Community MetaSteam | December 2020 - Empire of Doom
- Thread starter lashman
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Takeovers are always anxious times. The shareholders get richer and celebrate, while the people actually making the company money now have to live in fear for their jobs over Christmas.
Don'tcha just love capitalism?
Don'tcha just love capitalism?
Clive Barker's Jericho please return to steam.
All these patches (Patch #1, Patch #2, etc.). It reminds me of someone.Dear Gamers,
Well he/they did win prize for updating their game just last week, so that's good then?
That first paragraph is so full of shit. It's so obvious that it was intentional. Fuck cdpr.Dear Gamers,
Yeah, it's bullshit. Their PR department is just so bad at handling this since the beginning.
Also, people in Era mentioned that the refunds are not for them to decide, it's up to Sony/Microsoft. So that's yet another bullshit.
PSN has refund system?
But CDPR should've only released PC version and next gen.
And just abandon current gen, it's very obvious that games too hard for them.
But CDPR should've only released PC version and next gen.
And just abandon current gen, it's very obvious that games too hard for them.
Well, CDPR can always ask console makers to approve all (just like devs can ask Steam).
The game is complex indeed, but they also promised on those complexities, and in fact, a lot of their promises didn't make it to the final product. That's either a false marketing or as I said, mismanagement. There's no need to defend them, they brought this upon themselves.
Well, I guess that explains things.
Yes, Sony has given permission for this game to have a refund.
Crunch is always a failure in management, has nothing to do with how the game holds up. And yeah, it's certainly not a problem exclusive to CD Projekt Red, but it's the hot game everyone is talking about, and so it's certainly a fair point to raise.
Doesn't matter how complex your project is, you can always avoid forcing people to put in a hundred + hours, and basically live at the company. It's evil and the EU should seriously enforce some normal labour laws if its member states are unwilling to do so.
Not defending them, just pointing out what I thought was a bad take. Gonna leave it at that as it's almost 4AM here and I don't really feel like getting into a whole discussion right now lol.
I did say "crunch aside", hoping that would make it clear I wasn't trying to downplay that particular aspect of its development. I was only commenting on the state of the game, or at least of the PC version.
Oh, I didn't catch that. Then it's a fair point, these types of games aren't exactly known for their stability when launching, and all things considered, CP2077 doesn't seem extremely broken. I think Obsidian gets the crown when it comes to releasing the most broken open world game, even if Zenimax did screw them over quite a bit to get there.
The main issue here is that they went out of their way to hide the state of the last gen versions before launch.
They knew it was a disaster but choose to release it anyway while keeping the state of the game under wraps. Now while counting their money they issue a half-assed apology.
They knew it was a disaster but choose to release it anyway while keeping the state of the game under wraps. Now while counting their money they issue a half-assed apology.
Yeah, I think the way the game is on last-gen consoles is kind of a "well, no shit" thing but hiding it was super shitty. No argument there.
It's also pretty obvious they delayed the game for these last-gen versions too.
That said, money speaks volumes - while PC is the biggest platform for this game, the console versions are selling.
As someone who is less of a bean counter and cares more about the quality, the "Dear gamers" jpeg should've been released earlier this year, announcing cancellation of the PS4 and Xbox One editions of the game, saying they planned to focus on PC and the new platforms.
They silently hiked Witcher Thronebreaker's regional pricing in all non-US/UK regions except for those whom they already provide regional pricing on their GOG.comDear Gamers,
Thronebreaker On Steam Has Regional Pricing Increased
Thronebreaker recently debuted on Steam and had its pricing spike for certain countries. That's led to complaints.
www.pcinvasion.com
We've witnessed their scuminess first hand. And now base PS4/XB1 are seeing it.
On postiive(?) side, It was time to people to learn CDPR is just another company that wants your money nothing more. Just like everyone else.
They might give a special treatment for this one.
Not just GOG, but Steam too, including my region. They doubled the price shortly after the day it went up.They silently hiked Witcher Thronebreaker's regional pricing in all non-US/UK regions except for those whom they already provide regional pricing on their GOG.com
Thronebreaker On Steam Has Regional Pricing Increased
Thronebreaker recently debuted on Steam and had its pricing spike for certain countries. That's led to complaints.
