Executive Pay is Not the Problem

[@ChipsMcClive]

Agreed. CEO pay amount is not a direct cause of cancer... although, now that my boss has bonused himself 10x his usual salary, where’s my bonus? This dev is demoralized.

[@timpize8733]

This video doesn't demonstrate at all what it intended to, but rather answers points that no one is making. Everyone knows games are very expensive to make, and that paying CEO's less won't suddenly reduce those costs by half or something. The point is that companies that overpay their CEO's do it because they can. Their games make way more money than they cost. Thus, every excuse for shameless monetisation, as well as raising base price of games, is meaningless. They do it _for_ the CEO's and shareholders, because a lot of the extra money goes to them.

[@Computeiful]

Mixing American and Polish salaries is deceptive, the cost of living is extremely different between those countries, it's an apples to oranges comparison. Also paying employees with stock and equity is an extremely standard practice in the Software Development industry, so you could absolutely take the shares given to the CEO and give them to your employees. Crunch is fundamentally caused by a failure of management, cutting executive pay during crunch may not save many jobs, but it will incentivise proper management practices. Speaking as a Software Developer here.

[@GoneFishingAmalgam]

But taking that into account would negate the point he wanted to make. Best to ignore that

[@gargamellenoir8460]

It balances out with the fact that CD Project Red's CEO's salary is also a lot lower than other AAA companies.

[@Canadish]

Is it standard as part of salary and crunch overtime though, or through bonus pay? I agree with you it should more common (I understand it used to be more common for the Boomer generation) but I'm just thinking it might not be something you can legally offer in place of a fixed wage, only as bonus incentive. I don't think he's being deceptive, in this context it isn't a fix for crunch. It could help with some of the other issues however, using it as bonus for successful financial performance of a project etc.

[@CharcharoExplorer]

CD Projekt Red also have lots of foreign team members from the West. For good or bad, they need competitive compensation even in Poland less they go back to the West. They also dont have 75 people working Cyberpunk but 250+.

[@baudsp]

Regarding stock for employees, working as a software dev in Europe, is not something I have ever seen.

[@JAN0L]

6:00 I work in IT for a large corporation. We're only servicing internal customers(other branches of the company), and we're priced in a way to only break even. They count all our expenses as the local IT organization for the year, divide them by the total number of hours billed to customers and this is our hourly cost. Even though we're not making any profit an hour of my work costs the customer 3.5-4x what I make per hour after taxes. This is Europe(Poland actually), so all the taxes alone mean my employer spends 80% more than what goes into my bank account. The rest is stuff like office space, software licenses, training(which both costs money and is time not spent working for the customer), any employee events but also all the "non productive" administrative and management staff like HR, back office, reception or my team leader that we can't bill to the customer. Also you shouldn't completely trust Jeff with pronunciation of Polish names.

[@canalsincontenido]

You're including in that calculation money that will come from selling the game/sponsors no matter when it comes, unless it's a tiny studio that got the money from loan sharks it shouldn't make a difference. Developers in a game studio should be accounted as machinery in a heavy industry, it's the thing that makes the product you sell. It's not the same as an IT department that keeps the machinery working.

[@JAN0L]

@@canalsincontenido I'm not sure what you mean. All I'm saying is that an hour of work of a developer all things included is 2x more than what it simply costs to pay their salary and 3-4x more than what they actually earn after taxes.

[@xeruexe1624]

The problem is not with the logistics of crunch, which you tackle with this video, but with the culture of crunch. As a programmer, sure I can be convinced to take overtimes and pushing the grind, but if that is norm rather than the exception then there is inherently something wrong with the system. And ultimately, it is the job of the CEO to resolve those issues. I'm all for taking away their pay - not because doing so can make those funds fluid for expenditure, but for the simple fact that they're not doing their job properly.

[@serathaevistille995]

I agree, this video seems... Off.

[@virtual.1]

he already noted exactly that is this video .. 16:00

[@Icetea-2000]

taking away their pay? By whom? The government? That would be a fucking dystopia, if you believe it somehow only hits those people you deem to hate, then you're delusional. If the government can just take away your legal pay then we would violate so many personal rights. A CEOs pay is in no way the core to any of your problems and doing it for you to feel better is not just childish jealousy, more importantly it's incredibly dangerous to give an outside force like the government this power on private lives

[@xeruexe1624]

@@Icetea-2000 The fudge was the government involved in this discussion. Nobody mentioned the government except you, dipstick. Companies fire employees or dock their pay for not doing their jobs or reaching their stated goals according to their job description. Part of a CEO's job description is managing their companies so these things won't happen, so why is asking them to be responsible for their mistakes suddenly a trigger for dystopia? There are boards and stock holder meetings to address these things, while the role of the consumer is to be aware of such things to insist that a healthy video game market is created, not to wipe the behinds of rich people in the delusional fantasy that you'll be joining them "very soon"™.

[@ruolbu]

@@Icetea-2000 Sure, it's an emotional reaction, and was adressed in the video. The solution imho is a strong incentive to avoid crunch. How would that be done? Unions and clear regulations for working hours. If those are violated, the company would be in violation of legal contracts it was aware of and can be hold accountable. Violating these contracts needs to seriously hurt management. If this makes excessively large projects with 5+ years of dev time, millions in monthly labor cost and hundreds of millions of marketing budget not financially viable anymore, because it inflates dev time, then I say good riddance.

[@Entropic_Alloy]

Didn't Nintendo CEOs and upper management take cuts to bonus pay in order to prevent needing to layoff staff during th Wii U days? I seem to remember hearing Toyota did the same when they were taking losses, during my internship time there.

[@ViolenVaymire]

​@@vdentertaiment4088 True, But it does help promote positive customer perception of your company. The reason why you see this happening in japan, Is there culture. If you took a US CEO and plopped them in japan, While they could be 10times more effective at the job, They would Destroy the image of the company in the eyes of japanese consumers. Image is EVERYTHING in japan. More than that, A group leader is considered to be the de facto representative. If the leader is rotten, Then everyone under him is considered rotten. That is, Unless said leader makes a public showing of disgrace and shoulders the blame. This is what is expected of you as a good group leader in japan. VERY different then the culture we have here in the US. Hope this helps clear up the matter :)

[@jacksonfurlong3757]

Neither were American companies, those tend to be more evil

[@Entropic_Alloy]

@@vdentertaiment4088 Not laying off employees seemed to help a lot.

[@Yugomorph]

If the CEO CHOOSES to do this WILLINGLY, then it is a great gesture on his part that should be commended. However, if the CEO is FORCED to do this, then he will simply look for a way to prevent this from happening at the expense of consumers.

[@victorshrike2935]

Nintendo has always been pretty small. They had employee counts in the low hundreds, not the almost 10k of modern AAA development houses.

[@mrshmuga9]

The timing on this is hilarious... they just delayed it again to December, lol.

[@EduardoPoiate]

He jinxed it

[@FangornAthran]

Yeah I thought that was funny too!

[@MojaveKnight17]

Yeap

[@marcoivancic1187]

A lot of this applies to Halo Infinite too, particularly the planning of the marketing campaign. Hence why we see all these major companies with Halo Infinite branded merch/ deals releasing right now. The Infinite delay is a far bigger fuckup than Cyberpunks.

[@GonziHere]

If I am a paid employee, I am paid by the hour no matter the outcome. I will crunch for money, or for profit shares, but not for free. I also couldn't care less about executive pay. The issue is that the guy who sits on the pile of money forces me to work for free and if I actually produce something good, he will get the spoils.

