I bought 4 copies of Advent Rising because of how much people whined about it. No regrets.

@schmollian: I think the key differentiator here is that Ubisoft, in their games themselves, really do toe this weird apolitical line that makes their company culture easy to compartmentalize as this other problem. Whereas CDPR, via marketing materials and constant refutation of their own stated work goals, more and more comes off as “all talk”. And then they put that stuff in the game, even if it’s all backdoor’d and not necessarily highlighted. They’ve pretty consistently taken a stance of inclusivity without accepting their portrayals fall short for the people they’re so-called “including”.

Granted, I’m a white dude from the middle of the States so I’m at best sympathetic to these complaints but I do understand how the two companies’ issues seem fundamentally different.

@sethmode: Perhaps I’m reading into things but it has seemed to me that many in games media wanted to see this game fail due to the alleged transphobia and the crunch/ sketchy labor practice rumors. Not that that is a problem— people are fully entitled to use their voices as they see fit, but it’s certainly been my impression.

@nevergameover: Who though? Even the "negative" reviews I've seen from larger outlets have been in the 7-9 range. And in what capacity? Like, what are you reading into to begin with?

I've mostly read positive things about this game except for pointing out the following by some that aren't as sold on it:

1) Bugs bugs bugs.
2) Fetishizing Trans people
3) Some maybe not great side quests
4) Perhaps an overly edgy, over the top, kind of immature sounding tone

I don't think pointing out these things implies that reviews or the games media want the game to fail. If anything, the most pushback I've seen from games media has basically to defend other writers from the endless stream of shit they're getting from these assholes online going after people like Plagge because they're upset with a VIDEO GAME REVIEW.

Just about every single thing I've heard or seen about this game since the initial trailers has made me less willing to try it out. It's Persona 5 all over again.

Yes, it sounds great to me. Hopefully it's not super buggy. I basically bought an Xbox series X at launch for this game if I'm honest, since Halo was delayed.

Those saying they won't buy the game because of crunch work conditions should seriously consider never eating out in a restaurant ever again. I've worked through several 'crunches' and also as a chef for many years and it's not even close as to which is the harder gig...like not even the same game, let alone league or ball park. That's not to say things couldn't be better or the issue of poor working conditions shouldn't be addressed, they definitely should and its great that questionable practices are being called out, just a bit of perspective is maybe required.

Anyway, as for the game hearing about all its weirdness and that its more fallout style in its structure than witcher 3 style has got me interested enough to pre order and pre load....then listen to this weeks bombcast...oh boy that was rough, I expected Jeff to not be so hot on it but that was a hard swing in the negative direction.

@nevergameover: I don’t think those were rumors about crunch - they officially mandated a 6 day work week on top of whatever overtime everyone was doing already to meet the deadline. It’s clear that this game should have been pushed back until maybe March, but then again maybe they just needed a hard deadline just so they can be done with it and start working on patches. It’s gonna be a rough start but at least they can stop thinking about what else they can still put in and just concentrate on polishing up what they already have.

I couldn't help but notice that people in this thread are justifying crunch, this is a friendly reminder to stop doing that shit.

I'm going to keep this two virgils, I pre-ordered the collector's edition like a year and a half ago and bought a second copy just because it's likely that the collector's edition won't arrive by launch time. It's one of those games where I just have to play it myself regardless of what reviews say.

@briarpack: nobody is justifying poor working conditions.

Please don't confuse crunch with that. Crunch is often the most exiting and enjoyable time in a games development cycle as it is the time where all the hard work, sometimes years of it, all comes together. It is a time when the people who have worked on a project get to see that project take form.

The problem is poor working conditions during crunch. If you cant distinguish the two things you shouldn't talk about it as bundling it all into 1 thing is hugely misunderstanding it, its misleading and not helpful to anyone.

I think its safe to assume everyone here agrees that being pressured into working under poor conditions to meet deadlines is crappy and shouldn't be a thing, and nobody is justifying that.

I don't use Facebook, I wouldn't know what you mean.

