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CD Projekt plans to create 250 new jobs despite last year's profit and revenue decline [gamesindustry.biz]
- Thread starter Nerun
- Start date
I agree. Applied for a job there. What they offered was a joke and nobody should work in this industry for this kind of money.
Their pay for a Central/Eastern Europe country is great, so what's the problem? No one in these countries in going to have the same pay as he would on the same position in a Western/Scandinavian country
Not trying to excuse anything but isn't the cost of living in Poland substantially lower than other major metropolitan areas?
My company has workers in Poland and it's frankly a joke with how little they get paid. Granted this isn't game development but web development but over 85% of our developers are in Poland because they make a fifth of what the US or UK devs make. I realize there is a difference in living expenses as well but I don't particularly care. Pay your workers CDPR. These game developers are some of the smartest developers around, the fact I make more as a web developer is frankly asinine. I thought we were a damn meritocracy!
It's pretty freaking expected for them to have a reduction in profits. The Witcher 3 came out in 2015 and GOG isn't Steam. They're not Ubisoft, with a steady rollout of hits. They're a smaller
studio. They're of course expecting Cyberpunk to be big, as they should.
studio. They're of course expecting Cyberpunk to be big, as they should.
EU needs to do more to boost up states like Poland, or else they'll become the EU equivalent of Alabama and start espousing radical regressive views.
Alabama suffers heavily from brain drain, which means the moderating forces leave.
Alabama suffers heavily from brain drain, which means the moderating forces leave.
Well, hell, I mean Witcher 3 and its expansions are now years old- even if they still have decent sales, its like like when they launched, and their smaller projects just aren't moving the needle the same way.
But its understandable they are hiring- Cyberpunk is going to be freaking huge for them, and I guess there is that other un-announced AAA level project they supposedly have that is not too far off as well. Those profit numbers are going to shoot up big time for them and pay off the investments they are making now.
But its understandable they are hiring- Cyberpunk is going to be freaking huge for them, and I guess there is that other un-announced AAA level project they supposedly have that is not too far off as well. Those profit numbers are going to shoot up big time for them and pay off the investments they are making now.
That's not how world works.. doctors here make in average around 48-50k Euros a year.. in USA that's 176k and there isn't a difference in quality of doctors here and US.. and that is true for all work positions
Poland as a whole is still way less rich than Western Europe or the US (growing well though, maybe some day!). Of course companies pay their workers according to the local wage levels. CDPR is a business like any other, it would make zero sense for them to triple their expenses if they can already hire good developers. Pretty sure Ubisoft doesn't pay its Sofia employees the same as their French ones.
How many people do they have currently? I hope they don't overstaff and then end up firing people, which seems to be a problem for a number of developers.
Poland had some of the highest growth rates in Europe for many years now. The gap was/is just too large.
The wages are probably decent for Poland and surrounding countries, but they'll have difficulty getting any talent from anywhere in Western Europe for a good reason. Even if the lower wages are covered by lower cost of living, when someone wants to get a job in a more expensive country, salary history at CD Project could possibly count against you when you were negotiating for a job in France or the UK. Also whatever savings you had after a stint at CD Project would be next to worthless when you moved to a more expensive country.
But, hey them adding 250 jobs is excellent news for the Polish industry, so on balance its good news.
But, hey them adding 250 jobs is excellent news for the Polish industry, so on balance its good news.
Well we already have an EU equivalent of Alabama, it's called East Germany.
Don't wanna sound like an asshole but that's just not how the world works. Pay is often predicated on wages/cost of living in the area and it's kind of ridiculous to expect a polish company to pay the same amount that a company from let's say LA or Montreal. If the pay is bad in the region than yeah then that's just shitty.
It really is quite frustrating how many people leap to defend businesses from paying people more. Why exactly would this be a bad thing? How do you think things change in Poland?
This isn't a shot against CDPR specifically but more so all of us gamers who think it's always more appropriate to defend companies not paying their employees a certain wage. I'm not sure where CDPR is in Poland, but my company's office is in Katowice and I know for a fact all of the people who work their asses off for my company deserve to be paid more.
CDPR may be a business, but we aren't!
I'm not asking for a Polish company to pay the same as LA or Montreal. I'm just asking them to pay more if they're making a profit. You don't sound like an asshole, it's just all these comments depress me :/.
Edit: Who knows, maybe as part of these 250 new jobs, they are also raising salaries across the board. I hope so!
No. People realize that they work in Poland, correct? That is not how that works.
You should get out of your bubble more if you actually believe this.
I agree but companies very rarely will cut profits to increase wages if they don't have to. The local government should push to increase wages and also this goes without being said but devs need to unionize.
Thing is that game development pays like shit in most of the world when you realize that you're rarely working 8 hour days during a full production.
They're paying them according to the cost of living in the country. Cheap workforce in developing countries is not a new concept.
I would imagine that a QA tester in the western world would make more than developers in eastern countries.
This can also be looked at from a different point of view.
They make a profit, they pay their existing workers according to the living expense AND they can afford to do that for 250 more people.
I think keeping more people employed at medium wage is better than keeping half of them employed at double the salary.
The employees are free to go if they are not happy, and they should do when they gain more experience and such and no longer happy with their compensation.