[@GonziHere]

Oh, I also heavily disagree with the outcome you are talking about near the end. If I have a budget, then yeah, I am supposed to meet said budget (and deadline) - I would argue that this actually is the job of managers and higher. So, the current state of things is that there are overpayed execs that mismanage the project, working class has to work overtime for free to somewhat catch up. If the workers fail, they get the blame, if they succeed, execs get the spoils. In any other industry (and naive free economy), people would find other jobs, the project would be canceled and the investors would loose money because of this mismanagement. In gaming, we get a video about how execs would not save it with their sallary (which is right, but not the issue at all). I honestly don't understand what you were trying to say with that video.

[@RJ_6]

As we say "minimum wage, minimum efforts" comrade

[@lvl99paint]

OK so I stayed throughout the 20 minutes, but this really felt like a 20 minutes of describing a deeply broken industry (and also economic system, lmao) and then attacking the weakest criticism of the industry from silly kids that think greedy execs are hoarding all the juicy production money from the workers. I agree with you executive pay is a drop in the ocean of the budget of a big game studio. But that's not really the point. The problem is that the bad management, toxic work environments and broken incentive structures described in your video are already here. They happen all the time. Executives repeatedly fail upwards and they face no real consequences from the results of their decision making. When push comes to shove, it's the workers at a studio who bear the brunt of a studio failing. They will be the first to have their pay frozen, cut or lose their jobs. Activision laid off thousands of employees in 2019 alone just to meet revenue growth targets. We already see bland, repetitive, uninspiring, broken and rushed games in the industry. This is a result of the perverse market incentives to AAA games. Executive pay is merely a side effect of this problem, but nonetheless a very telling one. It tells you who benefits from these structures and who is ultimately responsible for perpetuating them. The problem when it really comes down to it is the traditional firm structure and capitalism itself. You can't fix it by cutting executive pay yes, but you offer no alternative solution, so I don't really know where you stand apart from being against the obviously dumb idea that cutting exec salaries will fix everything. Also while we're here, you are quick to discount stock options for executives as part of their compensation, but workers rarely given them. Stocks are productive assets that produce dividends and can add up to be a nice chunk of change if held in large amounts. It's strange to me that executives are freely given them, while workers have to go out and buy company stock themselves on the market if they want the same benefit (which obviously they will not be able to do on a $60k salary lol).

[@MrCantStopTheRobot]

A great post that will never get addressed. You just reinforced a tendency I have, to visit a video but immediately stop it, in order to read the comments. Most KZbinrs, like political figures and commentators, make their bones attacking strawmen...

[@Rastloese]

Yup. I stopped the video when he got to the stocks, to your point about attacking strawmen: "you cant just take that stock away from andrew wilson and give it to your employees as pay." Happy to find someone took the time to write this out.@@MrCantStopTheRobot

[@YodaSan2]

CEOs still have practically an endless stream of money flow. Devs are regularly shorted on pay and we forget about the billions made in microtransactions alone, that's not counting for deluxe editions, DLC, or season passes. That is Billion with a capital B. CEOs have enough to delay a game as long as is needed for every game they produce, AND still have enough for that yacht and beach house in Maui. What you say is true 15-20 years ago perhaps, but is not the case for the industry today. Rest in Peace, brother.

[@MrSaywutnow]

One thing that doesn't get mentioned in discussions about the state of the video game industry is the role of the consumer. I firmly believe that shitty consumers will inevitably give rise to shitty business practices. A substantial part of the video game consumer base are far too impatient, and far too willing to throw their money at companies that really don't deserve their money. Furthermore, on the occasions when they do get angry, they lack the conviction to actually do anything about it outside of impotent whining. They get angry, but then the trailer for next product drops and all is forgiven. Nowadays when I think of a gamer, I think of an abused spouse. "Oh, that bruise? Todd didn't do that. I walked into a door."

[@MarsofAritia]

100% this. It amazes me how willing people are to waste money on anti consumer garbage. Vote with your wallet.

[@bekkayya]

Voting with your wallet isnt a real protest move. It just flat out has never worked ever. If you ever want to advocate effective policy, you're gonna have to move beyond "personal responsibility" takes.

[@tsartomato]

gaming is dead for past 12 years

[@MarsofAritia]

@@bekkayya it doesn't work because too many people don't do it.

[@bekkayya]

@@MarsofAritia okay. but you want a revolutionary change. So you have to pick a method that people will participate in. You said it, people DONT vote with their wallet. They arnt interested, nor are they rational actors capable of doing so.

[@SimplexPL]

Iwiński is paid a Polish CEO salary in Polish money. So the devs in Poland are also paid proportionally less. It would be better to calculate the cost of delay in relation to his salary using the salaries of devs in Poland, which are much much lower than in the USA.

[@BenersantheBread]

Except it still doesn't change anything. Did you stop watching the video after that point?

[@SimplexPL]

@@BenersantheBreadNo I didn't. I mean the argument would be stronger if CEO salary of a Polish company would be compared to the Polish salaries. Apples to apples, not apples to oranges. If Iwiński was a CEO of an American company he would be paid much more.

[@BenersantheBread]

@@SimplexPL ...you do realize that the rest of the video points out that a CEO's salary is nowhere near enough to cover the cost of delaying a game right? Like, the exact numbers and details are irrelevant

[@SimplexPL]

@@BenersantheBreadYes I do realize. And my point stands. The argument would work better if it compared apples with apples. Exact detail are not irrelevant, they support the argument. Shamus clearly did good research beforehand, but missed this one thing.

[@SimplexPL]

This just in: twitter.com/outstarwalker/status/1321154204011028483

[@Bluesine_R]

Please do make a video on how CEOs are allowed such insane salaries and still mismanage everything.

[@CoolSs]

you know what . that is the real thing we should focus on .

[@adams3627]

That's not a problem with video games, that's a problem with CAPITALISM ITSELF

[@poiumty]

Size of the salary doesn't equate to future competence. It usually equates to how much money the company made because of you. If you perform poorly you're gonna be replaced by the board of directors. But don't let this simple explanation stop you from hating rich people. GRRR TOO MUCH MONEYYY

[@J0derVIVIVI]

@@adams3627 GTFO with that BS it would be the same or worst under other "yet to be proven good" modern system. I bet you typed that from your China made iphone.

[@Peasham]

@@J0derVIVIVI Implying China isn't literally a free-market Capitalist's wet dream?

[@bekkayya]

I dont think I've ever seen somebody say executive pay is THE problem. Its a problem, and its symptomatic and representative of other problems. Its an easy, obvious thing to rally around that doesnt require a 21:33 minute investigatory deep dive.

[@BenersantheBread]

Then I must assume you don't spend as much time on gaming journalist and "journalist" spaces. If it's not downright stated then it's heavily implied with phrases like "The developers are having to go through weeks of crunch while the CEO of *company* gets X billion dollars"

[@bekkayya]

@@BenersantheBread Idk. I'm not super into that news sphere, but even that headline sounds like its just trying to get a point across. Could be rephrased as "higher payed individuals cause mismanagement and poor working conditions at game company". Thats what I get from it, anyways. Like all rallying slogans it loses some specificity for a punchy headline.

[@LiraeNoir]

I have a few issues with the way this is constructed. First, I did not see that "argument of paying for crunch by penalizing CEO" widely proposed. I'm sure we can find examples of such an argument, but we can find example of arguments about 30fps being more cinematic, lootboxes being good for everyone, and martians controlling the hardware-software gaming complex. Probably. Second, you only talk about CEO. I think the argument some people advanced is probably more along the lines of the whole high executive chain. It's not just Bobby Kotick, it's Bobby and at least 20 other people. Third, I understood you implied at the beginning those two issues are separate and unrelated, but at the end it seems to be an implication of "crunch is necessary to avoid tens or hundreds of millions in losses". Which is a false dichotomy. Maybe you should have explored crunch and possible solution _before_ this video? Fourth, I know you keep that for another video because I remember you discussing EA failing years and years ago and I see where you are going, but your ending is a bit fast. I think it would be better at the opening: "here's what I think, and now I'm going to spend 20 minutes explaining the first part of this". I doubt many new viewers/readers will follow you on that jump about using losses through mismanagement and bad hiring instead of punitive options. All in all, I agree with your analysis. I just think the structure of your arguments will lose you more people than it needed to be.

