I have long thought about writing something again after ages. So, related to games. And when Cyberpunk 2077 came out and it slowly became more and more clear that something was very wrong here, I wanted to. But somehow there was still something missing. Yes, there was already the very big scandal with the last-gen lie that they deliberately sold non-functioning versions. And they kept it a secret from the press until the very end, to get the good reviews of the next-gen and PC versions first.
That in itself is bitter enough. Just like the also otherwise frequently occurring bugs. There even EA with Battlefield can still cut off a slice. Granted, so far there was no bug that prevented me from continuing to play, while others lost everything due to the 8MB savefile bug. But there wasn't much left of the oh-so-great immersion that should have been created.
With the little kid I still have here and the full-time job, I have to manage my time very wisely. And so the three dozen hours of play I've put into the game so far have been just as wasted as if I'd bought CDPR stock before the game's release. (Which, thankfully, I didn't).
But why did the game, which started with such great ambitions, flop so badly? Not from a financial standpoint now, after all, the game has sold well over 13 million copies to date. And that doesn't even include the last-gen sales.
Now that CD Projekt has made a promise via YouTube to continue to improve the game and remove bugs and improve performance, you might think; now the matter is over. After all, they aren't doing anything different than any other developer out there. Releasing games unfinished, then using post-launch patches to clean everything up. We gamers are used to that. But we were hoping for more from a developer like CD Projekt RED. Which up until The Witcher 3, even though that game had bugs, of course, but still remains a milestone in our minds to this day. That was in 2015, by the way.
In 2016, however, someone else at CD Projekt RED took the reins and only now did the actual development of Cyperpunk 2077, which was supposed to be a third-person shooter, begin. According to Jason Schreier, who at least enthusiastic gamers who like to keep up to date know, the new head Adam Badowski has thrown the complete, previous development of Cyberpunk 2077 overboard and started anew. The actual development on the game, what we have on record today, thus began only at the end of 2016 and should be ready as early as the beginning of 2020. Not much time for such a mammoth project as it was actually conceived.
It is said to have happened like this. Badowski came to the studio as a new director. The previous vision of Cyberpunk 2077 was shaped by several top developers who were responsible for The Witcher 3. But their ideas and concepts didn't suit Badowski at all, and he demanded fundamental changes to the gameplay and story. This eventually led to the departure of many of those old developers.
The notorious crunch time, i.e. working a lot of overtime, was not supposed to be a problem, but as developers reported, they sometimes worked up to 13 hours or more a day, five days in a row. The fact that excessive overtime does not lead to better or more performance is widely proven and did not prove true in Cyberpunkt 2077. On the contrary, the targeted release date led to enormous astonishment internally as to how this was supposed to be accomplished. It was thought to be a joke, since a release in 2022 was actually expected.
CD Projekt RED's internal team, which had doubled in size, was also problematic. While there were still about 240 working on The Witcher 3, well over 500 had been hired for Cyberpunk 2077. As a result, the individual departments often felt isolated and disorganized. This is said to be mainly due to the fact that CD Projekt RED was simply not made yet used to such a size. And yet there were probably still too few employees, because comparable games, according to Schreier, such as GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, can achieve a much higher standard of quality and maintain organization with dozens of departments and thousands of employees.
Despite all these and many other problems, which I don't even want to list them all here to finally get to the point, should not prevent CD Projekt RED's management from sticking to the April 2020 release date. Well noted, when there were no next-gen consoles yet. So the fiasco would have been even more serious.
Grave enough it was, nonetheless. Many features of the game fall by the wayside to still release the game in 2020. Not only was the city downsized. Many small things like a better combat AI, better wanted system, detailed hacking, many RPG elements (which I also miss), the daily routines of NPCs including AI, decisions that have an actual impact, day-night change (which is not just cosmetic), selection of life paths that have actual impact on the story and lead to non-linear quests, a weather system (that poses a challenge to the player, like acid rain) ...
... and last but not least: "Coming: When it's ready". This promise turned out to be nothing at all.