What I do know is that you literally did try to minimize crunch by pointing out that in your opinion harder jobs exist. And absolutely no one asked. There is no perspective that is required to understand that 100 -hour work weeks are fucking bad. Take Screier's advice, it's addressed directly to you:

E: Okay, I'll take it from your edit that you literally just don't know the definition of crunch. Carry on...

@sarcasticmudcrab: Fellow restaurant professional here; I completely understand that take, in fact I'm sure I've made it myself multiple times in the past. I completely understand the feeling of being unable to relate to certain labor complaints from people who are in fields with highly competitive pay, health and investment benefits, etc. More to the point, as a front-of-house worker, my livelihood practically relies on crunch, even if that "crunch" looks nothing like it did pre-COVID.

...But much of this summer has reminded me that it's not exactly progressive, in the literal sense of making progress, to act like a crab in the bucket trying to bring others down to my level just because that's where I am. Restaurant crunch is very different from video game development crunch, yeah, but I'm not sure ours is worse than theirs. Our rough shifts cover a range of 4-8 hours, are highly physical, full of interaction and stimuli that both elates and depresses us. It's a very active form of crunch and one that always ends - and frankly, if a restaurant is busy enough that workers always feel under "crunch", something is wrong at the ownership or management level and they are cutting corners at the expense of their employees' health.

By contrast, tech crunch is 10-16 hour days of staring at code, sitting in a chair, fiddling with a fidget spinner or stress ball every once in a while with headphones on mostly not talking to anyone. I don't know about you, but even setting aside the fact that most of the people in our industry are masochistic bastards and bitches who get off on simply having a good service, I think the constant interpersonal interaction and wearing of many different hats as well as the guarantee that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and normalcy is as near as the next day rather than two or three months from now can't be underestimated.

I opened a craft beer and burger bar right next to an event stadium about two months prior to the space hosting 6 Garth Brooks concerts in four nights. I have never been as busy or overwhelmed as I was those four nights and I've never seen sales numbers like that at any job before or since. Every minute felt like a learning experience and every one on the team was constantly adapting to new problems and solutions. I admit, it was exhilarating, but ultimately what got all of us through it was the promise that, come Monday, it would be just another Monday. Ask any of us to keep that up for one, two, even three months? Or better yet, spring that on us through a tweet in the middle of the afternoon? I dunno, man.

But even then, to my original point - if labor at any level is in a position to fight for their ability to have a more comfortable work life balance, whether that be a mechanist or a major league basketball player, I say go for it. Working conditions are shit for damn near everybody at the lowest levels of their workplace, particularly in the States, and while the hospitality industry is notoriously hard on its workers compared to other industries I don't feel that gives me the right to tell game developers to "suck it up" just because they have it better financially.

@briarpack: I edited my previous post to explain it.

I am not saying what went on at cdpr was ok, or that being forced to work 100 hour weeks is ok, I'm saying crunch isn't inherently that. I think it often isn't.

The misunderstanding and calling all crunch bad because a few of examples of it have been is very 'facebook' like.

You are also misundetstanding my point entirely, I am not saying 100 hour week is ok because other jobs have similar conditions or worse. I am saying anyone boycotting this product for it should look into other industries that also treat their staff like this and concider boycotting them as well.

As for do I understand crunch, well I've slept under enough desks in a sleeping bag to have a good idea. Your take is very...social media.

Still seems like something I'll enjoy, even if it does appear to be very rough around the edges. I just hope the PS4 version runs okay...

@nodima: you are totally right. I don't believe forcing devs into a bad time during crunch or forcing people in the catering industry to work 12/14 hours straight, no breaks etc is ok at all. Its not something I'd do again and luckily have a nice friendly and easy job now.

It does take a certain level of psychopath to stick it in catering though and you should know what you're getting into beforehand, which is maybe not the case in games dev.

Point is for anyone taking 'action' against it should be aware of how hypocritical they might be being in their crusade for justice.

Anyway, it's good we've got to a place where the conversation about it is out in the open and it can only improve as more devs and publishers get called out for it.

