if a business has 100% workload all the time, it needs machines, not humans. nobody can work 100% capacity all the time. and since when has working hours become the same as the efficiency? there must be wiggle room. else its missplanning. a high workload and cranking up when a deadlines comes closer is perfectly fine, but not if the workload goas from 100% to 120% or higher.

Very few businesses have even workload and you cannot have spare capacity that sits idle 80% of the time so that you can avoid overtime 20% of the time. Otherwise you must pay for this spare capacity as the customer through higher pricing. Then you will be complaining that goods and services are too expensive.

"Slavery" it is now. From a guy with too much time at hand to fight for "injustice" at people living in a first world country with safe and good working conditions while he looks at his iPhone, writes this text on a laptop or PC build in factories like foxcon (and else you most likely couldn't afford this equipment) and sipping his Latte or whatever. You are hypocrite!
Start where your great "keyboard-activism" would really be needed. So pathetic.

That was my suggestion to the OP. Start a company of your own where you follow highly ethical labour practices 100% of the time. Ensure full diversity of your workforce, 4 day working week - I mean why should we work 5 days a week, right? Paid holidays, sabbaticals, mental breaks, support breaks etc. Free food, transport. Go wild.

All whilst trying to make a profitable business.

Also, be careful what you wish for. With technological advancement, you might be out of the job altogether with some universal income credit. So you will not have to work at all - but you will probably not like the quantum of your monthly income and resultant lifestyle that you will lead.

so i either should keep my mouth shut or become a worker in a sweatshop in pakistan? is that really the soluction? should i not have a laptop because they cant be bought without awful practices in the factory? should i not buy cyberpunk because i think exploitation is bad? why is it bad, in your opinion, to take a specific example and explain how i find the crunch to be a bad thing?

you seem to project your own spite for an exploitatory class of privileged people on me and therefore claim i have no right to speak. if youre in a bad situation, I am very sorry and i hope and believe there must be ways to make life better. and i would kindly ask you to share your knowledge and experience. but not to mute others, but to empower the ones who are exploited where it "would really be needed".
And I didnt claim crunch was slavery, but that slavery once was accepted as a normal thing. like crunch is today. since many countries banned slavery, maybe there is a chance to make regular crunch a thing of the past aswell. no matter where.
i wonder how many paid holidays millionaire ceos could pay their employees for. you try to weaken my argument by claiming i wanted an utopia. yet all i claim is: crunch is bad, people shouldnt be overworked systemically.

No, I don't belief in "if somewhere on the planet it is worse than there is no point in making things here better". But fighting, unentitled even (or did someone at CDPR complain on their work condition, then give me proof!), for people at jobs which a enormous amount of people would consider as paradise is foolish to say the least.
Also you have the right to choose your job, you can quit and take another position in any other company. But if you can't stand the smell, then you might not work as maintenance crew for the city sewage. And if you can't stand crunch, then maybe you should not work in the games industry. How hard is this concept to get?

I say you are a joke because you like to tell us here is a tragedy happening where most of us, if you look at this thread, can't see the tragedy at all. I'm doing quite good, thank you, better than you if I read your explanation about your job situation above. I wouldn't mute you if you even remotely would start a real discussion about such things with some real problems around the globe without this pathetic agenda. There is so much wrong on this planet but you decide to put your outrage and time in THIS? Man ...

It's a typical Godwin's law kind of thing. You talk about slavery as example when talking about something that isn't even remotely like this. You really lack at some broad realworld experience. Try some of the jobs which aren't any fun in the first place and we can talk again if the working conditions for 6 weeks at CDPR matter and are such a global tragedy.

Nothing stopping you from being that CEO. Fun fact, in the video game business people are almost universally hired by contract. You can negotiate nearly everything in it, the better you are the more you're likely to get away with too.

All I am suggesting is that you put your money where your mouth is - and do something about this issue if you so strongly believe it is an issue. The world is full of people "bringing issues to the front" and "calling other people out" - but it is severely lacking in those that actually do something useful about it.

Yes, I believe what you want is a utopia. You seem to believe otherwise - why don't you act on it in real life?

Exactly this! The "keyboard activism" get on my nerves. So many people sitting warm and cozy and telling the world how sad this or that is without actually changing ANYTHING. :)

Yup. Especially if it is a big project that can either make or break the company. When things fail, you are behind schedule, and deadline is fast approaching, you either suck it up and crunch like hell, or you find another company because if the crunch doesn't happen, there will be no company.

Hopefully CDPR was not in a situation where more delays would have meant the company goes under, but for many smaller companies that is a reality. You either crunch or you go collect unemployment until you find something else. Your boss might be the coolest boss in the world, but your client expects the product by deadline or you will be in a lot of financial trouble.

It's not really comparable. I can quit any time I want and do something easier, like go back to construction or other manual labour.

As long as deadlines exist, crunch is sometimes necessary. If we were to stop the overtime, there would still be deadlines and missing them is bad for business.

If we want to actually help the workers and not just pretend to be nice and destroying the small businesses by being nice, we would have to stop deadlines existing.

But for some strange reason people and companies expect things on time. And if something goes wrong, delays happen. And when contracts are written, both parties want to protect themselves -- the client will most definitely want some compensation if the product is delayed because the client is already planning their business based on the expected delivery time.

So as long as people expect things on time, deadlines exsit. As long as deadlines exist, crunch will sometimes happen.

And while it is common in this industry, it's not like every company has it with every project. If that happens with every project, switch companies. That company is walking on razor's edge and will fall sooner or later. But a month or two of overtime every few years is not that bad as long as you get compensated. (And hopefully no one has to go through the hell I had last year, but that was not a usual crunch.)

"Were"... um... yeah... past tense, right?

Our company is smaller. If we had a union messing things up and if they would have stopped the crunch, I would probably be unemployed for my own good right now. The union would have protected my rights straight to the unemployment line because the company would be gone now.

The fanboy defense force is out in force.

BS is BS. Only loosers draw the fanboyism card.

Nothing to do with CDPR if you read the comments instead of throwing a one liner.

Similar here. The OP is one of those clueless fanatics. I know darn well that my family and I had zero issues with the crunch on major projects I was involved in before I left corporate world. The insane vacations afterwards were beyond worth it. Bonuses that were over half my annual salary (which was VERY healthy) meant that it was trips with no restrictions for a couple of weeks.

Yes, I missed out on some of the day to day activity at home- but the 'fam felt very pampered throughout.