CD Projekt Red (CDPR) reportedly announced that it will be implementing a mandatory six-day work week for its staff. The studio’s new rule will require that employees put in a “typical amount of work and one day of the weekend” until the game’s launch.
Information about the mandatory period comes from an employee working at CDPR, who says that the studio is reneging on its promise to never make its staff work overtime and enter into a “crunch” mode. Moreover, some staff have had allegedly been putting in extra hours and weekends for more than a year.
If you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, the heads of CDPR, Adam Badowski and Marcin Iwinski, said back in 2019 that they wanted to respect fellow staff and colleagues, and that it wouldn’t force them to enter a “crunch” period or work overtime.
The hypocrisy of the situation clearly isn’t lost to Badowski, who is very much aware of his initial promise and that he is fully prepared for any backlash for his decision. With Cyberpunk 2077 drawing closer to its 18 November launch date, Badowski also explained that one of the reasons for the unpopular decision is because “it was time to fix the game’s many lingering bugs and glitches”. At the very least, the employees are being compensated for their troubles, as required Polish labour laws.
On an unrelated note, a recently analytics report have shown that Cyberpunk 2077’s preorder numbers aren’t what CDPR was expecting them to be. Statistically, preorders volume for the game was approximately 31% behind other more successful titles in the past, like Red Dead Redemption 2.
Despite the lower than expected numbers, though, CDPR is expecting preorder numbers to pick up as it inches closer to Cyberpunk 2077’s launch date, but given the recent accusations, it’s possible that the mandatory crunch period may hurt sales. Especially if people choose to boycott the game over it.