Maybe if you just took the first sentence of you post, maybe. But in the context of the whole thing... No :D Don't try to pull that now.

If you were just trying to point out bad working conditions in the service industy (completely unprompted, which would be kind of strange) there would be no need to compare it to the gaming industry while telling people that "perspective is required". Absolutely vile shit.

Why is it that now suddenly crunch does mean bad working conditions? Also... jesus christ.

E:

"Point is for anyone taking 'action' against it should be aware of how hypocritical they might be being in their crusade for justice."

H-hello? What? Where is the hypocricy in speaking out against crunch? What the fuck?

Still looking forward to it. I've liked everything else CDPR has put out, so I expect I'll like Cyberpunk. Despite all the marketing and hype, it sounds like the game is exactly what I was expecting all along. The choice and consequence stuff, along with the impressive branching quest design is 90% of what I'm excited for. The trans representation issue undoubtedly sucks, I've also long accepted that video games are usually pretty trash regarding queer representation in general, so I guess it's just on par with my expectations. I don't know, I'm gay and I had a lot of fun with Persona 5, despite some really gross depictions of gay men, and the unforgivable choice to not let me choose Yusuke as a romance option. I guess I'm just numb to it. The labour stuff pisses me off, but I played RDR2 and any number of AAA games that I'm sure ground their devs into the dirt, also no ethical consumption yada yada.

All the problems are definitely really bad, but they're also something the games industry at large is guilty of. Cyberpunk, unfortunately, compounds it all into one product. I get why people are put off by it all, though. I continue to support any attempts for mass unionization in the industry, which hopefully both helps the devs, and maybe takes away some of the power the shitty toxic dudes in charge have over all aspects of development. I hope to someday see a CDPR game free of the influence of whoever thought it was a good idea to put dildos everywhere or create the in-game "mix it up" ads.

@briarpack: ok you are obviously just looking for an argument and misunderstanding purposefully to get one. I mean you can't actually be struggling with such a basic concept for real.

I don't come to giantbomb for this kind of immature social media interaction.

And for the record the sleeping in the office time was, by far, the highlight of my working career. Not everyone is opposed to hard work and long hours, its only when its forced on those that don't want to do it that it becomes a bad thing.

Its a forum, its ok to state an opinion, if you disagree then fine lets talk but there's no need to act like a twitter warrior here.

You can claim I've misunderstood you as many times as you want, but it's still clear that you were still minimizing crunch in the video game industry by saying that it's not that bad compared the service industry. And you've kept saying it.

That's cool, I didn't expect to see people defend crunch on Giant Bomb either, but the past year or so, and specifically Cyberpunk, has definitely dashed those dreams.

E:

"And for the record the sleeping in the office time was, by far, the highlight of my working career. Not everyone is opposed to hard work and long hours, its only when its forced on those that don't want to do it that it becomes a bad thing."

Yeah, okay, it's now abundantly clear that you don't know what crunch is and what kinds of pressure the culture imposes on people. Also, saying shit like "Not everyone is opposed to hard work and long hours" in context of crunch is fucking awful.

@briarpack: the idea that crunch and bad working conditions aren't inherently the same thing still lost on you?

I hope that one day you get a job you love and understand that working at it very hard out of choice is not in anyway the same as being forced to work like that, and hope that helps you undrrstand that bundling hard work into the same umbrella category as exploitation is unhelpful and misinformed.

It's weird that the term "crunch" is only used in connection with the video game industry.

I've been in the publishing industry for over 10 years now and live in a state of perpetual crunch on a monthly basis.

It's fine to be against a consumer product because you don't agree with the company's business practices.

But to assume that the practice is isolated to one industry or a handful of companies is naive.

If you're against crunch, your boycott list is about to grow exponentially and reach well outside the realm of video games.

Please, please, please go read up on crunch culture in the video game industry so you have a basic understanding of what that concept encompasses.

There are a ton of articles and Schreier has written about this topic a lot and there's a pretty good talk about unionization from Nite Two of E3 2019.