Put it all together and many of the even smaller details, and you have a developer that was loved by the fans and is now mutating into a second, interchangeable AAA developer. The alleged DLCs, which follow the example of The Witcher 3, don't help either. So free and small DLCs and big, independent story DLCs for little money with a lot of content. I wonder if this will really come to pass after all this, with the game being two years behind?
Adam Badowski has responded to many of the recent allegations as the head of the studio on Twitter. While the "Our Commitment to Quality" on the official channel was still well received, these words could not clear the displeasure of fans. On the contrary, the letter does not attack the actual problems, but Badowski is desperately looking for excuses, trying to explain himself in every possible way. Why are so many features missing from the gameplay? "Because, that's just the way it is during development" is his long drawn-out answer. Garnished with "Look, we got great reviews, fuck you, we're awesome", if you want to translate freely. But he doesn't want to call the release a disaster. He doesn't even address the accusations that many employees and former employees have made against the developer. No comment on the inhumane overtime, being put under pressure, etc. "You only asked 20 employees, only one of them not anonymously, so that's laughable", again freely translated. Instead of responding to the elementary accusation made by the employees, all but one of whom wanted to remain anonymous for self-protection, that CD Projekt put marketing above development, he doesn't utter a word. What should he say? It's the truth, Cyberpunk 2077 was promoted in such a way ... I don't remember such marketing measures for The Witcher 3. Back then, there was no need for glorifying trailers, hundreds of marketing videos and events, star actors like Keanue Reeves ... The Witcher 3's success was shaped by the game's brilliant gameplay, story and look. I didn't come across The Witcher 3 because of the marketing, but because you heard from every corner, "Dude, this new RPG game is just awesome!" So I bought it. And played through it so many times, I can't count it on one hand.
Financially, Cyberpunk 2077 was a hit for the time being. But the future will decide the fate of the developer studio that many, including myself unfortunately, once unjustly praised to the skies. Will they manage to turn the corner in the end? It won't be easy to turn a messed-up game with a disappointed community into a decent game with a reconciled community. Because if they don't, their next, big hit (possibly a The Witcher 4), won't even begin to sell as well.
And if you have a different opinion or have something additional to share, I'm eager to hear what you have to say.
This "article" is a column and may contain hyperbole, bad satire and your own opinion!
That in itself is bitter enough. Just like the also otherwise frequently occurring bugs. There even EA with Battlefield can still cut off a slice. Granted, so far there was no bug that prevented me from continuing to play, while others lost everything due to the 8MB savefile bug. But there wasn't much left of the oh-so-great immersion that should have been created.
With the little kid I still have here and the full-time job, I have to manage my time very wisely. And so the three dozen hours of play I've put into the game so far have been just as wasted as if I'd bought CDPR stock before the game's release. (Which, thankfully, I didn't).
But why did the game, which started with such great ambitions, flop so badly? Not from a financial standpoint now, after all, the game has sold well over 13 million copies to date. And that doesn't even include the last-gen sales.
Now that CD Projekt has made a promise via YouTube to continue to improve the game and remove bugs and improve performance, you might think; now the matter is over. After all, they aren't doing anything different than any other developer out there. Releasing games unfinished, then using post-launch patches to clean everything up. We gamers are used to that. But we were hoping for more from a developer like CD Projekt RED. Which up until The Witcher 3, even though that game had bugs, of course, but still remains a milestone in our minds to this day. That was in 2015, by the way.
In 2016, however, someone else at CD Projekt RED took the reins and only now did the actual development of Cyperpunk 2077, which was supposed to be a third-person shooter, begin. According to Jason Schreier, who at least enthusiastic gamers who like to keep up to date know, the new head Adam Badowski has thrown the complete, previous development of Cyberpunk 2077 overboard and started anew. The actual development on the game, what we have on record today, thus began only at the end of 2016 and should be ready as early as the beginning of 2020. Not much time for such a mammoth project as it was actually conceived.
