CDPR Chairman Apologizes For Demeaning Cyberpunk 2077 Crunch Comments
CD Projekt Red’s chairman Adam Kiciński has recently shared a few controversial and demeaning comments regarding the studio’s crunch policy for Cyberpunk 2077 - and he’s now apologizing for what he said. The drama started unfolding right after the developer announced that Cyberpunk 2077 had gotten delayed once again, until December.
This Tuesday, just a day after CDPR confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 would not be delayed, the studio unexpectedly broke its own promise and announced that the game would release on December 10 instead of the previously planned November 19. The reveal came as a surprise, especially considering that CDPR had to abandon its no-crunch policy in order to stick to the tight release schedule. Now, it appears that even a 6-day workweek was not enough. According to the studio, a prolonged development period is required to polish and optimize the game for the current-gen consoles whereas versions for next-gen and PC are finalized.
While the development team at CDPR is working harder than ever, the studio’s co-CEO Adam Kiciński said during a call to investors that in reality, the crunch was not that bad for his employees. According to Kiciński, the majority of the staff was not crunching at all, while the select few affected programmers and QA engineers were not expressing any concerns regarding forced overwork. Such a statement sounds controversial and misleading, to say the least, especially considering employees’ reports that crunch goes as far as facing 100-hour workweeks. A few hours after making those comments, Kiciński sent an email to CDPR staff apologizing for his words and admitting that they were harmful and demeaning, as reported by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.
Judging by the amount of work that is being put into Cyberpunk 2077 after the game successfully went gold, the immensely anticipated title will likely receive an enormous Day 1 patch. While the base client is ready for physical distribution on all platforms, it might still be in an unplayable state - or at least in a broken enough one to prevent players from enjoying Cyberpunk 2077. For the modern gaming industry, a game going gold basically means nothing for players, as it would still require downloading necessary updates.
It’s understandable that both gamers and developers are unhappy about the once again delayed Cyberpunk 2077. But while players have the ability to make any comments they want without any real consequences, CDPR’s co-CEO is in a position where every single word should be thought out. Both Kiciński’s demeaning comments and forced apologies might negatively affect the game’s reception - not to mention their effect on employees - which will undoubtedly be at least partially based on how CDPR handles the current PR nightmare.
Cyberpunk 2077 will be available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Google Stadia on December 10.
Source: Jason Schreier/Twitter