I hope
@Chandoo and
@CerebralTiger are on the same page as well and this is not just about CDPR vs ND.
Absolutely. Crunch is awful, whether it's at ND, Rockstar, or CDPR. The industry needs to unionize to combat it, particularly in the AAA domain. As games get bigger and more complex to make, the workforce also needs to expand accordingly. Otherwise, there's crunch and multiple delays. There are around 500 people working on CP2077, so I'm not even sure if a lack of workforce is the issue. The statement about "dicking around in pre-prod for ages" seems to suggest that it's been a poorly managed project from the get-go, and the higher ups wasted a lot of time creating hype at media events and just basking in all the attention.
This new information suggests that it is really bad for some devs at CDPR
Tbh, some of the statements from the Reddit post seem to suggest that it's also bad for the game. Devs being kept out of the loop when the game they're working on for years gets delayed, when it's sent for certification, when it goes gold, or any milestone really is likely to shatter their confidence, especially when these things are revealed to them via Twitter of all places. On top of that, working 16 hours a day to rush the development of almost the entire game in a year? Yeah, that does not sound very reassuring.
There appears to be a major disconnect between CP2077's marketing push and actual development, and it shows. Showing off gameplay mechanics / features that were still being prototyped by the devs puts them in an odd spot.