Some highlights:
But they probably definitely will be ready to launch on December 10th – or at least that’s what he says in response to an investor asking if the studio can really be comfortable saying it’s going to actually come out on the 10th: “That’s more or less what I’m saying, I guess – yes.”
Later in the transcript it gets really bad, with some incredibly poor comments about crunch, and some hilarious pretzeling over whether or not there is actually a “problem” with current-gen builds. But several of the investor questions boil down to “but m8, is it definitely coming out in December? Because you’ve said this before?”
Regarding crunch, which has deservedly been a bit of a PR nightmare for them of late, Kicińsk says that “actually, it’s not that bad – and never was”, which is a hell of a pull quote. Although he acknowledges that some people are “crunching heavily”, he says most of the team aren’t at all because they’ve finished their portion of development (were they crunching before? Who knows!). At this stage “it’s mostly about Q&A and engineers, programmers”, (which still sounds like a lot of people, if you ask me), and in any case the crunch is “not that heavy.” Those who are crunching will, y’know, have that crunch extended for the duration of the three week delay, but according to Kicińsk everyone is happy with the delay! So no worries! Pay no attention to the crunch behind the curtain!
This tone apparently did not go down well with staff: Bloomberg News reporter Jason Schreier tweeted that he has been passed an email sent to CDPR staff from Kicińsk apologising for his comments on crunch. “I had not wanted to comment on crunch,” quotes Schreier, apparently from this email, “yet I still did, and I did it in a demeaning and harmful way… What I said was not even unfortunate, it was utterly bad.”
Oh and the developers found out about the extra crunch the same time everyone else did.
Sure, but that's not really a feature of socialism is it? Bureaucrats are certainly prone to meddle with art in capitalist countries - the plethora of countries that censor lgbt themes comes to mind.
You do bring up an interesting point about luxury or triple A games though. Under a progressed socialism where mega corporations are gone, I doubt many people will subject themselves to the hellish hours it takes to make a game like Red Dead 2, so games like that will be much rarer and take much longer to come out if they still do at all. On the other hand, passion projects and experimental works would become much more common since they wouldn't need to be profitable (I'm no expert but I believe the art unions in the USSR were meant to foster this). While people idealize the relative creative freedom modern indie developers have to triple A developers, their output is still obviously dictated by the profit motive. There's a reason so many indie games are roguelikes. They require a much shorter gameplay loop then most games, and they still sell.
My point is that what art to invest into is a serious problem even for socialism, in a way something more tangible like which chairs to make isn't. Le Guin acknowledged this in the Dispossessed where in her anarchist utopia there is this composer who had tensions with art establishment because his work was too experimental and daring.
Soviet model substitutes profit motive for a commission of people distinguished in the field put there by party leadership. Is it better? Maybe. Still, commissions like that did fuck up a lot.
central planning is already here through amazon and wallmart for consumer taste. we can easily with big data understand what trends people want and give them media they actually want not a 6th shrek movie.
But that's the thing, good art isn't just about what most people want or what's popular. Some would even argue that art that touches some people in a way that is not mathematically quantifiable is more important than a quality people pleasing product with mass appeal.