“No one in the studio blames QA”: CD Projekt RED employees responded to criticism after apologizing for Cyberpunk 2077 problems

After the publication of the video with Marcin Iwinski’s address to the players where he tried to explain the technical state of Cyberpunk 2077 at the launch, some people again criticized CDPR. Many felt that the company was blaming its quality assurance (QA) department, as an official statement said that the studio was unaware of the problems with the PS4 and Xbox One versions.

Every change and improvement required verification and, as it turned out, during testing, many of the problems that you encountered in the game were not found.

Marcin Iwinski
co-founder of CD Projekt

In particular, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier recalled that QA employees are paid worse than most other positions in the gaming industry. And he noted that most often they are the ones who are blamed for any technical flaws even if they reported them in good faith.

The head of the CDPR QA department, Лukasz Babel, decided to personally answer the journalist and explained in detail how his subordinates work in the studio.

According to him, the lowest salary of a QA employee in the company is slightly less than the average salary in Poland (75%). At the same time, experienced QA analysts can be paid more than twice the average, not to mention the fact that under the contract all employees are entitled to bonuses, 20 days of paid vacation a year, and free medical care in a private clinic. In addition, all overtime hours are paid at a rate of one and a half to two times the normal rate (as required by local legislation).

Babel noted that a full-fledged labor contract is concluded with everyone who has passed the probationary period, and also stressed that it is incorrect for Schreier to compare salaries in the United States and in Poland.

I will not compare our figures with the salaries of Americans in dollars, because both the purchasing power in each country and the average salaries must be taken into account. But it seems to me that the example you gave is the wrong context for the QA situation in CDPR.

Lukasz Babel

Head of QA Department, CD Projekt RED

Further, the QA-lead stated that CD Projekt RED does not in any way blame its quality control specialists for all the problems around Cyberpunk 2077. He admits that the wording from the official statement was not entirely successful, but assures that there can be no question of exploiting workers.

Nobody in the studio blames QA, and Marcin didn’t do that in the video either. Should I have phrased that sentence differently? I think so, because it leaves a lot of room for knowingly false interpretation. But this is a topic that we ourselves should discuss inside the studio.
Most importantly, I work with amazing people, my QA team has real professionals, dedicated to their work, and we will be fine. We will continue to work on patches for the game to give players the best possible experience.

Lukasz Babel
Head of QA Department, CD Projekt RED

Many netizens, both ordinary players and workers in the gaming industry and other CDPR employees supported Babel, agreeing that context is always important, and especially when discussing such issues.

However, apparently, the participants on both sides of the discussion decided to remain unconvinced.