[@SidheKnight]

" _First, I did not see that 'argument of paying for crunch by penalizing CEO' widely proposed_ " You don't hang around the Jimquisition's comment section, do you? Some of his fans (not Jim himself though) would have you believe that if Android Wilson took a pay cut he could end crunch at EA, get rid of all microtransactions and solve malnutrition in the third world.

[@LiraeNoir]

@@SidheKnight No, I rarely hang out any KZbin comment sections, although I do watch Sterling's videos.

[@roadent217]

"but at the end it seems to be an implication of "crunch is necessary to avoid tens or hundreds of millions in losses". Which is a false dichotomy." Is it though? Shamus's position is basically that some types of crunch aren't bad, and are perhaps even good, since they allow companies to commit to contractual obligations while also giving some leeway for scope creep, proper bug testing (of a rather complex software system) and other positive benefits. Shamus is really mostly against chronic crunch-as-company-culture. Crunch that's shorter than two weeks, however, isn't necessarily problematic.

[@Mark-nn2ce]

regarding your second point, those people generally earn less than the CEO and Shamus is talking about confiscating the CEO's entire salary. The numbers would realistically still work out because you wouldn't actually confiscate the entire CEO salary anyway.

[@Peasham]

@@roadent217 So what you're saying is, Shamus is a shill who doesn't give a shit about the workers. Cool.

[@valipunctro]

The underlying and important issue is worker rights and the lack there of.

[@baudsp]

I'm pretty sure worker rights aren't the same in the US and in Poland. And what crunch mean either

[@valipunctro]

@@baudsp probably,I'm not familiar with what happened at cdpr,I live in the EU and unpaid overtime is illegal in my country.

[@baudsp]

@@valipunctro pretty sure that it's the same in Poland

[@Peasham]

@@baudsp No country has a video game union.

[@baudsp]

@@Peasham www.stjv.fr/ And even then, you can have non-job specific unions

[@GameDevYal]

Is it just me or is paying CEOs in stocks creating a conflict of interest? We have statistics that a lot of moves that are harmful to businesses are good for the stocks (mass layoffs increasing profitability, for instance) so incentivizing making those decisions isn't going to create healthy businesses.

[@cadedonnghail9317]

Business philosophy over-estimating the value of the stock market as an indicator of business/economic health is a whole other can of worms. It takes priority because it's the engine management has spent the past century learning how to best manipulate.

[@SidheKnight]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_primacy In theory, paying CEOs in stocks should _align_ their personal interests with those of the owners of the company that employs them (the shareholders), since "the better the company does, the bigger the CEO's paycheck". In practice, this leads to short term thinking, prioritizing quick profits over business sustainability. The expectation that profits must always increase over those of the previous fiscal quarter doesn't help either.

[@Shinkajo]

No, it's not a "conflict of interests". Their job is to increase stock prices. Paying them in stocks is the prefect incentive for that. For startups for example it's often the only way to pay their executives in the first place.

[@Peasham]

You mean... Capitalism solely encourages the abuse of workers for profit? Wow, ya don't say.

[@kallmannkallmann]

Another big problems with meny of thease companies is that ther bonus systems is broken for ther CEO, meny get the big bonuses even if the goal has not been reatched. I myself think the goals are abit to simple to properly push the CEO in the right direction.

[@Canadish]

The shareholders are meant to be the check on that kind of ridiculousness. The issue is if you pay the CEOs bonus in shares...guess who becomes one of the major shareholders who makes the call...

[@Marti_Docus47]

Funny that when Shamus says "They can't just push it back by a few weeks" They push it back by a few weeks

[@BenersantheBread]

...after getting delayed by a year

[@disjustice]

It's possible that the game has already gone gold and the code they are working on now will be delivered as a day 1 patch.

[@Gnidel]

It shows that they found a really gamebreaking bug. I suspect that update of console OS or driver broke something.

[@serathaevistille995]

@Caleb Imrie Looks like it did indeed release with bugs galore. Unfortunate, but this just goes to show, never buy into the hype.

[@STRONTIumMuffin]

Legal enforcement of ethical practice is the only options when corporations can just lie and take your money. You can't vote with your wallet the games industry is not a democaracy. Nothing under capital is a democaracy.

[@KillahMate]

The core question of course is: what incentive structure is required to make sociopaths care about their employees? And I don’t know the answer to that but it’s harder than just punishing them financially. Bobby doesn’t care about the people in his employ, and he will never care. He can't be punished into caring. A different approach is required, one where Bobby is no longer relevant.

[@MarsofAritia]

unions

[@peanuttasty247]

Worker ownership and economic democracy

[@blackcowboymusic]

Not that related to the topic at hand (apologies), but anyone else really happy that he's using Lonely Mountains: Downhill for this vid? This game needs so much more attention

[@SianaGearz]

I didn't need convincing, i already knew that executive salary is a drop in the bucket and financially doesn't actually decide all that much, because simply operational costs are a lot higher than most people think. Which is how they can assign themselves such huge salaries without directors and investors revolting against that. But i think these people need to show SOLIDARITY with their team, and when things go seriously south, when they let their team and partners down due to faults in leadership, cut their own salary. This is what happened, CDPR's upper management let their employees down first and foremost, and now everyone knows about it. We know about it from leaks, we know about it from transcripts of shareholder meetings, we can put the pieces together, and the employees of CDPR have known all along.

[@TheShinyShow]

I get that a lot of the arguments people make are missing important points, but I don't think people are complaining about CEO salaries in relation to crunch. That's more related to the likes of laying people off, not paying for overtime etc. Crunch is a slightly different issue due to not hiring enough people to meet the date. I think missing a date is bad for stakeholders, the fans who feel disappointed, and groups who rely on the game making good sales in a specific timeslot such as game shops.

[@orestes0883]

But, not hiring enough people to do the job properly by the deadline is directly related to CEO compensation. If the CEO hired (or you know, didn't lay off) devs so that the game could be made on time without crunch, the company costs increase, shareholder profits decrease, stock values don't rise as much, and thus the CEO makes a boatload less cash and possibly gets fired. You see, the game industry has had continually increasing profits every single year for almost a decade now, basically continually since the mainstreaming of micro-transactions. So the expectation isn't just that the company will make money, but that the company will make more money than at any other point in it's history every year. That's why you have crunch culture, mass layoffs, etc. at companies like Activision Blizzard which has set a new revenue record every year for the last 10ish years. Sure they made more money this year than last year, but to do it, they had to work every team on every game 50+ hours for 6 months straight, and then when the games ship, they lay off 800-1200 people at least once, sometimes 2x a year, every year. Because the CEOs and other executives (and Shamus is correct that too much blame gets placed solely on CEOs, the entire executive structure is too blame, and there's plenty of blame to go around for all of them) are highly incentivized to treat devs and other employees as disposable , because the only thing the shareholders, stock prices, and boards of directors care about is the bottom line. Whatever is good for the bottom line is good for the executives, regardless of long-term impacts on employees, or even the company itself. Imagine how much time (and therefore money) EA wastes every year teaching all those new hires how to use the Frostbyte engine. But, if they didn't have mass layoffs every time a dev doesn't have a money making project to directly contribute to, the bottom line would suffer, and even worse, they would have to give those people raises!!!! This way EA has a staff mostly made up of "entry level" employees (and if you really want to have a laugh/cry depending on your sense of humor, go look at what companies ask of people as prerequisites for "entry level" jobs. 10+ years of experience is not an uncommon ask) making entry level pay, and if their lack of familiarity with the Frostbyte engine means that they aren't able to make the next Star Wars game in time, well just make them crunch for free until they can.