We've witnessed their scuminess first hand. And now base PS4/XB1 are seeing it.
lol, they knew what they were doing: The PS4/Xbox One versions are not playable and are rightfully a big stain on the companies history.Dear Gamers,
Their technological achievements on PC are mind-blowing, and that's cool because PC games tend to drive ambitions and technology (Crysis, Half-Life, CP2077, Wing Commander, "Star Citizen") but that doesn't give them a free pass for handling the last gen versions with that kind of bad intend.
And I get it: Once certain things are rolling, it is impossible to stop them. Discs were pressed, distribution going for weeks, contracts and promises made.
Still, hiding the versions was evil. If you can't stop it, it's time to be upfront about it.
Maybe some game Studios start with good intentions, but once they grow over a certain threshold:
Happened to Blizzard, happened to CDPR.
"We leave greed to others*"
*Unless revealing the bad state of the PS4/Xbox version could loos us money.
edit: Did the crunch stop now at CDPR? I doubt it.
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OP
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bingoMaybe some game Studios start with good intentions, but once they grow over a certain threshold:
Happened to Blizzard, happened to CDPR.
I think the best choice would have been to simply not release on old gen consoles. I don't think there would have been a way to make the game look and feel normal on those old machines, short of making completely distinct version of Cyberpunk, scaled down in many areas (not just superficial stuff), especially when you would want above 30 FPS performance.
Would have required to be less greedy and far more honest with people about what their vision for Cyberpunk 2077 was and how it wasn't achievable on aging hardware.
OP
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but they can't do that anymore ... they have shareholders to please now (as of last year, i believe? or was their IPO this year?)
Oh, is that so? I guess that explains their change of behavior recently. That tweet above was probably from before this as well.
OP
I might be remembering wrong (was in the before time) but I don't think they ever showed the console version of the witcher 3 before launch, sure it was relativelyin a better state but not really that surprsing they did it again.
Gotta keep crunching for patches
They were publicly trade for years, tho. Or am I missing something?
Attempting to make two essentially different versions of a game of this scale would have been a far worse mismanagement decision than anything they did.
Ultimately, they had three "realistic" options:
- What they did (release a shitty version on last gen consoles).
- Cancel the last-gen versions. (Costing them a ton of money, but likely the best option quality-wise)
- Scale down every version severely to make it work better on last-gen consoles. (And this would have required them to scale content which isn't easily put in an options menu, reducing the quality of the game on every platform)
Not sure that was a possibility after a certain point in time, like 1-2 years ago (probably even longer, even making small changes in my branch of industry is impossible after certain points). It is a rolling stone that can not be delayed or completely changed. I agree with you, the project was mismanaged, but this time PC players weren't on the receiving end.
But as said: At least be upfront to people and do not go the extra mile to hide the problems.
It do not remember either tbh.
But even if they did it before: That doesn't make it less bad now.
Also CDPR grew and changed significantly between Witcher 3 and CP 2077. It's hard to believe that not showing off PS4/Xbox was an oversight or done because "that's how we always do things".
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying "It's fine because is how we do things" but rather that it was predictable.
She is an amazing influencer which got a character in the game and she is very transparent within current CD-Project issues. I wish there were more people like her raising their voice when things really matter.
Regarding the last-gen conversation. Digital Foundry team has said it as well ( game should not have been released for last-gen consoles) and I believe they are extremely professional and transparent with their discourse which I'm really fond of.
Well, at least this time people can't say they downgraded the PC version because of consoles.
Great. Insomnia hit hard last night, and today when I go back to the world of the living, my google account is down. No backup & sync, no access to google support pages and no mail. And the same on ipad.
Don't joke, I'm genuinely into that game. The things it pioneered with image stability and PBR were hugeAlong with The Order 1886. I bet the demand for those two is huge.
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At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I agree with you. Mismanagement takes on a rather more blatant form, things like the horror stories we heard out of Andromeda and Anthem's development, things where the project makes a heel-face turn because nobody knew what they wanted and studio infighting was happening. This isn't that, it's just that games are incredibly hard to make and most people in the gaming community don't even realize what it's like to be in front of a blank scene, the technology not even existing and not even knowing what it should be yet. It's hard to overstate the dread of not knowing what you don't know yet.