Boycotts seem counterproductive to me. Unionization and conversation about the subject would be the key.

@briarpack: sorry I don't subscribe to the social media trend of taking a word and twisting it into meaning something that is far more basic and frankly dumbed down in order to use it as a pivot to higher moral ground.

If you don't respect the full and true meaning of something and can't understand things on a more than black and white complexity level then theres no real conversation here. Just 2 people yelling 'no, you're wrong' at each other.

Yup, if you're not willing to do that much and say that I don't understand the subject while implying things like crunch culture being even remotely related to work ethic, then there's nothing to talk about. Good talk.

E:

"crunch is more bug related than ethic related in origin."

"A lot of people in the industry, at least the ones I was fortunate enough to work with, will tell you that they live for crunch"

I... What? The reason why crunch happens was not what I was talking about at all. Also, the core issue of crunch does stem from bad labour practices and worker exploitation, holy fuck. The mentality of "living for crunch" is unfortunately a massive part of the problem. You're not even minimizing the issue, you're now just straight up defending crunch in no unclear terms.

@briarpack: crunch is more bug related than ethic related in origin.

I do appreciate that the thought of it might be a straight up nope for you, but you have to understand that crunch culture having huge issues does not mean; crunch = bad.

Shit hits the fan, energy drinks get drank, it's do or die time...

A lot of people in the industry, at least the ones I was fortunate enough to work with, will tell you that they live for crunch, its exciting and rewarding. Just because you can't parse that a thing can be more than 1 thing, with good and bad, is kinda a sad reason to not talk about it. Whatever though this is already a headache for mods and I'm sure we've made our points.

Good talk indeed lol.

From reading reviews it looks like there is enough good stuff in this game, and as a big open world RPG it looks different enough from others I've played in the past couple years that I'll have fun with it despite it's flaws. I probably won't play it until sometime in late 2021 when it's been patched several times, DLC has come out, etc.

There are so many games available that I basically never play games the year they release and am far behind the discourse so my decision to not play it for a while isn't indicative of my perception of this games quality.

I preordered and even after the reviews I’m pretty sure I won’t regret it. The biggest bugs will eventually be fixed and open world games always have persistent jank it kind of comes with the territory. As for the transphobic tone to some of it, it’s unfortunate that in 2020 this is still a problem but quite frankly if I took a stance to not play a game every time a developer does something S*itty I wouldn’t have many games to play.

@bd_mr_bubbles: But isn't the fact that nearly all games are produced by developers who do shitty things something worth taking action over? Set aside the question of the game's quality. LEt's assume Cyberpunk 2077 is objectively the greatest game ever made. Even in that case, is playing the game worth more than treating employees ethically or standing in solidarity with marginalized groups?

Personally, I don't think so. For sure it's incredibly difficult to exist in society and not end up contributing to awful forces in some way. But that doesn't mean why shouldn't try, right?

@briarpack: so, say 20 people get together and make a game, they go into whats called crunch mode towards the end of the game BECAUSE THEY WANT TO and work long hard days, maybe even living in the office during that time. A thing they choose and want to do because they love the project they are working on.

And you think it's your right to tell people that they are wrong and they shouldn't do it and anyone who disagrees is unethical or a shitty person? All because in SOME places it is forced upon employees?

Wow that's some straight up arrogance right there.

If you are going to pick a fight, pick one that you understand beyond a few angry twitter posts.

Do they? Do all 20 of those people want to work themselves to the bone? None of them want to spend time with their families, or their families with them? None of them are, for example, against it but stay late because the guy next to them does, just because of peer pressure? There isn't a culture of pressuring workers into crunch in the video game industry?

There's a lot that you don't understand about the intricacies of this issue and I can't be arsed to teach you.

Please stop.

@sarcasticmudcrab: People are discussing a well-documented, concrete case of extended crunch. I don't see the point of substituting that with a hypothetical that's favorable to the idea of working long and hard on something.

Yes, if you change all the details people are objecting to, then it's going to seem more acceptable. But again, Cyberpunk 2077 and CD Projekt Red have had real and specific issues covered by journalists and employees both current and former.