[@baudsp]

Shamus, you're using a few sources (the pictured articles & CEO compensation), I think it should be a good idea to have links towards those in the video description and/or the companion article (I only found a link for Schreier's article in the blog article).

[@CompleteAnimation]

Lonely Mountains Downhill is an awesome game. I love that you used it for B-roll.

[@dededoritos]

That's a nice video and all, and I pretty much agree with and/or understand the reasoning behind every point you make here. The thing that actually bothers me is the fact that this discussion even exists. The absolute level of immaturity on the internet regarding this subject, where instead of discussing how workers should be paid better and fairer, with healthier working conditions; how executives keep getting away with poorly managed projects that burns outs entire staff teams, we are discussing wether or not a CEO should abdicate a split of its payment to add to the development budget. This is nonsense.

[@ThePancakesGuy]

The problem is a lack of regulation for workers rights. They should unionize and strike. I know easier said than done. But that's the only way they're going to be able to continue working at these game companies. The companies are biting off way more than they can chew when they decide to make games that have these ridiculous crunch times. I mean that or workers can go work on indie games instead of garbage AAA titles. Just my opinion don't hate me. =D

[@canalsincontenido]

I'm asking early so there's a chance you see it, maybe it's answered in the video. Aren't you working under the assumption that overtime is free instead of extra pay? The problem with CEOs is still that their job is managing a team but after decades they apparently still have zero idea how long it takes to do the job or how to divide work so it can be partially fixed or expanded after release. Or, you know, they are payed to lie. It's hard not to blame the person that failed at their job and has to suffer the least.

[@bezzaboyo]

not sure who the "extra hours" applies to, but if you mean the extra crunch hours that developers have to do, whether they are paid or not is mostly irrelevant given the extreme conditions that "crunch" implies. It's not stretching your 7-8 hour work day an extra hour or two for a couple weeks, it's months of extremely long days (often over 12 working hours, up to all 7 days in a week) of full time, stressful work with minimal or no breaks. The fact that they might get paid the same amount of money per hour is unlikely to be a big motivator more than the fear of having to quit your job (or get laid off) if you don't want to work the crunch. And this is brutal, mentally taxing work.

[@canalsincontenido]

With your two options, there's also saying the truth because he knew it would take extra because it always does, it's not a mystery if it always happens. Or releasing the game in stages at a partial price. Or having the same salary as the people actually making the game (because at no point you explained why they'd be the best payed part of the team) to at least make face.

[@canalsincontenido]

@@bezzaboyo but overtime is usually payed more than your base hours. Unless they do wage theft it's more expensive to have them do crunch over stretching that time or having an extra shift with a new team. It's not only the moral "don't treat people as if they were replaceable trash", it's not even cheaper to do it that way without commiting crimes.

[@jellewijckmans4836]

@@bezzaboyo I think the point is that assuming that crunch time gets paid out ( which it should) you end up spending the same amount of money as if you had delayed it. Now in reality you actually pay more because overtime in most countries means a rate off over a 100%.

[@bezzaboyo]

@@jellewijckmans4836 Well in that case, even though I dont think it was explicitly mentioned in the video, it should be excessively clear from the second half when talking about the opportunity costs related to missed shipping window, advertising and reschedule costs, that the small cost to pay workers an additional salary bonus would not even come close to the monumental total cost of a delay.

[@Legiro]

I get your argument, there is a logic to it. With that said... salaries aren't the main problem. Developers aren't going to be fired right after releasing the game. Not generally at least. Maybe some contractors, but not core team. So salaries are paid before game's release. Salaries will be paid after game's release. Nothing changes drastically from moved release date. Yes, salaries are generally a big chunk of expenditure in software development in particular. But it isn't primary reason for difficulty in moving the release date. That's the problem in your video IMO. You start off with, arguably, the least important and relevant reason to the topic. And only afterwards lead into the most relevant topic of discussion - advertisement, logistics, production etc. Things that are directly tied to release date. Profits, reports before investors - again, things directly relying on release date of a big game. I would start with that and explain that THIS is the real reason moving release date for big products is hard. With that said - I think there is a bit of further critique. If you don't mind. Let's take your salary example. 80k$ average salary for programmer - fair estimate. For USA and some other countries. CEO of CD Project getting paid 1.5 million dollars yearly. Let's suppose that's true as well. Do you see the problem? Let me retread. Average salary for programmer... in Poland... is around 120-140k zloty. On the higher end, let's assume we're talking professionals. Or ~35k$ a year. And here is the problem. You're comparing salaries for two different specialties (fair up to this point) from two different countries (already can be differences in salaries of the same profession) that have vastly (!) different economic strength. And at the last point we've completely not only left the window, but even the atmosphere of making a sensible argument. Yes, you do eventually come back to Kotick. But why even go with faulty comparison in the first place prior to that. That's ignoring such things as... in Poland employer is not mandated to pay for insurance to the employee. One of the sticking points for those who came to work in CD Project, if you skim through Glassdoor reviews of them. And it hurts, it hurts because you are trying to make a valid point in this case. Please, a bit more care even with rough estimates. There are those who indeed say what you've discussed - why not just postpone games and take the costs of that out of upper management's pocket. That specific idea, as we both know, is very poorly thought through and unrealistic. Though you can probably agree that adding up upper management (not just CEO) as those "on the chopping block" for salary cuts in case of a mess would "improve" the "benefit" of such move. With that said, I think it skims over much more topical and real issue - upper management not taking salary cuts or, indeed, getting performance bonuses instead while those games are failing, getting delayed or releasing in poor state and/or underperform. While "rank and file" are getting cut, paid lower than average wage of a programmer (looking at you, Blizzard) in an, arguably, extremely time sensitive and tough work schedule. A lot of more sensible outrage was focused specifically on the fact that Kotick, somehow, is getting bonuses instead of... at least, at the very least, not getting bonuses. I get your argument about instilling hostile culture with salary cuts at the end of the video. It has merit. With that said - you will probably also agree that salary should reflect performance. Bonuses should reflect performance. That's how it works in our current world, that's what capitalism and market is about (whether you're a proponent or the opponent of the system). Product receiving adequate to it payment. The problems you mentioned, that are already strongly present in both EA and Activision at the very least - those problems are tied to investors. All of the moves you described would indeed be easiest way out of people in CEO position. If they have no oversight that cares about longterm profits. That is investors. Apparently, investors don't really care. Only recently we heard about pushback to absurd bonuses. Up to that point, it seems, investors didn't really care about many studios closed, many talents lost. It seems they only cared about short term profits in the next annual report, not the bigger picture. Graph in a report was better representation for them than doing any legwork on actually verifying how well the company is doing internally. So is it really the problem of corporate culture with CEOs? Or is it a reflection of the industry at large and big investors in it? Who allows CEO to pay themselves money? To bestow bonuses? Whose money are spent on it? The ultimate problem is that investors, apparently, are illiterate "consumers". When you say "let's not employ bad management" - you're appealing to the side that allowed this problem to cultivate itself to begin with. If investors don't display interest in healthy company, what can be done? Governmental intervention, borderline planned economy and all big companies being handled by it? Surely we would agree this is just childish. Educating those "poor deluded investors" that are raking up millions and billions? I'm sure they are open to discussion about how wrong their view on the industry is, while the bubble is steadily pumped and annual reports by CEOs they put in place are glowing with possibilities. Sadly, I don't think your solution applies either. If it was so easy - we wouldn't have such large scale problems as industry bubbles. Or Madoff debacle. People are often dumb and bad at managing their things. Be they rich or poor. I think that's the only sad truth to it. Fingers crossed they'll realize where things are going before they lose a lot of money and, more importantly, cost hundreds of people jobs and modicum of decent and healthy life. I want to reiterate that I agree with your opinion for the most part. But, in my opinion, you heavily undermine your points by focusing on most important parts towards the end of the video, in a "skimming by" fashion. And spending too much time on unimportant points.

