That's what you imagine software development to be like?

I really don't understand people's rational for arguing for Crunch which is essentially what you're doing.

Any place where it can be avoided, that should be sought after. Optional overtime or an occassional short notice emergency is one thing, months of mandated overtime is another, doesn't matter if its paid. Now of course people could just leave and get a different job, but they can also fight to make their work place one that is healthier for all manner of people. Not just those willing to sacrifice mentaö/physical health, the health of the  family time and relationships by being overworked approaching ill managed or unrealistic deadlines. And don't take it from me, take it from the actual developers who are complaining about the impact on their life. I'm not someone who's going to pretend that its literal slave labour, but I'm not going to raise my voice in support of it because that would be backwards. The logic of x and y jobs have to do overtime, so everyone else should be forced to as well, is just dumb. My dad had to work 7 days a week for most of his life but I can recognise that its not ideal and would hope better for myself and others.

If you're indifferent as oppose to being in favour of crunch, maybe just just don't engage with the topic... If the workers who are crunching don't actually care, the topic would never go anywhere anyway 

For those who speak like there is no other option... How about hiring more people? And don't come at me with the "they would need some time to adapt" yadayada. Sure... like in any other job. But that's what decent companies do. Instead of making 30 people do the job of 50 people with monstruous overtime and overall poor conditions, they hire the remaining 20. They will need some time to adapt, but if they know what they are doing, that will be no more than a week. Two tops.

CDProjekt could hire a few developers for the months when there is more work. But they won't do that because that would mean spending more money than whathever bonus they are giving to their current employees. And even if they are spending more money on bonuses, by hiring more people they would improve their employees conditions and that in return would probably make them work better. But no... Let's squeeze them as strong as we can. No matter if they end up mentally destroyed, I'll give them money. Everyone knows that throwing money at people solve all of their problems.

So 7 extra days of work before launch and they get paid? Oh the horror..

Crunch is a failure of management, and forcing people to work extra should never be an acceptable situation in any industry. This is exactly the reason why so many people working in the video game industry burn out and leave it for good.

Weren’t the crunch rumours about Naughty Dod ended being false??

The way I look at it is, if you love your job you don't see it as a job. If it is so much fun, it don't matter how many hours you spending on it as you are mentally stimulated and not watching the clock. It sounds like some of these developers only did the studies in this field because the pay is good. That is the wrong attitude to have and will burn you out in long run no matter if you doing overtime or not overtime. Every jobs has its ups and downs but the ups should outweigh the downs when you enjoy the work you are doing.

As I said for most of the development cycle are people really giving it it their 100% 5 days a week? They still gt paid for that time at their desk.

This game is due out in what 7 to 8 weeks? That means the crunch period is essentially and extra 7 to 8 days of work. Is this really that bad considering the last three years or so of development they highly likely did not work to 100% of their potential every day? You can put in 7-8 extra days at the end of a project and be proud to do so that it will be a much better finished product. They are even getting paid for it and hardly going to kill their life style for this short period of time.

I know you say you shouldn't compare to other industries, but why not? As the old saying goes Grass is not always greener on the outside. Considering they are in Poland, this is probably one of the much better companies and industries to work for. If you don't like it quit, go find a job that is less stressful than working for CD Projekt in Poland (doubt there be many).

Overall I am indifferent to crunch and I think people these days like to whinge about everything. As a human race we have become a bunch of whingers even about the smallest things in life, where as in the past most of us just got on with it (even 10 years ago it wasn't this bad, now people whinge their life sucks cause they can't get a hair cut during covid restriction,is your life going to end if you don't get a hair cut?). 

It is essentially 7-8 extra days of work to iron out more bugs, what benefit does it have to hire more people here? They already delayed the game a few times to avoid excessive long periods of crunch.  They don't need to hire any more developers for what the regular crew will do in 8 days extra max.

The probably did hire more testers which found more bugs and decided they were not happy to pull an Activision or EA and release the game and let the gamers be the bug testers essentially where people will be forced to download huge patches later to fix game breaking bugs.

Nope, they are true.

I thought an ex-IGN member apologised Neil Druckmann a few weeks ago regarding the rumours.

Oh well!!