Witcher Game Developer Quits Company Over Bullying Claims (bloomberg.com) 62
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The director of Witcher 3, the most successful video game by Polish publisher CD Projekt SA, resigned after he was accused of bullying colleagues, sending its shares to their steepest decline since March. CD Projekt conducted a months-long investigation into the allegations against Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, according to an email to staff reviewed by Bloomberg. In the message, Tomaszkiewicz wrote that a commission had investigated the allegations and found him not guilty. "Nonetheless, a lot of people are feeling fear, stress or discomfort when working with me," he wrote. He apologized to staff "for all the bad blood I have caused."
Tomaszkiewicz's work on Witcher 3 inspired the creation of a popular Netflix series, both based on novels by the author Andrzej Sapkowski, and at one point turned CD Projekt into Poland's most valuable company. [...] Tomaszkiewicz was expected to play a significant role in the company's next game in the Witcher series. When reached for comment, Tomaszkiewicz confirmed his departure and said he was "sad, a bit disappointed and resigned." A representative for CD Projekt declined to comment. In the email to employees, Tomaszkiewicz said the decision was agreed upon with the company's board. "I am going to continue working on myself," he wrote. "Changing behavior is a long and arduous process, but I'm not giving up, and I hope to change."
Tomaszkiewicz's work on Witcher 3 inspired the creation of a popular Netflix series, both based on novels by the author Andrzej Sapkowski, and at one point turned CD Projekt into Poland's most valuable company. [...] Tomaszkiewicz was expected to play a significant role in the company's next game in the Witcher series. When reached for comment, Tomaszkiewicz confirmed his departure and said he was "sad, a bit disappointed and resigned." A representative for CD Projekt declined to comment. In the email to employees, Tomaszkiewicz said the decision was agreed upon with the company's board. "I am going to continue working on myself," he wrote. "Changing behavior is a long and arduous process, but I'm not giving up, and I hope to change."
Wait wait wait. (Score:5, Insightful)
So judging by that last line about his email, the guy acknowledges he's an ass and actually needs to change?
That puts this person ahead of most people confronted with this sort of thing, I think.
Re: Wait wait wait. (Score:2)
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SuperKendall
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
> Nah the cunt is a cunt. How do you say cunt in Polish?
Would a "real" bully quit his job because other people were pressuring him?
He was found not guilty and allowed to stay. So I figure a real bully would have stuck around to pay back those whiney back stabbers. But maybe I don't know what a real "bully" is.
Re: Wait wait wait. (Score:4, Insightful)
Talk about a Uno reversal, It kinda sounds like he was bullied out of his job instead.
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Nah the cunt is a cunt. How do you say cunt in Polish?
Pizda.
Re:Wait wait wait. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've noticed a lot of people who behave like assholes are certainly aware of it, and in fact, seem proud to be an asshole. During WW2, Admiral Ernest King quipped "when they get in trouble, they call for the sons of bitches". Other high-ranking officers demonstrated you could be nice, polite, and still be an effective leader, like Eisenhower (who thought King was a wholly unpleasant bully). Some will justify it in language like "I'm just blunt", "I say what I think", and so on. I've even seen people blame their heritage "Well, Germans are just like that...", and so on (I've met many polite Germans, so I'm not buying that). Now I'm not attacking people who are legitimately just a bit more blunt than others. I'm talking about people who just use that as an excuse.
Still, good for this guy on recognizing he needs to change. If someone apologizes and works to change, I think they deserve a second chance. Maybe this was the shock he needed to realize his behavior was unacceptable.
Funny how CD Projekt Red is plummeting fast. They were sort of an industry darling for so long, but it looks like they were rotten at the core. I wonder if they can legitimately rehabilitate themselves? Time will tell, I guess.
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Is it too sexist and/or transphobic to quote Team America about dicks, pussies, and assholes in this context?
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/art... [thetimes.co.uk]
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Forgiveness is a two way street. You can't continue to do something or be someway and be expected to be forgiven for it.
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I would argue that it has actually become a far, far less sensitive area in many contexts, especially online (we are deeply into the eternal September now). Consider the frequency of use of words like "please" or "thank you" or many other standardized forms of politeness and etiquette. What seems to to happen is that people are either not aware of when the context has changed from one where they can be very casual to one where they shouldn't be, or they actively don't care and think that everyone, everywher
Re:Wait wait wait. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Wait wait wait. (Score:4, Interesting)
The point wasn't that he was a useless failure, the point was that you can be competent, successful and not a total asshat.
You can ruffle feathers and stand your ground while refusing to cover up failures... and not be a toxic bully. Eisenhower was also responsible for ensuring many things were done and refusing to protect people's egos at the cost of lives. But you can highlight failures without needlessly dragging someone for failing.
Quite the opposite, when you're in an environment where the leadership is toxic and abusive... people are highly motivated to cover up mistakes to avoid the abuse instead of highlighting their own mistakes to ensure they're fixed.