@sarcasticmudcrab: Sorry but restaurant work is not like that in all countries. It's still hard work but you can work normal hours and regulated payed time off if you work weekends etc.

@vikingrk: You do have a point and I make no excuses for devs who do these things. In some cases though people seem to gloss over these things in favor of the game regardless. (Activision, EA, and Ubisoft are all guilty parties to terrible practices) I think it’s getting more attention in this case because people automatically assumed CDPR was above these kinds of things. Nobody in the games industry is, I see it as the lesser of many evils. But hey I’m not perfect, far from it. But I’d like to think taking the lesser evil out of many says something. If you disagree that’s okay.

@briarpack: you don't even understand the very basic meaning of the word, certainly not in any place to teach anything about it.

Take your generalised sweeping statement bs back to twitter where it belongs please, I'm sure your 'I'm clueless but I have the moral high ground so I win' approach will get you 2 or 3 likes there.

Sorry mods, I can't stand these kids who think everything is 1 bad thing because a part of it is bad. So dumb.

I'll take my ban or whatever to get that off my chest. Dammit suckered right into a facebook convo. Whats next then you want to tell me about how flat the earth is? Or about how you have never actually worked at a game dev during crunch.....but...

Can we not turn this thread about whether people are planning on buying a video game into a debate about whether crunch is okay?

I honestly don't give a damn, I'm going to stop reading all that bulshit now, start the game tonight and make my own judgment. I miss times when gaming was about games.

If I will like it I will keep playing if not I will simply refund it.

@sarcasticmudcrab: Honest question after trying to parse this conversation. Your initial post was telling people that if they don't buy the game because of crunch they should probably not do other things because of crunch because crunch exists everywhere like at a restaurant. But now you're saying not all crunch is equal and to not use the word like it is equal in all cases, right? Given your example that some team of 20 people could crunch because they want to. So how does your first point make any sense when set beside what you're saying now. Why would someone who says " I don't like the way CDPR handled crunch (or even I don't like the way the video game industry thandles crunch), I'm not going to buy their game" have to be told by you that they should also not eat at restaurants if you yourself believe not all crunch is equally negative. By your own words, one could pick and choose which crunch seems more acceptable because it isn't a blanket negative, and yet you opened your original post with if you ban a game because of crunch don't eat at restaurants either (aka treat it like a blanket negative).

Also you're way too fixated on pinning social media anger on people and lack of intelligence on people instead of actually, you know, conversing.

Fair enough. I said "rumors" because I was trying to avoid getting into a debate about what happened, knowing full well where that discussion would end up --- but here we are. My point was really just that it seemed to me like many had made their mind up about this game long before it came out. Again, I'm not knocking that stance, but it seems like it should be relatively uncontroversial that some people don't want to see the studio rewarded for what those people perceive to be negative business habits.

Yes, I have it pre-ordered. It's a first-person RPG in a Cyberpunk setting with a high-budget production value. That's almost always something I'm going to play regardless of review scores. In recent years I've learned that I put way too much faith in game reviews and am better off making my own opinions.

The crunch culture is a serious bummer but I've also seen instances in the past where devs make desperate pleas to not pass over a game just because of your stance on crunch. There's a ton of employees at CDPR (as well as contractors that don't get nearly enough credit) who busted their asses to get this game out. They deserve to have their work seen.

I fully support unionization and ensuring proper working conditions for these folks but I'm sure they also want us to see what their hardwork led to.

@bd_mr_bubbles: I don't think playing/buying the game is necessarily a moral failing, I'll say that upfront.

Your post read to me like you were making a blanket "everything is bad, so it's all ok" kind of statment. I appreciate from your follow-up that you obviously are thinking more deeply about it than that. I'll admit too that I'm not perfect. I own plenty of products that were produced unethically. Sort of to your point though, regardless of what we each choose to buy or not, it's still worth having the conversation.

I do want to dig in a bit further though. First, there are people in the games industry that care about things like ethics and representation. It's a bit too general to say nobody in the industry is. Again I think making that assumption makes it too easy to justify supporting unethical behaviour.

