The developers of Cyberpunk 2077 should receive bonus payments if the game achieves a certain score on Metacritic. However, the technical problems are now leading to a reassessment, as the well-known gaming journalist Jason Schreier reports.
What happened? As Schreier reports on Bloomberg, an internal email was sent on Friday at the developer CD Projekt Red, which was forwarded to him by employees. According to this, the bonus payments for developers are no longer to be tied to a Metacritic score or the timely release.
Adam Badowski, the Studio Head and Creative Director of Cyberpunk 2077, is said to have written the following:
Originally, we had a bonus system that was based on the ratings of the game and the release date, but upon further consideration, we believe that this measure is simply not fair under the given circumstances.
We underestimated the effort and complexity involved in the implementation, and yet you have done everything to deliver an ambitious, special game.
Excerpt from the internal email according to Schreier
In his article, Schreier suspects that even a rating of below 90 could jeopardize the bonuses for employees. Currently, Cyberpunk 2077 stands exactly at this 90 points on Metacritic – at least for the PC version. There is currently no calculated rating from critics for consoles.
Where are the problems of Cyberpunk 2077? The new game from CD Projekt Red receives a lot of praise for its content but also point deductions in technical aspects. Many bugs and glitches are criticized.
However, there are significant problems with the console versions. According to our colleagues at GamePro, there are very large differences in performance, depending on which platform one is on.
For the versions of the Standard PS4 and Xbox One, GamePro even issues a purchase warning. This leads to downgrades in the tests or even complete postponements of a rating.
On Metacritic, there are currently only a few reviews from critics for the consoles, so no score can be determined. However, there is a user score that is weak at 2.3 out of 10 for the PS4 and 2.7 out of 10 for the Xbox One.
Apparently, CD Projekt Red has reacted to this. Employees are now to receive their bonuses, even though Cyberpunk has been delayed four times and the reviews are more negative.
Despite the positive step, criticism has arisen after Schreier’s article, especially on Twitter. Many find the studio’s bonus system unsuccessful.
Developers receive “tokens” for good work – Does this promote crunch?
How does the reward system work? According to Schreier, the bonuses for employees were distributed via tokens:
- Team leaders distributed tokens each month to their employees with the symbol of the studio, a red bird, on them.
- These tokens can be exchanged for bonuses when certain goals are achieved.
- These goals included the timely release and a certain score in the reviews.
What criteria were used to distribute these tokens is unknown. But Schreier sees a system behind it that leads to crunch. And this topic has been criticized multiple times in connection with Cyberpunk 2077.
What is crunch? Crunch refers to the excessive accumulation of overtime, which occurs in game development especially when a game approaches its release phase.
And there is said to have been crunch in Cyberpunk 2077:
- In September 2020, there was an internal email at CD Projekt Red stating that there was no other way to finish Cyberpunk 2077 without crunching. The developers had promised that there would be no crunch.
- According to Schreier, some developers allegedly worked in 100-hour shifts. Even then, it was said that especially the console versions were causing problems.
The issue of crunch is sensitive. Some players, as well as journalists, want to discuss this topic, shed light on it and bring it to the forefront. They criticize gamers and the press for ignoring the needs of developers and just succumbing to the hype.
But others say: Overtime is totally normal, everyone does that in their job:
Cyberpunk 2077 is working overtime – And many gamers really don’t care