That they can figure out any kind of vaguely accurate prediction in their schedule is amazing. I've had a lecture once about how many government defense contracts in Australia had gone over budget and time schedule by an order of magnitude as a conservative example of why software and large-scale projects are hard.
At the end of the day I know what a small minority of people dedicated to bitching and being toxic can do to a much wider audience. I am sparing myself from reading the subreddit but I believe this might be what is sparking the outrage and people's misconceptions do the rest.
It's all awfully similar to that other crowdfunded game.
Edit : having read that last page now, I have to agree with people on the obvious things :
- CDPR shipped the last gen versions in a very rough state, obviously to make the Christmas date. This is completely on them, and while understandable, not really defensible. Same goes for the RTX-gutted next-gen versions.
- Crunch is a complicated problem. My personal view is that forced death march throughout a project is exploitative and abusive, but that software being as hard as it is, an amount of crunch close to deadlines is necessary because project managers aren't Oracles and much as you might build in buffer in schedules, shit happens. That's not to say it's a black and white issue and that there isn't exploitation going on there too, and I do get the feeling there is a fair bit going on there with CP77, but that's a lot less blatant than say, Rockstar on RDR1.
- Maybe I'm missing something but I can't think of a promise they didn't deliver on or stuff they didn't show. The one thing that didn't make it in that they were clear was a WIP and subject to change was the node-based, systemic netrunning. That and 3rd-person cutscenes. Was there anything more?
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I would add that your suggestion, being upfront about the state of the game on last gen consoles, was likely also not going to be a great idea, not for upper management at least who would then expect lower sales on those platforms, negating the entire point of releasing the game there. And that would again get them into trouble with investors.
But as many people have said, it's nice that the PC version doesn't seem to have been negatively impacted by this.
Agreed. Not to mention that even this subpar version for last gen consoles does still give hundreds of millions of people the ability to play the game even in a compromised state which will hopefully be fixed in time.
The real problem isn't CDPR. In my opinion the problem is the standard that the industry itself has set about the kind of product it considers as fit for release. A standard that, it should be highlighted, has received significant support from games media. Listen to this:
Jeff Gerstmann argues that Fallout 4 should be named Giant Bomb's disappointment of the year due to the technical mess it was at launch on consoles. In making that argument he encounters fierce resistance by both Brad Shoemaker and Austin Walker who argue that releasing in that state is acceptable because these games are hugely complex.
I have said so many times that out of almost all industries out there the games industry is perhaps the only one that considers the practice of delivering broken products to customers as acceptable. Not slightly buggy or somewhat unoptimized, straight-up broken. It's anti-consumer bullshit that games media outlets are usually all too happy to let slide.
Such an underrated gem...Started replaying Resonance of Fate. It's one of my favorite games in the 360/PS3 era. With a over-the-top combat system emphasizing action quota, teamwork and positioning, a bleak story told in humorous and sometimes thoughtful dialogues, as well as the washed-out yet beautiful sceneries and character models, this game is still completely unique after a decade. Still alive, still fantastic.
I feel like some bugs are unavoidable when you start having a lot of moving parts, but there's definitely a limit to that and CP2077 sped through that limit so fast you can see the cool camera effects of the neon light trails it left behind.
I guess the combat mechanics are just so unconventional that many players failed to grasp it. Although it is pretty apparent that Tri-Ace cut corners with ROF, imo, ROF and the first Valkyrie Profile are two of the best games developed by them.
As this one is published by them, I think they may have made a deal with SEGA. Not sure if they still have capability to develop another console RPG. Last time I heard their name is when they helped Monolith Soft with the development of Xenoblade 2, so they are probably assisting the latest Xeno project now. Anyway, I would kill for a sequel of ROF. The world still has so much potential for further digging.
I'm usually a sucker for this kind of games, I played it for a few hours on PS4.
It was a miserable experience.
Sony can keep that one.
I couldn't have said it better myself, a sequel would be fantastic. This studio deserves a better chance
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