Rumour: New report on mismanagement at CDPR

Last month, several reviews on anonymous employee review site Glass Door painted a rather bleak picture of the work conditions at Witcher developer CD Projekt Red.

Youtuber YongYea posted a long video yesterday detailing information from two sources (both verified) about chaotic management, late changes in development, pointing to Cyberpunk 2077 being very far away from release (2020 cited as realistic) while the scope and design of the project also appears to be in flux (Single class protagonist? Multiplayer?).

It should be noted that what YongYea reports on is based on a couple of former employees, and while they are verified as former employees, their stories should only be seen as one perspective on what's been going on at CD Projekt Red.

CD Projekt Red responded to the criticism on Glass Door back in October, and that response is probably very apt even for this more in-depth look at the alleged problems.

CD Projekt Red is a growing studio in a country, Poland, that's still finding its way to maturity in terms of the game development scene. There is bound to be some growing pains and particularly Western developers joining the studio may find this along with a natural clash of cultures too much. At the end of the day CD Projekt Red has been able to show consistent quality, and while it may come at a high price (staff turnover, heavy crunching) if you look at many successful studios worldwide this sort of approach is not uncommon, particularly back in 90s. Starting a project with a smaller team than what is needed is what most growing companies do and the plan is adjusted as you go, it may not be ideal, but to a certain extent it is what it is. However, for CD Projekt Red to be successful over a longer period of time one can only hope they overcome these alleged issues.