Second, your framing makes it seem like you HAVE to pick between EA/Ubisoft/Activision or CDPR and since CDPR isn't as bad, you go with them. Generally less bad is good (a controversial point I know), but I don't see why we have to make this comparison. Personally, I don't see myself ever buying another Ubisoft game again, but that really is completely irrelevant to me when thinking if I'm ok supporting CDPR at this point. Each company and its products should be evaluated in its own context (in my opinion anyway).

So it's not so much that I disagree with what you're saying (in so far as the less of two evils is generally better), but I think there are more choices out there.

Personally, my decision about whether to buy something relies (in part) on an ethical consideration. Whether crunch is okay, and whether CDPR forces it on people is directly relevant to me.

I agree it does seem like some people who don't like the behind the scenes stuff want the game to end up being bad and that's disingenuous. I'd like to make the point though that it doesn't really matter whether the game is good if you think it was produced unethically. A good product isn't worth people suffering.

The fact that it can be story-completed in so little time was nice to hear as the play time from Devs (not trying to 100% even) sounds daunting.

But it sounds lackluster, so I'd rather wait.

Whether you think that crunch is okay is relevant to your purchasing decision. Whether other people think crunch is okay is not relevant to your purchasing decision. Therefore, you could easily just say "no, I'm not planning on buying because I don't approve of the labor practices" and that should not serve as an invitation for other people to attack your view.

@mezza: sure that's fair.

I shouldnt of said anything and definitely shouldn't of got wound up, first time in 10 years that I've been actually triggered at GB!

Anyway, I hope this makes sense and it shpuld be case by case. So you can look at whats happened at cdpr and not be ok with it and not buy the game, just as you could know a particular restaurant do something aweful and not eat at that restaurant. Thats quite normal I guess.

The thing I probably didn't explain well is I believe that if someone is going to post/talk about boycotting parts of one industry for a reason they should be aware if they are supporting that very same thing in other industries, if it's genuinly an issue with the way people get treated in a workplace and something someone wants to speak up about, they should really be aware of how widespread it is and not be hypocritical by supporting other industries that do the exact same thing on a daily basis.

I said the same thing twice there but I hope that is an answer. Maybe this stand point makes me a dick, I get that, and I know its not my place to say it anyway.

Just another opinion.

Had an Epic pre-order but canceled it. I'm delaying it, for myself at least. Hook me up with the DLC re-bundle three years later.

Seems the most damning thing is that, even if you ignore the bugs and glitches, the world physics and items lack polish, there's repeat dialogue, and the story seems aimless as it doesn't permit role-playing your own character.

As someone who plays Bethesda games and Star Citizen I doubt I'll care about Cyberpunk's bugs.

But how do I know my views on things are valid if I don't let other people critique them? I could be wrong and I wouldn't know it without seeing what other people have to say.

@sarcasticmudcrab: You are definitely making a point worth making here. Exploitation exists all around us and we need to be critical about that. A lot of times, people will be willing to call it out only when it doesn't conflict with their personal interests. We are all hypocritical in some way and we all need to challenge ourselves constantly.

I just don't think it's fair to use that fact to dismiss legitimate criticisms when they pop up.

Watching a stream now and the character's boobs clipped through her clothes.

I was hyped for this game when it was announced in 2013 and even despite the glowing reviews, there's so much shit around this game it's very much turned me off of playing it. I try to put my money into companies that I feel should be rewarded for their work and not huge devs that abuse their staff. I'm still pretty pissed that Ubisoft seemed to have gotten away with all of their shit just by releasing a bunch of games at once to cancel out all of the bad press when they've done nothing to deserve it.

People are going to buy whatever they want regardless of their morals just because they want their entertainment but that's not how I roll. Maybe when I was a teenager I probably would've brushed most if not all of this stuff off as it doesn't affect me and even now it doesn't but these are peoples lives and they're working in shitty environments and we just say "If you don't like it, go work somewhere else" rather than expecting better of an employer.