Things happen where for example thanks giving is not planned in and then I ended up working over thanks giving +weekend over thanks giving. It's all do or die here.
As there is very little regulation in worktime there always is hungry people who are willing to do crazy hours. It's a very competitive environment.
Valley mentality and compensation is great if you can do it and be the top performer. It really sucks for non top performer who also puts hours in but doesn't get the monetary rub. I'm starting to be in point where work is not only content for my life and struggling to figure out a way to have manageable workload. Things happen where for example thanks giving is not planned in and then I ended up working over thanks giving +weekend over thanks giving. It's all do or die here.
As there is very little regulation in worktime there always is hungry people who are willing to do crazy hours. It's a very competitive environment.
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In general I'm in favor for allowing people choose their work hours. Sometimes there is capacity to do a lot, sometimes not. Just find the right place matching your needs. I'm not complaining about the valley mentality. That said I feel I would be more productive in more stable environment where I could reliably give 8h a day and do it with super focus and clear rested mind. The long hours start to be less effective for me if I get tired. Getting tired doesn't happen very fast if the work is interesting and rewarding.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/former-cdprojekt-employee-tweets-her-wage.315472/
430 dollars per month for a temporary contract working on the Witcher 3. At least she had a better offer later.
430 dollars per month for a temporary contract working on the Witcher 3. At least she had a better offer later.
Poorly it is the same level than minimal wage in Poland. Good for the resume and to go somewhere else after and probably another country, it seems the polish game industry is the same elsewhere.
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Minimal salary was 409 euros in 2014/2015 in Poland.