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The point wasn't that he was a useless failure, the point was that you can be competent, successful and not a total asshat.
It can certainly be done, and is far preferable, but not everyone can do it. Some gifted people cannot figure out the nice-yet-respected balance. They then get to choose between ineffective ignominy or being a high-achieving asshole that can, despite their demeanor, yield wins and benefits for the whole team.
And then there are those completely devoid of effective leadership styles. They can't even get the asshole routine to work for them.
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You can also forgive someone for something they did and regret doing. At least that used to be possible.
You can also grow a thicker skin and realize that maybe you are the dumb ass and someone pointing that out is doing you a favor.
You can also choose to leave that job and allow someone else to get that pay check.
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The point you're making is a bad point, because if you need to make people go 100% in and beyond and you're actually managing the lower management and rank and file people as captains do, the boss has to be an asshole. No one will work all in for a nice boss, except maybe that dumb, agreeable lady in the corner who wasn't fired a decade ago because she's nice to everybody and no one wants to be a bully by firing her.
You know who else was hated in US navy during WW2? USS Enterprise's captain during the time
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We can do this all day. :-)
The Enterprise had an amazing story, and her captain did an amazing job leading her (there's a great TV series about the Enterprise called "Battlefield 360", I believe. I fundamentally disagree with your point, though, and posit he could have been just as effective with a different leadership style. As a counterpoint, I present Admiral Nimitz, who was a much more affable person, always ready with an appropriate joke or anecdote to defuse a tense atmosphere, yet he was supremely
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I think it's also worth remembering that admirals, unlike what most people think, aren't really leaders as much as planners. Their job is to generate a plan of action. Their ability to lead in combat is limited to messaging captains with their orders and praying. It's all about "this is the plan" before the battle. Captain is really the highest rank where actual strong leadership skill is absolutely critical for the job in US Navy. When you are promoted out of that job, it's your skill as a planner that is
Bluntness (Score:3)
I'm grateful when people come straight to the point even if I don't like it right away.
That's a world of difference from bullying. There was no honesty among the bullies in my Lord of the Flies grade school or the handful of workplace bullies I've crossed paths with.
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They were sort of an industry darling for so long, but it looks like they were rotten at the core. I wonder if they can legitimately rehabilitate themselves?
There are exactly 2 steps in this process. 1) Fix 2077 for the relaunch on PS5/XBX. 2) Make a Witcher 4, and make it as good as W3. (Good luck on that one.)
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They literally just made the guy who was responsible for driving the Witcher 3 team to produce the masterpiece that it ended up being... quit. Because he drove people "too hard for their comfort, which they called bullying, even though the independent inquiry made it clear it wasn't".
Expect Witcher 4 to go the way of Mass Effect Andromeda now that standard for "nice, equitable workplace without boss that actually makes demands for excellence" has been established.
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Sounds like some bully took a squat on top of the credit, to me.
If he was so singlehandedly responsible, why did he need all this team stuff around him? Oh, right, to do most of the work.
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"Leadership? No, neverhöörd"
Re:Wait wait wait. (Score:5, Insightful)
That seems like a pretty low bar. But the fact that this happened suggests to me there is a bigger problem than just one person.
I've made similar mistakes myself. I hired a guy to run a development team who on paper and in the interview seemed highly qualified. And things looked good at first until we started to see persistent quality problems with the team's work. When I looked into it, it turned out the guy was nice to his superiors, an asshole to his peers, and completely intolerable to the people who worked for him. I should have looked into it earlier, but nobody questions what looks like good news.
People can't do quality software work for a boss who acts like an ogre, not sustainably. They hide mistakes, quash bad news, avoid risks, and generally spend time catering to the boss's ego that should be spent creating value for the company.
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When I looked into it, it turned out the guy was nice to his superiors, an asshole to his peers, and completely intolerable to the people who worked for him.
You're so polite. You could just call him an outright brownnoser. :-)
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Almost everyone is an ass some of the time.
Some people are such asses that they let their preconceptions overrule any objective measure of the assness of people. Or in other words, once you get the reputation some asses will make mountains out of molehills. If that's the kind of asses you need to do the work, it's best to just move on. Changing himself will change nothing about his reputation.
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Even if his reputation as an ass doesn't change, if he manages to un-ass himself it'll be a plus for people he works with in the future, so it's still worth the effort.
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That's ass-uming he was an ass, relatively speaking, in the first place.
Sometimes this kinds of stuff just comes out of gossip and imperfect retelling, butterfly wings and storms and all.
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Even he admitted to it.
Re: Wait wait wait. (Score:2)
We need to stop the toxic crunch work loads! (Score:4, Insightful)
We need to stop the toxic crunch work loads!
And we need to kill the idea of face time in office bully people into putting in long hours.
Question: (Score:1)
Out of curiosity, how has LLVM [slashdot.org] been doing the past couple years?
