All in all that's a real Cyberpunk-ish thing to do, pocketing money from a megacorp and their gullible customers.

Did they have them in cages, beating them or is this the result of some overblown " videogame journalist" with a bias against the company.

No, they required extended hours for long periods of time, constantly hanging the sword of Damocles over their heads should they decide to prioritize family over work. Supporting abusive practices like requiring overtime for months at a time is not something that should be done, and minimizing it by saying "they weren't held in cages and beaten, derp." doesn't change that it is a terrible practice that needs to stop. Supporting abusive crunch (after it was explicitly stated the company would not force abusive crunch on this project) is never good.

i'm glad he got fired from Bloomberg.

Workers protections only go so far. You can believe what you like. The facts are, employees were forced to work mandatory overtime despite repeated studies that show production drops off sharply after 40 hours. If you want to defend such a practice, that's your prerogative. I do not.

If you look at page 135 of [url=
https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/wp-content/uploads-en/2021/04/management-board-report-on-the-activities-of-the-cd-projekt-group-and-cdc-projekt-sa-in-2020.pdf]
https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/wp-content/uploads-en/2021/04/management-board-report-on-the-activities-of-the-cd-projekt-group-and-cdc-projekt-sa-in-2020.pdf[/url] the effective number of money/shares they got themselves 2020 is a lot higher actually. Those warrants may have accumulated over a few years though. Didnt read/check it in detail. But it says 3 notable managers got 723 520 shares each 2020 (some for a low price of ~6$ per share if I calced it correctly, the other shares I dont know but as it says 'warrant' - obviously also for a very low price). One share is still worth around 50$ now.
If I assume 6$ per share cost and 70$ per share value (end of 2020) I get 64$ * 723520 ~= $46 million benefit per top manager due to 2020 (probably as bonus granted at some time mostly before 2020) warrant exercises. There is a thread here - I didnt see your name: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/boycotting_gog_2021/page1

There's (sadly) ways/loopholes around many such protections....like in the US one cannot be fired for certain reasons, so in such cases a manager or other higher up will make something up and use that instead.

One shouldn't blindly believe something, true enough, but then one shouldn't blindly dismiss something either.....they should(if they want to and feel like it) look for other sources to verify/disprove the claim.

That said, after some things that they've done**(GOG/CDPR) around this and other issues, I am thinking the OP's info is more likely fact than fiction.

(**including the main stock holders selling a chunk of their stock before/during/after the 2077 launch, and making millions)

if i may ask, where do you have this info from? yes, but i think cdpr/gog are even lower than for example ea. since they're as shady as ea but still riding on that "we're the drm-free, pro-customer company and savior of gaming industry, bla bla ..." image, although its not true anymore for years

i'm not sure if that randy pitchford/alien colonial marines scam can be considered only marketing or also intentional criminal activity

in this case, i blame the people only partially. the most blame is on cdpr, they pulled the randy pitchford scam and deceived people. i think their whole marketing/pr on cp2077 should be considered a fraud and investigated by authorities. there is a reason, why cdpr bought anonymously their stolen stuff back from hackers a while ago (my assumption).

who wouldnt take the money into pocket if given the chance?

The only thing being defended is scumbag smear merchants by yourself and others that parrot any old shit they put out.

I haven't once defended anyone here. Stop projecting.

They are in Europe not the USA.
If posters want to point out business loopholes and schemes then they can feel free to do so unlike some others that are whining about it. There were also people that used any excuse to attack the company for political or financial reasons.