I've gotten mixed signals from their official communications on worker rights. I think they've largely avoided the criticism of crunch despite them openly confirming its presence there. And the fact they didn't axe their PR guy sooner is a concern. I'm very interested to see how they handle some things with regard to human rights, gender and sexuality in Cyberpunk.
Makes me worry how fast they are growing. One slip up, one failed AAA release and they'll be underwater and getting bought out.
If they are making american video game company level profits, there's no reason not to pay their employees american level video game company salaries
There is no reason to increase employee salary just because company is making a profit.
Ahhh, another glowing example of disgusting ignorance and prejudice against Europe and Europeans on ERA.
Not really, especially the big cities are just as expensive as for example big cities in the neighbor country germany
Not true at all. Warsaw is more expensive than other Polish cities but especially the rents are much lower than in Germany. A lot of people in Poland get (much) less than 1000€ a month. CDPR pays pretty well for Poland and not much less than Berlin dev studios. It's enough to attract international devs at least and for Polish citizens it's a really good job.
(I'm half Polish, live in Berlin and work for a German gaming site and met CDPR staff in person several times.)
Same.
Obviously different circumstances and scale but seeing what happened to Starbreeze has me on particular edge when seeing a company grow so much so quickly.
Did CDPR lay a bunch of folks off after the Witcher 2 or 3? Or after the dlc? I'm genuinely unsure, which is why I'm asking. Long term job security in a place where your money reaches further is one hell of an incentive for working in a place like Poland, where the salaries aren't very high
Man, I don't know what you want really - that CD Projekt RED pays their employees the same as Ubisoft or EA ? The fact that they are in profit doesn't mean that they can afford to significantly raise wages for their employees.. for a game company in Eastern Europe, they have great wages.. Amazon has many offices over Central/Eastern Europe, but the pay people get in those are really, really significantly lower than their colleagues in the Amazon offices in the US/West, even though all those employees work the same amount of hours and as hard as everyone else..
Of course it would be great if everyone could get pay raise, but real life isn't a fairyland and economic situation in every country is different.. I think crunch time in many work places in Eastern Europe is the bigger problem and that is something every country which has problem with this must work way harder to solve it
Yup, I very much agree about the crunch. That's the issue I personally want alleviated, there's the problem that needs solving. The cost of living in different countries makes a world of difference.
Comparing the cost of living in Finland and Poland. In Poland you rent 3 room apartment in city centre for less (691€) than you can get 1 room apartment in city centre in Finland (732€). If you want to buy, it's 1900€ per square meter in Poland while in Finland it's 4421€ which means 132.66% increase in price.
Food: Meal at inexpensive restaurant, Poland 4.64€ Finland 11€ which is 136.85% increase. McDonald's (or equilevant combo meal) PL 4.18€ FI 7.90€ increase of 89%. Market prices beef round (1kg) PL 7.52€ FI 13.33€ increase 77.35%. White rice (1kg) PL 0.75€ FI 1,72€ increase 131.41%.
Transportation: one-way ticket (local transport) PL 0.74€ FI 3€ increase 303.73%. Taxi (1km) PL 0.53€ FI 1.60€ increase 199.58%
Relaxation/entertainment: Domestic beer (0,5l bottle) PL 0.70€ FI 2.04€ increase 190.1%. 1 seat at cinema for international release PL 5.81€ FI 13€ increase123.93%.
The average salary in Finland is of course notably higher too, but unfortunately I don't have any data to compare Remedy, Supercell and Housemarque in example to CD Projekt. But nonetheless, with the data above it's easy to imagine how it would be to live in Poland with the same salary (or near similar but bit less) as you get in Finland. And we wouldn't tell McDonald's at Finland that it's unjustified and unfair to ask 7.90€ for a meal, when they are selling similar meal for 4.18€ in Poland. I'd compare the prices to other fast food restaurants in Finland, not in Poland, not in US, not in Egypt and would make my conclusions if the meal is expensive based on that. I'm not going to complain to my landlord that in Poland people pay less rent, they would probably just tell me to move into Poland then (my rent is very high though for the kind of apartment and location). Of course I'd want everyone to live like kings, hell I'd want everyone to get a basic income that allows comfortable living. But then there's reality and how things actually work. If CD Projekt employees were underpaid (which they to my knowledge arent), that would be a problem. Like let's say how waiters in the US are. Not getting the same salary in one country than you'd get in another isn't being underpaid. These CDPR salary discussions many times come of as extremely naive. Let's say CDPR and Remedy paid the same salaries, would that mean that people at Remedy were underpaid because they can't afford similar luxurious apartments as their colleagues in Poland? Would people at Remedy be underpaid because they can't afford to dine in a fine restaurant every day?
Edit: By looking at Glassdoor reviews there are many people reporting the salary to be a con while working at CDPR . But similarly there are people listing the salary and benefits to be a pro, while most don't seem it necessary to mention the salary at all. Well paid overtime seems to get some praise too. Not sure how trustworthy these are, but I've seen them been brought up at Era and media.
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I've been to warsaw and gdansk multiple times and this is straight up wrong.
And Warsaw is among one of the most expensive cities to live in Poland.
Great post.