I don't really have a dog in this fight yet - haven't played Witcher 3 though I get the feeling it's probably a pretty decent game.
On the one hand, I think the current tide against "eccentric savants", demanding they be perfect in all regards, not just the one regard which is pertinent to their job (see also: Stallman, Donald McNeil Jr [wikipedia.org], etc) is pretty sad and toxic.
On the other hand, I also think the notion of "crunch time" is pretty sad and to
Re: Question: (Score:1)
Richard's job is free software evangelism. When your evangelist is inappropriately making unprofessional sexual advances whenever half the population wants to know more about your movement that interferes with the job.
When you're a toxic and abusive asshat who makes developer's lives intolerable like this guy apparently did... You're interfering with the work.
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Ah yes, because women would be throwing away their pink iPhones and just flocking to Linux if it weren't for some weird nerd-hippie awkwardly hitting on them in a harmless manner that comes across more as meta-humor than as sincere sleaze that one time.
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Stallman in person, is an utter ass. Arrogant to the point of self-parody.
Both on a personal "human" level, and on an intellectual one.
Maybe "evangelising" is a great choice of words, since it involves religious fervour.
Discussion, debate and nuanced consideration of alternative viewpoints?
Nah.
Aggressive re-statements of opinion, as "fact".
Denigration of those holding opposing views.
Partisan positions on all issues.
Stallman is simply a product of the WEIRD mindset, and anyone
surprised at his interactions wi
Let me be the first to say (Score:3)
This is obviously a Witcher Hunt!
No paywall article at yahoo (Score:3)
here: https://finance.yahoo.com/news... [yahoo.com]
Eccentric savants should be contained (Score:1, Troll)
Many people get shit done quite effectively by being tough and aggressive, but nowadays that causes weaker folks great stress as the civilian world is not the military.
Ways should be devised to leverage the talents of people who either lack people skills or merely piss off the overly delicate. I'd be fine personally with a crew like that but I'd keep fainter hearts elsewhere.
We can have workplaces suitable for infants but it's silly to waste talent who could be productively employed in a manner where they n
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People don't want to see others achieve a lot more than they can as it makes their own achievements look not as impressive as they think of themselves. So they come up with excuses why the people who produce more faster than them have some unfair advantage (talent, education, upbringing, money, luck, ...) or are assholes who overachieve just to make others feel bad. Even though the current climate of victim mentality and anti-meritocracy does compound this problem, it isn't a new to society, it's only relat
Hmm (Score:3)
The article contains no specifics at all about what he is supposed to have done. He says that an internal investigation has found him not guilty, yet somehow, he is still guilty?
Strange.
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Re: Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
An internal investigation probably found that he broke no laws... but that everybody that reported to him hated working with him. So the investigation by HR would say he's "innocent" of criminal misconduct or breaking specific contracted polices but still needs to take time to work on himself.
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An internal investigation probably found that he broke no laws... but that everybody that reported to him hated working with him. So the investigation by HR would say he's "innocent" of criminal misconduct or breaking specific contracted polices but still needs to take time to work on himself.
So he's not guilty of actual definable wrongdoing, but he still has to self flagellate?
Well, maybe ... sure has the whiff of a communist show trial about it though.
It would be nice if the story told us what he supposedly actually did.
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This position is often described as "untenable". Not serious enough to be fired, or perhaps not enough evidence to be fired, but there is so much ill will and distrust now that he can't continue as an effective leader.
So either he moves on or he tries to purge the whole company and rebuild it with new people, and realistically they aren't going to let him do the latter.
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This position is often described as "untenable". Not serious enough to be fired, or perhaps not enough evidence to be fired, but there is so much ill will and distrust now that he can't continue as an effective leader.
So either he moves on or he tries to purge the whole company and rebuild it with new people, and realistically they aren't going to let him do the latter.
The problem is that you can also gin up the "untenable" thing. Baselessly accuse someone of something, make a lot of noise, and then say "look at how noisy it is around here!"
Not saying that's what happened, but the article gives us precious little to go on.
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True, but realistically we will probably never find out what happened and we don't really have a right to know. It's probably best not to speculate.
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Not saying that's what happened
Then don't say it, asshole.
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He says that an internal investigation has found him not guilty, yet somehow, he is still guilty?
Being not guilty of something doesn't expunge your record in the eyes of people. If you backed over and killed your neighbors daughter while reversing the SUV down the driveway, and a court finds that due to the circumstances involved you were "not guilty", do you still expect to be invited to next weekend's BBQ?
There's nothing strange about this. Opinions and interpersonal relationships do not revolve around the blame assigned by investigators or courts.
Who cares. (Score:1)
I hope his ex-colleagues are happy now (Score:2)
So his colleagues were butt-hurt because of his personality and whined until he had to leave the company, putting the company's value in a nosedive, which will probably result in a bunch of job losses in the same team. Anyway, I hope they are happy now.
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You sound butt-hurt about the expectation to get along with co-workers.
Games (Score:1)