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CD Projekt Red devs unionise after its third round of layoffs in three months
(www.eurogamer.net)
this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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Man cdpr staff just can't win. The company is far too corpo.
Turns out that when your founders and leaders are your biggest shareholders, they're only interested in profit.
They never used to be. I got a massive discount for buying Witcher 3, even though I didn't buy the earlier ones from them, and it came with all DLC as they came out, eventually turning into the GOTY edition. Then with Cyberpunk they got greedy and hired a Hollywood actor who pressured them into releasing before it was ready with standard Hollywood penalty clauses.
Pretty sure you got that discount from GOG or Steam, not CDPR.
All due respect for the amazing devs who actually MAKE the games, but seems to me like they're almost as bad as the likes of EA, Ubisoft and 2k when it comes to the business side of things..
Also, got a source on Keanu Reeves pressuring them into releasing Cyberpunk before it was ready?
Because that doesn't sound like something he'd ever do but it sounds EXACTLY like something greedy publishers might do in spite of devs warning them against it. Since, you know, that's EXACTLY what has happened many times.
Friend, who owns GOG?
Oops, forgot about that.
Still, different department with different people in charge.
Yes GOG, owned by CDPR. It's the same people running the show. I think you're imagining the business as far larger than it is. Hell, the business back when Witcher 3 first came out was much smaller than it is even now.
However things have definitely changed with CDPR. That happened during the Cyberpunk development, which is what I was trying to point out.
I don't have a source on Keanu Reeves pushing it. It's my own rationalisation - a theory, but one that fits well. Also, to be clear, I'm not talking about Keanu Reeves the person, I'm talking about Keanu Reeves the Hollywood actor who as a legal entity is represented by a team of agents, negotiating contracts on his behalf.
Keanu Reeves is a Hollywood A-lister, his team has all the weight when it comes to contractual negotiations with CDPR. They negotiate Hollywood contracts. Hollywood expects a movie to take more or less a fixed amount of time, then payment will come in. This does not fit well with game development, which can very easily suffer massive delays. In the past, CDPR have been more than aware of this, and have readily delayed games to get them closer to a finished state. However, CDPR did not do this with Cyberpunk, they pushed and pushed and pushed to get it out the door, coupled alongside a massive Hollywood-style marketing campaign.
Like I say, this is speculation. I don't claim that this is exactly what happened. However, it seems far more likely than almost every other explanation I've read. CDPR were at the height of their game before Cyberpunk, it's hard to imagine that they wouldn't have enough capital (particularly with ongoing income from GOG) to tick things over until the game was finished - unless they had some bigger player they needed to satisfy.
The only bigger player involved in Cyberpunk 2077 is Keanu Reeves.
Edit: Also, for clarification, CDPR is both the developer and the publisher in this instance. They're pretty small time for a publisher, compared to the likes of EA and others, but it's not hard to imagine they'd have visions of loftier heights. One way of doing that is getting a Hollywood star on board, even if it's costly and you have to negotiate a contract that doesn't work well for you.
Regardless, ultimately CDPR almost certainly released early for financial reasons. The exact explanation for that is private, we can only speculate. However I think you're probably right about the "shitty publisher" behaviour - in fact I think most of it falls down to the attitude of just one man in a semi-senior position at CDPR. I'm terrible with names though.
You have demonstrated a complete lack of even a basic understanding of two entirely different industries with one post. Congratulations
You have not said anything of any worthwhile meaning. Your comment serves no purpose other than to garner upvotes. Can you please be specific?
CDPR is a publicly traded company with a clearly represented shareholder structure. A collective known as "Other" owns about 65% of the company's shares. CDPR upper management have a fiduciary duty to this entity. This duty was honored when they decided to release early. They knew that the hype train was so intense that whatever they released, it would sell like icy lemonade in the Sahara. It's not like they didn't have access to Sony devkits and shit, they knew the performance was sub-optimal. They're not dumb. They were just OK with temporary backlash that would eventually get amended with a successful anime, some patches and DLC.
Now on to actors. Actors, whether A or Z-list, work for a flat fee and maybe royalties if they got really really lucky. Once they have completed their performance, their end of the contract is complete. They get paid and that's that. They just wait for royalties to be exercised (if they have them).
Having said so, the idea that Keanu's agents hold any post-payment sway in comparison to the collective that owns literally more than 65% of the company is a bit silly. This is why you're getting a little bit of backlash on what you have written. Especially in that you did not preface your original comment with "Hey, this is a theory, a game theory".