Polish video game developer CD Projekt Red told employees on Sept 28 that six-day work weeks will be mandatory leading up to the November release of the highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077, reneging on an earlier promise to not force overtime on the project.

Red, a subsidiary of Poland’s biggest gaming company CD Projekt SA, has been criticised previously for engaging in “crunch”, an industry term for excessive overtime in game development. The practice often lasts for weeks and can stretch out for months or even years. CD Projekt Red co-chief executive officer Marcin Iwinski last year told gaming website Kotaku that the company would be avoiding mandatory crunch and was “committed” to allowing employees to work without overtime.

But an account from a CD Projekt Red employee recently as well as an email to staff earlier this week indicate that the company hasn’t lived up to its word. The employee, who asked not to be named discussing private information, said some staff had already been putting in nights and weekends for more than a year.

In the email, CD Projekt Red studio head Adam Badowski wrote that he was optimistic about the state of Cyberpunk 2077, which stars Keanu Reeves, and that they had just sent the game to be certified for release on Sony Corp’s PlayStation and Microsoft Corp’s Xbox. Now, he wrote, it was time to fix the game’s many lingering bugs and glitches.

“Starting today, the entire (development) studio is in overdrive,” Badowski wrote, elaborating that this meant “your typical amount of work and one day of the weekend”. The extra work would be paid, as required by Polish labour laws. Many other video game studios don’t pay for overtime.

“I take it upon myself to receive the full backlash for the decision,” he wrote. “I know this is in direct opposition to what we’ve said about crunch. It’s also in direct opposition to what I personally grew to believe a while back - that crunch should never be the answer. But we’ve extended all other possible means of navigating the situation.”

CD Projekt Red didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last year, Iwinski and Badowski told Kotaku that they were looking to make CD Projekt Red a more “humane” place to work.

“We are known for treating gamers with respect,” Iwinski said. “I actually would [like] for us to also be known for treating developers with respect.”

 - Bloomberg