CD Projekt staff furious at bosses over Cyberpunk 2077 launch

Employees are angry at how they have been treated and what the game's release might have done to the studio's reputation.

Polish games firm CD Projekt is facing fury from its own staff over its recently-launched Cyberpunk 2077.

That's according to Bloomberg, which reports that the firm's board was met with employees frustrated about the state of the game in a video meeting held yesterday (Thursday, December 17). CD Projekt management faced questions about the company's reputation, the unrealistic deadlines that were set for development as well as the long periods of crunch that staff had to endure.

That's on top of questions about management saying that Cyberpunk was "complete and playable" in January of this year, when that apparently was not the case, while another member of staff pointed out the hypocrisy in CD Projekt exploiting its staff to finish a game set in a world rife with corporate exploitation.

Cyberpunk 2077 was released on December 10 after three delays. Last year, CD Projekt said it was going to finish the game without "mandatory" crunch, but at the start of 2020 said that staff would in fact be crunching to complete development. In September, the studio mandated six-day workweeks, too. Joint CEO Adam Kicinski told investors that crunch on the game was "not that bad," a remark he apologised to staff for the following day.

Since its release, the title has been met with a mixed reception; while it has received praise, the game is rife with bugs and issues and the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One editions are so bad that CD Projekt has had to apologise for their quality. That was before Sony pulled the PS4 version of the game from its storefront.

Oh, and then there was the small matter of Cyberpunk 2077 potentially causing seizures in those with epilepsy. The studio has since released a patch to fix some of these issues.

All of this has caused CD Projekt's share price to plummet. In August, the firm was worth $11.7 billion, making it the most valuable European games company out there. Its stock price has since dropped 40% in value, today opening at 15.9% lower than it did the night before thanks the news that Sony had pulled Cyberpunk 2077 from PS4.