It is said to have happened like this. Badowski came to the studio as a new director. The previous vision of Cyberpunk 2077 was shaped by several top developers who were responsible for The Witcher 3. But their ideas and concepts didn't suit Badowski at all, and he demanded fundamental changes to the gameplay and story. This eventually led to the departure of many of those old developers.
The notorious crunch time, i.e. working a lot of overtime, was not supposed to be a problem, but as developers reported, they sometimes worked up to 13 hours or more a day, five days in a row. The fact that excessive overtime does not lead to better or more performance is widely proven and did not prove true in Cyberpunkt 2077. On the contrary, the targeted release date led to enormous astonishment internally as to how this was supposed to be accomplished. It was thought to be a joke, since a release in 2022 was actually expected.
CD Projekt RED's internal team, which had doubled in size, was also problematic. While there were still about 240 working on The Witcher 3, well over 500 had been hired for Cyberpunk 2077. As a result, the individual departments often felt isolated and disorganized. This is said to be mainly due to the fact that CD Projekt RED was simply not made yet used to such a size. And yet there were probably still too few employees, because comparable games, according to Schreier, such as GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, can achieve a much higher standard of quality and maintain organization with dozens of departments and thousands of employees.
Despite all these and many other problems, which I don't even want to list them all here to finally get to the point, should not prevent CD Projekt RED's management from sticking to the April 2020 release date. Well noted, when there were no next-gen consoles yet. So the fiasco would have been even more serious.
Grave enough it was, nonetheless. Many features of the game fall by the wayside to still release the game in 2020. Not only was the city downsized. Many small things like a better combat AI, better wanted system, detailed hacking, many RPG elements (which I also miss), the daily routines of NPCs including AI, decisions that have an actual impact, day-night change (which is not just cosmetic), selection of life paths that have actual impact on the story and lead to non-linear quests, a weather system (that poses a challenge to the player, like acid rain) ...
... and last but not least: "Coming: When it's ready". This promise turned out to be nothing at all.
Put it all together and many of the even smaller details, and you have a developer that was loved by the fans and is now mutating into a second, interchangeable AAA developer. The alleged DLCs, which follow the example of The Witcher 3, don't help either. So free and small DLCs and big, independent story DLCs for little money with a lot of content. I wonder if this will really come to pass after all this, with the game being two years behind?
Adam Badowski has responded to many of the recent allegations as the head of the studio on Twitter. While the "Our Commitment to Quality" on the official channel was still well received, these words could not clear the displeasure of fans. On the contrary, the letter does not attack the actual problems, but Badowski is desperately looking for excuses, trying to explain himself in every possible way. Why are so many features missing from the gameplay? "Because, that's just the way it is during development" is his long drawn-out answer. Garnished with "Look, we got great reviews, fuck you, we're awesome", if you want to translate freely. But he doesn't want to call the release a disaster. He doesn't even address the accusations that many employees and former employees have made against the developer. No comment on the inhumane overtime, being put under pressure, etc. "You only asked 20 employees, only one of them not anonymously, so that's laughable", again freely translated. Instead of responding to the elementary accusation made by the employees, all but one of whom wanted to remain anonymous for self-protection, that CD Projekt put marketing above development, he doesn't utter a word. What should he say? It's the truth, Cyberpunk 2077 was promoted in such a way ... I don't remember such marketing measures for The Witcher 3. Back then, there was no need for glorifying trailers, hundreds of marketing videos and events, star actors like Keanue Reeves ... The Witcher 3's success was shaped by the game's brilliant gameplay, story and look. I didn't come across The Witcher 3 because of the marketing, but because you heard from every corner, "Dude, this new RPG game is just awesome!" So I bought it. And played through it so many times, I can't count it on one hand.
Financially, Cyberpunk 2077 was a hit for the time being. But the future will decide the fate of the developer studio that many, including myself unfortunately, once unjustly praised to the skies. Will they manage to turn the corner in the end? It won't be easy to turn a messed-up game with a disappointed community into a decent game with a reconciled community. Because if they don't, their next, big hit (possibly a The Witcher 4), won't even begin to sell as well.
And if you have a different opinion or have something additional to share, I'm eager to hear what you have to say.
