Time to backup all your GOG offline installers.

I dont have the space to back them all up, but I am backing up the games that are important to me.

5. Finish and polish (no pun intended!) a small part of the game, call it "Cyberpunk Prologue" or something, release it for free.

That would have given them more time to finish the rest of the game, while at the same time creating even more hype among players, and from that small slice they also could have received some user feedback, like some troublesome hardware combinations.

It's too late now, but they had more options to choose from, releasing an unfinished game wasn't the only option.

Great comment. The whole problem with the game is that they decided to "finish" (release it) first and "polish" (fix) it sometime later. Should have been the other way round.

They rebelled so hard and far that they alienated their own fans and even their own employees. That's some high level talent right there. I guess that's the secret from going from freedom-fighter to knee-bent terrorist in a short amount of time...

Anyway, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst... so I've bought a new HDD just in case.

This thread should be titled bumberg news opportunistically attacks polish company. Remember gamergate.

No, this treatment of staff is not common. Because everybody knows (or should know) that when you extend a 40h week to 50h or even 60h, after as little as 2-3 weeks your productivity drops by 20%. After 4-5 weeks it drops by 40% and finally after less than 2 months stabilizes around 60% reduced productivity. So you end up with only 40% of your time being used effectively, almost cutting your output in half.

It may sound paradoxal, but even though you work more, you achieve less and development actually takes longer.

Working overtime is proven to be beneficial only for certain jobs and/or short sprints, not for running a marathon.

And what is worse, after as little as 6 months, your sick days begin to go up as people start to burn out.

Burn-out causes permanent psychological damage. It irrevocably changes your brain chemistry and (best case scenario) results in several months of sick leave. In some cases, people need years to recover or never fully recover at all, leading to a permanent disability. And no job, literally none, is worth risking permanent disability at the age of thirty-five or less.

I've been leading dev-teams for 2 decades and met no professional who wasn't aware of this and many more caveats. Those are classic project management anti-patterns that have entire books written about how to detect and avoid them. The only way to screw this up as a boss is to deliberately ignore the advice of your own tech people.

As a team lead, what you care about is reliability in your projected velocity AKA productivity. I don't care about 8 or even 10 extra hours of work, because work hours != productivity. What I care about is that I can be certain, all my developers show up on Monday, refreshed and able to do their job, so that I got all the resources I planned for at my disposal. What I don't want is to not be sure how many of my devs will be so overworked that they either can't show up at all or are falling asleep in front of their keyboard.

Wow... you hit the nail on the head. 100%

Not knowing all the facts, I feel bad for everyone involved. CDPR wanted to make a great game, seemingly got in over their head while taking on large debt, tried to fix things... but ultimately was forced to release and hope for the best.

Meanwhile gamers found an unfinished game that was a bigger disappointment than No Man's Sky.

I sincerely hope CDPR can fix this... and that they learn from it

I hope nobody here fell for that "We Are Rebels" marketing BS.
ALways pose as a rebel. It helps to sell stuff, and there are always suckers who will eat ti up.
A guy with long hair, a T shirt with an anti establishment slogan on it and who cops an attiutde but who has a Three Piece Suit mentality is still a guy with a Three Piece Suit Mentality.
Rule of thumb:If somebody has to proclaim themsleves a rebel, t99% chance they are faking it.