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CD Projekt Red is under investigation

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Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#101
So many apologists here. If you liked the game, that's fine. I did too. I'm lucky to play on PC. But there should be consequences for not delivering anything close to what was promised to customers that has paid in advance. Game companies cannot always get a free pass when it comes to customer protection.

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At its core it’s a decent game. The issue is with so many bugs (many of which preventing a player from finishing a story quest) it’s hard to focus on the game when your copy keeps crashing, glitching, frustrating you.

Do you have an example of a bug that prevents quest completion? I've been lucky enough to not run into a single one during my 100+ hours so far and I've been trying to do every quest. I worry that these things keep getting said without people actually experiencing them. I have several friends playing on PS4 without the reported crashes. Not saying you haven't, I just don't have any direct knowledge of the issues that…

I've had a few bugs where scripted events fail to trigger. Nothing game breaking, it's usually solved by loading the last save.

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#103
Launching on those legacy consoles then was a mistake. As a PC player, I had no issues playing on a 3 year-old machine, it's about as buggy as the average huge RPG game (like Divinity OS, Skyrim, etc.). Then every week or two you get a patch.

Baldur's Gate 3 did better PR by releasing an early release version first, so the impatient can jump on it.

My personal feeling is there is so much effort put into this game, it's sad to see it spun as a dismal failure by a greedy entity. It must be demoralizing for the devs and artists and other staff members that worked on it.

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#104
post #12

well in Poland CDP is known for crunch... they have reaaly bad opinion. As a pole I wish them well about stock market. As a gamer I wish them the worst after lying about last gen

Good faith question: Is CDPR worse than other games studios, or do they just get more flak because they claimed they were not going to have crunch anymore? I ask because game dev has been famous for crunch for at least the last 15 years.

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#105
post #43
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a tragedy of the commons situation with gamer enthusiasts acting against their own best interest. If people can't delay gratification for something as inconsequential as "non-broken video games", I don't see how any personal responsibility campaign has any chance of working for things impacting society at large such as climate change, overfishing, public health, etc.

I don't think it's fair to blame this on gamers. With all of the hyperbole over various games being "broken", most people that are hyped about a specific game are just going to buy it and see for themselves. Unless it's literally unplayable (as may actually have been the case here), most people won't refund it. This has been going on for years and years, it's just getting worse over time. It's always some variant of…

I waited for the reviews. When they were over 90% I pulled the trigger.

Now I realize I purchased a game that was reviewed on what it will eventually become a la No Man's Sky, not what it was on the day of review.

Sure, the crashing didn't affect me, my configuration was more or less normal I guess. Instead what I got was a hollow game that has a lot of hooks ready for eventual expansion sometime in future patches. That didn't deserve the 91% it had when I first bought the game.

I don't blame fellow gamers. I blame the reviewers.

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#106

Reminds me of the quote by Reid Hoffman: “If you aren’t embarrassed by the first version of your product, you shipped too late.” Pretty sure they’re embarrassed by the first version.

Buy you don't release half cut movies, unfinished novels, unmastered songs. Technically you can, but not at full price after years of hype. I think what happened here is that investors pushed the game to be out since it was xmas and the two console platforms were real hungry for a big title.

Cats (2019) would like to have a word.

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#107

I hope this will encourage big studios to stop releasing broken games, but I doubt it will. The incentives are just so broken due to ease of patching, a need/desire for cash after a drawn out dev process, and a general disrespect for their customers. I think releasing a "broken" game in the form of "early access" from smaller studios can be good in terms of iterative and community development, but also that can be ab…

The thing is CD Project Red has released it's games in a really rough state before. All of the Witcher games were brutal on release. But every time they have not only released thousands of bug fixes/improvements for free, but also delivered large dlc/content updates. The difference with CP2077 I believe is that it was just the highest profile launch they have ever had by a wide margin. They are too big now. I don't r…

> I don't regret pre-ordering at all, because they have always done right by me.

