After CD Projekt Red made several rounds of staff layoffs, Polish workers banded together to form the Polish Gamedev Workers Union.
Several people who currently work at CD Projekt Red brought the union to life, including QA analyst Paweł Myszka, alongside gameplay programmer Lev Ki. They aim to use the union to represent the game workers of Poland and ensure that they’re taken care of and viewed in the way they should be. While the union is new, talks about it have been going on throughout the year, beginning when the first wave of layoffs meant 100 people within the developer were let go.
CD Projekt Red Pushes Workers Too Far
The union, per a statement by IGN, had this to say about the initial layoffs: “This event created a tremendous amount of stress and insecurity, affecting our mental health and leading to the creation of this union in response. Having a union means having more security, transparency, better protection, and a stronger voice in times of crisis. The above shows how employers tend to view their interests to be in conflict with those of their employees. While employees are the ones creating value in this arrangement, they lack any decision power in company-structure-related matters. That is why we need to organise to enter those situations on equal footing.”
The union further noted that layoffs are a “danger to the gamedev industry” and that unionizing is the best way to fight this off. When CD Projekt Red noted the layoffs would come, it stated that it was “overstaffed” and that this was a “necessary step” to create “more efficient teams” and help “reshape the development process.” However, many have noted that these are justifications that many game developers use to rationalize the loss of workers.
Specifically, it was noted that CD Projekt Red spent over 125 million dollars in an attempt to fix its flailing futuristic RPG Cyberpunk 2077 and make its DLC. While it was praised for the quality of its DLC, this left the company with a new issue, with the layoffs likely being a side effect of that. Multiple other unions are rising up in the game industry, and many are calling for more to be formed as further budget cuts are expected.
Source: Polish Gamedev Workers Union via IGN
