The Witcher - Blogs @ IGN

Dhruin

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CD Projekt has translated five blog entries from various staffers to put up at IGN. I suspect these were meant to be out before The Witcher's release but got lost in the crunch time described below by designer Katarzyna Kuczyñska. The official site has a list of the blog entries on this page and here's that sample:
Today I’d like to tell you about the dark side of game designer’s work (and also every other person in our team). This dark side can be reduced to only two short words: crunch time. Crunch time is a period of time (usually towards the end of the project) when everyone is forced to work more intensively, stay after hours and give as much as they can in order to finish the game on time (keeping proper quality at the same time).
Our crunch time started in June, and finished towards the end of September – full four months. For me (and probably for my colleagues as well) it was really difficult time. I started working everyday around 9am and left the studio at 7pm. I was at home after 8pm. On Saturdays I used to finish around 3pm, so I had just enough time to have a bit of rest before the next working week. It was tough – I can’t deny it. There were times when I was leaving the studio and saw many of my colleagues not even starting to go home and then I got e-mails from them sent at 3, 5 or even 8 in the morning! Sometimes, when I came to the studio in the morning, I found Karol sleeping at his desk. Then he woke up, drank his coffee and got back to work. Borys’ wife gave birth to a baby daughter and few days later I saw him sleeping under his office desk. Many of us put a lot of effort and our private lives into the project in order for “The Witcher” to be a good and polished game and that our fans wouldn’t have to wait another year for the premiere.
More information.
 
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God, it's depressing reading about "crunch time". In my opinion, if your company requires people to volunteer their own time to complete a project, and not just a few hours over a few weeks, but literally hundreds of hours, they don't have a viable business model.

They're robbing their employees and robbing the country through non-payment of payroll taxes.

I wish every company like this could have their day in court, like EA.
 
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I agree it's painful to think about, hell when anyone is forced to suffer, but sometimes a United Vision drives humans to do amazing and wonderful things. They pulled it off, at the very least are a damn fine RPG maker, if not visionaries. :)

Iirc Poland's economy is suffering like almost everyones in the world atm and I would imagine being in the gaming industry as an independent developer is tough anywhere. Here in the US I remember hearing many start up development teams talking about how they had to work long hard hours to make their dreams come true. Not to mention, iirc PB in Germany was doing this for all three Gothics.
 
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Crunch time does, indeed sound awful, and it also sounds like some developers practically live in it for the entire cycle. I sincerely hope that the business comes up with a model that doesn't require this someday.
 
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well, it's not like they were breakin rocks in the hot sun or slagging it out in some coal mine. Coulda been worse!
 
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Iirc Poland's economy is suffering like almost everyones in the world atm and I would imagine being in the gaming industry as an independent developer is tough anywhere. Here in the US I remember hearing many start up development teams talking about how they had to work long hard hours to make their dreams come true. Not to mention, iirc PB in Germany was doing this for all three Gothics.

Actually, the Polish economy is among the most dynamic in Europe, and probably the strongest in Eastern/Central Europe. They've been posting growth rates of around 6% for a couple of years now. (Cf. ~3 % for the US.)
 
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That's good news, Prime Junta. :)
I guess I had heard incorrectly they were still recovering from an economic low and even jobs had been tough to get.

I don't really see the US staying even close to 3% as the only thing which had really been holding us up here in the US, was the Housing Market which will crash soon, due to corporitist writing the Bankruptcy Bill, were Predatory Lenders, not to mention the current administration is not capable of conceptual continuity, much less Economic Stability.
 
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The US economy has been very strong for a long, long time. Except for two brief and shallow recessions in 1991 and 2001 the economy has been growing very well for over 20 years now.
 
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Humm, not according to our top Economists, Greenspan and Krugman which fully cover the political spectrum and exceptionally accurate records of economic projections. Maybe you been watching too much mainstream corporate news?
Btw I am refering to 2001 +
 
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Humm, not according to our top Economists, Greenspan and Krugman which fully cover the political spectrum and exceptionally accurate records of economic projections. Maybe you been watching too much mainstream corporate news?
Btw I am refering to 2001 +

I've been paying attention to the simple indicators that basically all economists use like the stock markets, inflation, unemployment, and GDP growth, and by those standards, the US economy has been remarkably stable and prosperous since the mid-1980's. I also see what happens in the company where I work and we are all seeing big increases in demands for all of our products and all sorts of labor and raw materials shortages, because there is so much booming business activity going on. As far as housing markets go -- yeah, the bubble was bound to burst but the American economy has survived the S&L collapses, the dot-com bubble burst, and 9-11, and it will survive whatever it is facing now too, provided the government doesn't go crazy and fuck it up.

Apologies, everyone, for the derail I couldn't help it. :)
 
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Well, lets hope your indicators are correct especially about all the increase/booming you see in demand which according to experts is the opposite of what happens when there is a looming or full blown Recession.
Don't think there is any disagreement about the resiliency of the economy, just the devastation not just in the US but Globally, that's been caused in the last 6 years of gross incompetency by any measure, of any political or successful econmical system.

Apologizes from me too, normally I like to derail on funner topics like naked twister baby oil or a bathtub full of jello it's got a lot more charm than the economy. ;)
 
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