[@mrshmuga9]

(Talking about delaying in general, not specific to CDPR) You’re right that employee costs would (if the company is stable) continue after the game. However, moving the release date isn’t “nothing” just because they expect to continue paying them. Moving the game means a delay in *money they were expecting to make back* by selling the game at that point. Delaying means more time they’re not making money, which is “eating those costs” upfront. They could make it back, but that’s money they have to make up for themselves in the mean time. And depending on the size of the studio or their financial standing, that could be a big problem. In some rare cases, staff were laid off before the game released because the studio was in that bad of a position (I think it was High Moon Studios with Transformers: Fall of Cybertron). It’s easy to think, “big studio/publisher, they can delay all they want” but the bigger they are, the more it costs to delay. It’s working under the assumption that a studio making games is just the natural order and would have continued, instead of the reality that in 99% of cases you’re working on a project-to-project basis. You never know if something will fail or how hard, and how much that can impact your studio. And even if big publishers, could bail out a studio, if they’re not making a ton or has a dodgy track record that isn’t somewhat predictable, then they won’t risk saving them, because it’s a risk. I mean, Microsoft supposedly has “all the money” yet they didn’t bother to save Lionhead Studios, one of their 3 big studios (at that time). Their game was finished by the way too, but it still would have cost money to support the game because it was an online multiplayer game.

[@Peasham]

It is literally standard practice in AAA studios to burn devs out, fire them, and replace them with fresh meat.

[@Legiro]

@@Peasham Oh, don't get me wrong, I have no illusions about how "real world" works. This was purely a look at that specific side in ideal conditions. Qualified managers do realize that miser pays twice and hiring underqualified people, even if cheaper and better looking in following report, means increasing likelihood of missing deadlines and various development problems. Most of those very real problems can still be traced back to CEOs/Board of Directors/Investors (depending on the type of company) not caring quite enough about longterm and only being interested in the next report looking good. Overreliance on contractors to save money, underpaying staff, replacing staff with cheaper underqualified one, merging jobs for no good reason other than try and hire the guy to do twice the load for unchanged salary. Game industry needs unions, clearly. Governments in many countries are failing to be even a bare minimum oversight. Those in control clearly have short term memory and short-sightedness. Consumers buying the products? Let's face it, for every one like you or me who even remotely cares about developers having decent pay and conditions, there are dozens if not hundreds and thousands of those who just want to buy a finished product and don't want to be bothered by anything else. Developers are the only ones who might care enough about developers.

[@orestes0883]

I have seen a lot of calls for more links in the comments here, but here's the most important link not included. Where in the hell have you seen anyone argue the point that you are refuting here? I watch a lot of those angry KZbinrs who decry crunch and overpaid executives. Hell Jim Sterling is the first person I check on new videos from every time I pull up KZbin. But not only has Jim Sterling never made that argument, but I've never even seen anyone make it in the comments of his videos. If you want me to believe that this is actually an argument that lots of people are making, and not just some easy straw man for you to knock down, I'm going to need to see receipts. That is the biggest problem with a video that ALSO compares a Polish CEOs salary with Silicon Valley dev costs.

[@jellewijckmans4836]

Your argument about the cost of delays ignores the fact that overtime and crunch is you know payed. In fact overtime often times ends up being payed out at higher rates. The reason you crunch isn't because of trying to reduce employment costs but opportunity costs. It's about fines on breach of contract and quite frankly PR. The simple fact is that crunch is a failure of management so they should be the ones forced to deal with the consequences.

[@Canadish]

From a sense of basic justice, yes. The point is that it doesnt work practically to punish the managers, it incentivisises them to do more harm. I think Shamus is trying to help people understand that so we can look at an actual fix for this. I'f we can't just knock their pay, what else could we do?' I remember Iwata took a hit to his salary at Nintendo for the Wii U as a gesture, but that was due to the culture of Japan encouraging this. He was shamed and needed to punish himself out of basic respect for his staff and shareholders. We don't really have that mindset anywhere else.

[@jellewijckmans4836]

@@Canadish The pay cuts aren't going to compensate costs but that's not the point. You don't take away the stock because you can sell it to recoup costs you take away the stock so that next time they plan things better. CEOs are protected from the consequences of their own failures. That is what this argument is actually about. Unless the ones taking the decisions actually suffer from those decision they have no reasons to fix anything.

[@Peasham]

@@Canadish If a manager does their work badly whether paid more or less, but actively tries to sabotage the company if paid even slightly less, then that manager should not have their job. If you do your job amazingly as an actual dev, 9 times out of 10 in AAA studios you get fired because you're burnt out by crunch. If you do not do your job as a part of management, you get bonuses. You know why this is stupid.

[@Canadish]

@@Peasham Its super stupid, you're right. Shamus basically said that as well, but his point is the usual solution offered in the discourse online (take pay from upper management to offset delay costs) wouldn't fix the issue, and may even make it worse because they'd just never delay anything, force more crunch and release garbage. The shareholders should probably hold them to more account, but when they use stock as a bonus, they make the managers shareholders as well, major ones. That means less leverage to stop them giving themselves bonuses. The 'mechanism' of control/incentive is broke in this case and needs a fix. Mass consumer awareness and boycott could force hands, but publishers are reshifting all focus onto mainstream casual 'gamers' who don't know/care about this stuff. The old school game crowd is pretty discerning and sceptical and they don't like that.

[@scrustle]

I get what you're saying about this, but I think the argument of cutting CEO's pay isn't necessarily about just that one person. There are loads of top level executives in these big companies, and you can get many times more money from the compensation for all of them than just one person. And then there's the money in dividends that goes to shareholders as well, even if that's not exactly the same thing. Although I expect there's probably a lot of other complicated reasons why this also isn't a simple fix. And when we really get down to the source of the issue after going through the hundreds of arguments that probably exist, the real problem is always capitalism itself.

[@Canadish]

On the final point, it isn't necessarily Capitalism, but more about how the system of stocks and PLCs encourage and incentivise short term profits over longterm sustainable growth (CEOs are focused on quarterly earnings over 3-4 year period before jumping ship and want to look impressive for the next company and signing bonus, compared to a private owner of a company who is focused on its lifetime growth, the legacy it carrys and its sustainability for their inheritors/children.)

[@CoolSs]

what really really annoy me . how much money goes for advertising and the sad truth about it . at one point . the success of your game is based on how much advertising you do for the game and if it make your customer buys it .

[@SidheKnight]

6:30 It's pronounced "MAR-cheen ee-VIN-skee"

[@tsartomato]

marching eve in ski

[@SidheKnight]

@@tsartomato marchin' eve in ski

[@Skaybay]

Funnily enough the day you posted that video CDP Red announced that CP77 is delayed by three weeks.

[@BenersantheBread]

...after getting delayed by a year

[@megabyte01]

I look forward to the follow-up video. I'm curious because of the stinger at the end of this video!

[@thedualitysystem]

"This is why triple A games never get delayed a by only a couple weeks." *Cyberpunk gets delayed by only a couple weeks*

[@BenersantheBread]

...after getting delayed by a year

[@Mossmyr]

@@BenersantheBread Maybe CDPR can delay it by 30 seconds again before the game launches? I can see the headlines before me even now: "In a triumphantly successful business strategy, CDPR manages to delay Cyberpunk 2077 by only half a minute from the original release date! Lengthy interview with this genius of a corporate strategist on page 12."

[@JumCuggler]

I don't know if the general argument is that crunch can be fixed by reducing CEO pay. That sounds like a straw man.