Same here. I bought it on PC via GOG, and while it was rough and unstable, I happily put about 100hrs of game play into it.

Honestly, they should have released it as under-development on platforms like Steam that support such designations. It's pretty common for studios to release games in an alpha/beta state. At least that way, gamers would know that they are getting a potentially buggy release.

For consoles, they straight up should not have released it until v1.07 at minimum. That's where they really screwed up. The game is in a much less playable state on the PS4, and console gamers in general are used to a much more polished gaming experience.

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#108
post #43
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a tragedy of the commons situation with gamer enthusiasts acting against their own best interest. If people can't delay gratification for something as inconsequential as "non-broken video games", I don't see how any personal responsibility campaign has any chance of working for things impacting society at large such as climate change, overfishing, public health, etc.

I don't think it's fair to blame this on gamers. With all of the hyperbole over various games being "broken", most people that are hyped about a specific game are just going to buy it and see for themselves. Unless it's literally unplayable (as may actually have been the case here), most people won't refund it. This has been going on for years and years, it's just getting worse over time. It's always some variant of…

Without too much detail due to contracts/NDA/etc, slipping a release date is even worse of a bother for others down-chain also. There are planned times for manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, all that fun stuff for the physical versions of titles. All that would basically need to be re-dated from scratch. You can't slip one week, you have to slip at least a month. More for platforms that don't use standard disc formats which are not made locally. (Which hilariously, CP2077 already did slip a month before release.)

Even for digital games, there's still approval processes where the first parties would have to test the game out. This process involves scheduling people for it; you can't just go to the front of the line as there are other games that have been scheduled for certain slots. (Which hilariously, it was rumored that CP2077 was given the 'don't test, push live ASAP' treatment.)

At lastly, all payments from the platforms and retailers are based on the actual release date. Unless there's a specific contract, games are not paid until months after release. Physical preorders don't pay the developers, they just help with preventing over/under stocking. (And digital preorders are... functionally worthless beyond the psychological value.) The release date starts the payment timer. When hurting for cash, releasing can start that timer.

The processes above can really benefit abusers who decide that "making street-date" is the most important thing above all other concerns.

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> disclaimer: have not played it > routine quests, an underwhelming plot, and not too many interesting choices for character development Come on, man.

Well I've played it and is has routine quests, an underwhelming plot, and not too many interesting choices for character development. I was most disappointed that crafting is useless because I wanted to roleplay that skill tree. The game is so boring I've been playing Far Cry instead and Far Cry is trash. Coming from a Deus Ex background there is nothing there to Cyberpunk. However most people liked the game so what'…

> I was most disappointed that crafting is useless

Crafting/engineering is one of the the most OP paths you can invest in. There's a great build posted some time ago on YT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUMlmI685rc

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#110
post #43
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a tragedy of the commons situation with gamer enthusiasts acting against their own best interest. If people can't delay gratification for something as inconsequential as "non-broken video games", I don't see how any personal responsibility campaign has any chance of working for things impacting society at large such as climate change, overfishing, public health, etc.

I don't think it's fair to blame this on gamers. With all of the hyperbole over various games being "broken", most people that are hyped about a specific game are just going to buy it and see for themselves. Unless it's literally unplayable (as may actually have been the case here), most people won't refund it. This has been going on for years and years, it's just getting worse over time. It's always some variant of…

Stop announcing release dates until its 90% finished or all major bugs are fixed and you're just 3 months away from being ready.

Publishers are a problem too, they pressure to release games around the holidays, or the console manufacturers do cause it helps sell hardware around the holidays.

From what I gathered its mostly fine on PC, they're a PC shop after all, the console versions needed probably at least 6 months of work to be polished. People were screaming for it to be released no matter what or to stop making excuses no matter how much crunch the devs were already doing. If they released it as an "early-beta" like a lot of games or just said up front, okay we're releasing it but its not finished, so you can play it but you're getting the beta now and we'll be fixing it with updates. I think hardcore gamers would understand. It would just not look good for release sales and I'm not sure if the game media would care.

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