[@BenersantheBread]

Even if it was, who or what would it be a straw man against? By burning this straw man all he did was... burn the straw man. He didn't use it to simplify another argument, he didn't use it to attack anybody and he definitely didn't argue that CEOs deserve their pay.

[@DeronHargrove]

This was such a good explanation. I was initially confused and not seeing your viewpoint but as you explained it, it made sense

[@catriona_drummond]

I am pretty sure actually that out of the big publishers just recently Bethesda went broke. The Microsoft takeover was a bailout, I am convinced.

[@ResandOuies]

First of all: Crunch isn't free hours. They cost as much if not more than regular hours and is probably less productive to boot. Secondly: 3 months of extra work? CDR's crunch is about one extra work week, not three months. Thirdly: Seeing as being given stocks are pretty normal as bonuses, I not really seeing how deciding to give the CEO a lot fewer, due to poor work in managing, and instead giving these to employee should be impossible. Second half of the video makes a lot more sense. With the "hidden" extra cost of delay

[@Canadish]

On the 3rd point, you can't pay overtime in stocks so it isn't a fix for this specific issue. But I agree its otherwise a good move for many many reasons to use as bonus incentive.

[@Mark-nn2ce]

I didn't think you were being condescending. It is a very insightful perspective.

[@Shinkajo]

I've been seen saying this for years. It's asinine and childish. People have no first hand experience in these things. I've been a project manger for middle sized software projects. It really isn't as simple as people think. Software development is actually pretty expensive. Minimum 80% is personell costs. Games are even more complicated.

[@GoodGuyGaurav]

This is a highly respectful and impactful video. Thank you

[@Sicod79]

Let's pay a game called I am making a comment on this highly insightful and entertaining video that all people should watch. All people. Please KZbin, let all people know about this particular video. All age categories. English comprehension not needed. Do it KZbin, do it!

[@dragonhold4]

(19:19) _The 1st step in solving a problem is correctly identifying the source of the problem ... criticize the 100s of millions in losses executives inflict due to mismanagement, opportunity cost, lost sales, brain drain, bad press, and missed opportunities_ > This was a good breakdown of the internal costs for delays. Sadly, this video could have been better served with relevant clips.

[@yurgen95]

hey, could you please take a look and explain how reflections work in Mafia 1 remake? they're amazing, almost looks like raytracing, it's not Screen space reflection cause it shows thing that you can't see on screen. and if I'm not wrong it's kind of dynamic.

[@SianaGearz]

I have played original Mafia 2 recently, not remaster, the original release, and noticed there are geometrical building reflections on the road, even for offscreen buildings. I have not had time to figure out yet how they do that, but maybe i will? I think the most advanced well-described classic rendering reflection tech was in "Remember Me" (2013, heavily modified Unreal Engine 3, PC/Xbox360/PS3), they had several articles published in some magazine on the topic and a GDC presentation. It was a breakthrough in Physically Based Shading. There is a lot of reflective water in the game, and no screenspace reflection tracing at all, because you pretty much can't do that in a forward shading renderer like they had there. They use planar reflections quite a bit. Otherwise, there's several layers of reflections that they combine. Raycast parallax-corrected cubemap in the shader; or raycast into a convex proxy geometry for the room. Added on top of that, raycast image proxies or imposters. They are authored such that there's only maybe a dozen of those in any given shot. I wonder if Mafia uses similar techniques to patch up the holes in screen space reflection mapping?

[@yurgen95]

@@SianaGearz damn, I have to replay mafia 2 then, cause think they implementen those reflections since mafia 3 which was kind of broken in a lot of places except onda car surfaces, Im going to check "remember me" To take a look at those reflections, to be honest I Know nothing about programming or game development but still I'm pretty curious about technical stuff.

[@AlPaka]

Do I really need to write something to please the almighty algorithm?

[@falfires]

Ok, so 6:27. Marcin Iwiński's name. The 'ci' in his first name is pronounced like 'ci' in 'ciao', the rest of the first name is as you see it, with a hard 'r', like when you rrrrrroll yourrrr rrrrr's. The 'ń' letter in his last name is an analogue of 'ni', and you say it just like the ñ in piñata (maybe a tad shorter). The 'w' in his last name is a hard 'v', as in 'volvo', the rest is read as you see it. So it becomes something like 'Iviñski'. Marcin Iwiński, not Marsyn Luynski ;)

[@DonLasagna]

You changed my mind on this, well done. Reasonable level headed takes like this is why Ive read/watched you for years.

[@_Just_John]

Fun fact: Polish game developer makes the same amount of money as American burger flipper.

[@TAGMOMG]

The one thing bothering me here is that I just -really- do not trust that $10,000 per month number you presented as the default salary of a game developer. I mean, Jason himself extrapolates it out as an independent, 5 person 18 month affair as costing $900,000. Meanwhile I'm looking at, say, the Shantae Half Genie Hero kickstarter, a game that started development at - generously speaking - October 2013, and ended June 2017, with - I'm damn sure - more then 5 people working on it, and how much did that kickstarter make? $776,000, and that's before Kickstarter taxes and such. Where the buggering hell does the rest of the money come from there? I mean I know it's a company involved here, I know they make money somehow besides kickstarters, but I just can't read those two numbers together and make any sense out of it. And other side of the coin, the day you released this video in fact, one of the developers on Witcher 3 came forward and stated she'd been paid $430 a month for full time facial animation work - Now to be fair, there's always the question of if that's a credible claim, but if it is, it completely blows the idea of $10,000 out of the damn water, doesn't it? Like even if we go and say that the average employee ends up getting paid -five times- as much as this $430 a month, that's still only a total cost (not salary, *cost*, including that x1.5 multiplier for overhead costs) of $3,225. Suddenly our potential delaying power from executive fund funneling shoots up to 3 times as high! Now mind, as you said yourself: We're working on highly theoretical shit here with a bunch of stuff we can't estimate and you're being incredibly overgenerous in favor of the "nick executive cash to pay the workers" argument, so in the grand scheme of things this number crunching can only really be called a nitpick without further information, but... Well it still kicked at me enough to get me typing long comments like my opinion really matters. :V

[@SianaGearz]

Kickstarter is used mostly as a tool to attract investors and prove interest and viability, it's not the main source of money pretty much ever for any medium-size or larger project. At the bare lowest end, you can expect to receive as much in institutional investments as you can collect via crowdfunding, doubling the budget. With more skill in attracting investors and industry knowledge, the budget can be 10 times the crowdfunded amount. So total budget being around 5 times the crowdfunding amount is very average. The investors in turn count on the project's long-term retail success after completion to make their money. At this time, CD Projekt RED has at least 500 game developers right? These are employees, they receive salaries generally similar to those paid in the rest of EU, since for one, the wage level in Poland exploded in the last 5 years, and for other, they had to rapidly expand by attracting experienced developers from abroad, who just wouldn't work for Polish wages. These people can unionise, they are protected by Employee's Rights, and they are mentioned in the game credits. So that's the sunny side. However most major companies (with one major exception i can think of) outsource around 3/4th of the work to temps. Their jobs are not considered highly skilled (but often can be), they receive minimum wage (if they're lucky), the companies have ways to skirt the law so these people are completely unprotected, and they're generally not credited and don't really have prospects unless they get promoted to work within the company, which is a carrot that they dangle in front of them to make people apply to begin with, with little actual likelihood of that happening. As far as the public goes, gamedev companies just pretend these people don't even exist. I think the case of a person that came forward was somewhere in between. She received a small percentage over Polish minimum wage for the time about 5 years ago on a temp contract, but was actually credited. I don't think they will make this "mistake" again, they probably just won't credit temps any longer, so people will have no proof they ever worked at the studio, as their actual contract will be not with the studio, but with an agency legally residing in a PO box on Malta. So let's say a game is developed by a 500-person studio, then there's at least 1500 or more of these outsourced low-paid exploitative jobs. The estimate for the staff employees costing no less in wage and expenses total than 100k/year on average is correct, but then there's more people to consider. 500 people are far too few to stem something the size of CP2077. Even 1000 people are too few. This took probably 2000-5000 people. I am a former industry insider but not with CD Projekt in particular.

[@tsartomato]

marching eve in ski but anglo saxons never even try because of course they don't

[@Braxtonkai]

Well if high level shot-calls result in a loss the first to take the hit should be those making the calls.

[@andrewscarpati9665]

I feel like some of the better problems to address would be an extremely strict release window (holiday- late spring), and the need for every project from a big studio to be 'AAA'. To me, a lot of the issues brought up seem to stem from these two bugbears.

[@baudsp]

> the need for every project from a big studio to be 'AAA' I don't really agree with that. For example CDPR didn't release only AAA, since the Witcher 3, they also released a good pile of DLC (okay, their development was conditional on the success of TW 3, but still) and two different Gwent games.

[@randykerchmar5296]

"And fire them ... into the sun" is my new catch phrase.

[@TheSquareheadgamer]

You're the one simplifying the argument. Most people aren't literally saying that CEO should start fronting the bill directly out of pocket right now. It's they're being paid to much to begin with and that the gaming industry as a whole is an unregulated capitalist nightmare with issues with workers rights. Missing deadlines and Crunch is a failure of time management or over ambitious vision.

[@bezzaboyo]

But some people ARE making this argument. If you're not the one making this argument, then great, this video is probably not important for you to watch, or to spend much time thinking critically about. Maybe you were mislead by the title, but it's clear from listening for just a couple minutes what the intent of the video is. Multiple times it's brought up that CEO pay is A problem within the gaming space, but it's not THE problem that is also the solution to another major problem in the industry.

[@TheSquareheadgamer]

@@bezzaboyo Is there a single personality whose sharing it, what your implying is that everyone who says it is missing nuance. I watched sufficiently far into the video to get the gist. Realistically at the moment it's impossible to literally funnel the CEO pay check into game development to push the release date by a week. Cool that's not what matters. Its taking a wide argument boiling it down to its most literally reading and saying "that's wrong".

[@bezzaboyo]

@@TheSquareheadgamer The video never even remotely attempts to argue whether CEO pay is "A" problem within the video. It is stated that there could be an entire video dedicated to why CEOs arent worth half of what they make now - and does not further elaborate on this. So it isn't boiling down that argument at all. It isn't even covering it - it's covering the main topic of the video, which is that trying to take the CEO salary issue to solve another issue is simply infeasible.

[@vekobr]

He directly speaks of it at 16:00

[@TheSquareheadgamer]

@@bezzaboyo which isn't a real argument people who've thought about it for two seconds are making.

[@Cythil]

And this is why I do not think we should cut the salary dumb CEOs No we should do that for completely different reasons. (And is not actually what people get paid that is the problem for me. But how things are owned and how people get to influence their workplace.)

[@ZontarDow]

10,000 per month isn't quite accurate since you have places like Quebec whichbhave a 25,000$ tax credit for game per developer which for Ubisoft ammounts to nearly 1.2 million in tax credits

[@124354356435643]

Here I am at the end and we are not friends, but I appreciate your bright ideas and inside industry point of view.

[@MrXXVII]

What about Bobby Kotick's Bonus tho and the lay offs?

[@BenersantheBread]

That's not what the video is about?

[@MrXXVII]

@@BenersantheBread exavtly, the points made sidestep the biggest news piece that propelled the idea of cutting executive pay.

[@Peasham]

@@MrXXVII Wait, you mean you have to actively ignore huge factors in order to defend Capital? Woooow, ya don't say.

[@aleckushmerek1757]

This is a really good take, I was a bit skeptical at first but you've completely convinced me.

[@shy-watcher]

Sounds like blindly following traditions is a problem again. TV ads are inflexible because? Why aren't ad auctions same-day or same-week? We have the technology. We need physical disks why? Give a 10% digital-only discount (maybe negotiate down Steam's cut) and you don't need that many disks anymore. Triple-a is just an outdated business model, same as door-to-door sales. Most ambitious projects that need the dev budget are crushed by the threat of the marketing budget anyway. The world will move on.

[@vekobr]

Physical disks are for several categories of clients who buy games on disks: - to add to collection; - as a gift; - have a poor/non-existing internet connection; - in fear that digital copy can be lost with account, whereas physical is right here.

[@shy-watcher]

@@vekobr This is why we need a digital-only discount to encourage people who don't care to avoid physical copies. If you need to pay double to rush 1m disks it's ruinous. If you need to pay double to rush 100k disks, it's thinkable.

[@CharcharoExplorer]

The reason we have disks is beause its slightly closer to ownership. The loss of ownership is far worse than some employees crunching hard IMHO. Like hundreds of times worse.

[@D3R3bel]

TV ads are schedules months beforehand, because there are a huge backlog of companies wanting advertisement spots. If there were ad auctions, imagine how chaotic it would be. Smaller companies would be bullied at every turn into never having any ads. Oh you want an ad spot for cyberpunk? Well suck it we will pay twice whatever you're paying for your ad spots.

[@vekobr]

@@shy-watcher this discount won't mean anything to none of those three segments. But will significantly decrease income. Therefore it's a purposeless marketing move.

[@oliverelpero]

great video, gave me a whole new perspective on the issue

[@maxwaltham5853]

Well you took a big risk with that title and opening but, I'm glad I stuck around to the end, well argued.

[@EnigPartyhaus]

...and now to December 2020

[@nathan.dunahoo]

Mr. Young, I love your content. Thank you for making videos :)

[@hemangchauhan2864]

Studying business and management has completely changed my view on games and the industry. And I believe you've made a bloody spot on video. And you spoke like an engineer, "Key to solving the problem is identifying the source", so "she execs the losses".

[@DisplayLine6.13.9]

Marcin Iwinski now worth over 900 million no not 1.5 million. Maybe at some point you have demand that the CEO dumps the stock to pay for the project and actually pays the employees.

[@kostiantynhlyz]

Great video. Thank you.

[@Canadish]

Honestly, always appreciate a measured take like this. People like Jim Sterling do great work bringing attention to issues in the industry but I find there is rarely any practical solutions or breakdowns of the issue offered, I think largely due to a lot of emotion and wider political criticisms and/or goals. People don't want to understand the 'system' because they want to get rid of the 'system'. I think sometimes people mistake this breakdown approach as a dogwhistle of support or throw around 'mansplaining' and other buzzwords, due to a lack of immediate emotion or obvious support for what they are saying, but it's really key to understand the problem so we can find real solutions. Look forward to the follow up you mentioned!

[@Peasham]

But getting rid of the system is a practical solution. It won't happen, but if it did, it would be an extremely effective solution.

[@Canadish]

@@Peasham Right, but that's just it, you said it. 'It wont happen'. We're not dealing with some grave injustice here that warrants bloody revolution, we've got system that's broadly working but is gradually getting more inequitable and causing small scale injustices. The 'machine' works, it's just in need of some new parts and an oil change.

[@czarkowskipawelyt]

PSA: average CDPR employee, a person living in Poland, doesn't make $10000 per month. President of Poland makes like $6000.

[@coffeecaveman123]

It's funny, this feels topical as I've thought similar things in response to current events, but this video is two years old... Either you're prescient, or these problems are older and more apparent than we all think.

[@CoolSs]

I don't know about you but it will really help if the company working office is in city that don't have high cost of living . especially now a days working from far with software is more plausible than ever . yes i know moving your whole operation is not cheap . And cost time too .

[@morealias]

Lonely Mountains: Downhill looks good, thanks for pimping it! Something new for me to look into!

[@ShamusYoung]

I hope you enjoy it! It really is gorgeous! It manages to be challenging and relaxing at the same time.

[@ultrahero2115]

Bootlicker bs. You respect corporate interests and CEO's bank accounts more than the employees. The issue is CEOs greasing their palms and treating essential developers like an expendable resource for overblown salaries, self serving bonuses and pleasing shareholders. They mismanage projects all of the time and the developer suffers for poor leadership, not the higher ups. No one even suggested adding a CEO's salary to a development budget as a way to fix any of that. Only that it's egregious that such an unbalanced system even stands at all. Corporations are more concerned with financial bottom lines than human costs, so both your and their priorities are f**ked up.

[@chaos_flower]

Exactly! The CEOs make the decisions and have the workers to blame when things fail based in their own management. However when things succeed, they benefit off the labor from their workers and the workers get very little in return while expecting them to exceed their previous project. This whole video makes no sense.

[@mauricioquintero2420]

Thanks for reafiriming that capitalism is the true problem

[@intergalactichumanempire9759]

You were the guy who made the Roller Coaster Tycoon video that I really liked.

[@chaddickhaut140]

Well said.

[@valipunctro]

I don't want to say that you wasted your time but you kinda missed the point.the responsibility of planning the Dev time is the CEO's,so if the realise date slipped it's his fault not the individual worker.

[@brandonwalker9066]

I don't think CEO pay is THE problem. It is A problem, but not a problem necessarily related directly to crunch. Now, if a company is constantly failing to hit deadlines and in a perpetual state of crunch, investors should cut CEO benefits, or as you suggest, simply toss the CEO out on their hind-quarters. CEO pay is a symptom of much bigger problems that are not unique to game companies, but addressing those problems could very well have a strong trickle down effect to general working conditions for employees of large corporations and thus could also have an effect on crunch. Truth us, I think CD Projekt RED might actually be doing crunch right. They've been (as far as I can tell) communicative with their own employees and the press about why it's happening and what the effects are. As long as this doesn't become habit for them, maybe it's mostly a non-issue. Though it's also possible it's the beginning of a slide. Only time will tell.

[@chengong388]

Always thought these "cut CEO bonus" arguments are stupid simply because if you factor in the size of the actual workforce, CEO pay is actually relatively minor.

[@VaterOrlaag]

No offence, but the title seems kinda clickbait-y. I know "Covering losses from delayed shipping by taking an executive's salary is not a solution" isn't very elegant, but the topic is certainly different from what I expected from the title.

[@kallmannkallmann]

did you lisen to the hole video? he also go into that its sutch a small number for the company and pritty uninformed on todays company structures (not only gaming) to say slice his salery by 50% becuse i feel like it.

[@vtastek]

Will 3rd option CEOs have a job in long term? How many times can you blame it on developers? This is OK, we will get better CEOs then. Second option CEOs will be fired, maybe we get better CEOs then. First option CEOs may try to be better or leave the job for someone better. If it is a management problem then management should feel the burn. All options lead to better CEOs eventually. I say do it.

[@BenersantheBread]

Look at all the evil companies everyone loves hating, EA, Activision, Konami... The answer seems to be yes

[@DasReverend]

The outrage over CD Projekt Red crunch time is just a bit ridiculous. Polish labor laws mean that their crunch means a very different thing to the crunch work you see in the US or Canada

[@Peasham]

It doesn't, you're still forced to work for free lest you get fired. Only you'd be "volunteering" to work for free lest you get fired, thereby bypassing the laws.

[@yuzhouhu]

Shamus Young, I love this video man

[@Barbaroossa]

I.... I actually agree with this. I'm surprised I did.

[@nitesy381]

This aged well.

[@hemangchauhan2864]

9:10 Would love if you would cover finances!

[@r0hz]

I was soooooo ready to dislike but after hearing you out, i have to agree with you. Although i still prefer to have CEOs take paycuts as a token of leadership/solidarity with the employees

[@adams3627]

I wouldn't argue that CEOs being over paid is the reason dev companies and publishers crunch, hire-and-fire temps, and generally create a toxic environment to publish games in. But it IS morally wrong that these guys (and it's overwhelmingky guys) get paid so radically out of proportion with the value they actually add to their companies.

[@RJ_6]

When developers talk about economy to tell them they are wrong while everybody already know the problem...

[@ActingNT]

Of course taking money from the executives "doesn't make any financial or business sense." The point of a corporation is to make money for the executives and shareholders. Treating the workers better, if doing so reduces profit in any way, is dis-incentivized by the current economic system. Taking money from the executives instead of the workers is never what any corporation actually wants to do, even if it means the corporation goes bankrupt. It's just something that SHOULD happen, and it WOULD work if it took into account the fact that the CEO isn't the ONLY overpaid, owning-class executive. A systemic problem won't be solved by ousting one individual. As said in the video, the problem is that they shouldn't have the job in the first place. If the cost of executive salaries were removed entirely, put back into the labor budget from the start of development by converting corporations into worker cooperatives, then crunch would likely disappear too, because the people who do the actual work could democratically decide whether they do crunch or not. Worker cooperatives tend to perform equally or better than comparable hierarchy-based businesses, so the executives aren't needed anyway. They're just there to soak up profit. You may be starting to notice some serious problems inherent to capitalism.

[@SteveAkaDarktimes]

lots of informed, intelligent commments here. am Glad.

[@Shpuld]

great way to explain the situation, hope people listen

[@Gnidel]

Marcin is pronounced more like mar-zeen or mar-tzeen. Nor mar-seen.

[@mischa3343]

Awesome vid! Reality is always so much more complicated.

[@TheRavenShadowsWolf]

Just want to say, the break down was informative, and appreciated. Not sure I agree with all of it, but I can see past most of my "emotional" reactions. I'd agree with your last point - to a point. The problem being someone's got to be in charge, and you can muck up a thousand different ways. To me, it's less that they are paid exorbitantly, than they never should have such salaries in the first place. If you are making 10 x what your devs are, that also adds to cost in general. It WOULD be a way to reduce the expenses. Not so much in creating the game, but in overhead most definitely. That's not to say that a payscale couldn't be made or that leaders don't deserve some compensation. I'm just saying there's got to be a more definitive check and balance system. Using cyberpunk as an example - how much did they spend hyping the game to spike preorders? (I bought one, and no I couldn't get the reeeefund, because of the way they mucked it about - it wasn't worth trying to, as I'm NOT tech literate and I know the limits of what I can manage) IF they hadn't oversold by word, for months; accepted government grants they misused and lied to investors, as much as the fanbase about it, they wouldn't be in so much hot water right now. They wouldn't have needed to spend as much money on advertisement that wasn't even in the finished product, and no one would have expected the moon and stars. It's a bigger issue all around, than just CEO's make too much. That's why I appreciate the mark on the side of your vids. The industry does do things in a bass akwards way sometimes. I will agree very definitely that in cases of such incredible mismanagement the managers should be relieved of position. I believe some investor activists are trying to make that happen with CDPR right now. (I don't know if it's going to work, and the next guy in the hot seat will still have a target on back from the start... but it's something) For certain I'm not preordering a game again, and while I might give their games another chance at some point, I was already wary of Cyberpunk from the start. Because I remembered the hulaballoo with W3, I played assassin of kings all the way through and beat it once. It was my favorite game of the series but NONE of them were worth the hype 3 got after patches. Fan-boying is another part of the problem that creates "hype" that allows the companies to behave like they can do no wrong, with blinders on. Cyberpunk 2077 was very much for me, and to this day might very well be, CDPR's last shot. The moral in the "cunning charmer" stories is that eventually, they'll always try to skate scott free once too often. Always.

[@castleswillfall192]

Great video!