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Ultimately I think the rushed launch will turn out to have been a correct decision, or at least not as horrible as it seems. The holiday season, especially duri

Ultimately I think the rushed launch will turn out to have been a correct decision, or at least not as horrible as it seems. The holiday season, especially during a pandemic when millions are stuck at home, is simply a financial opportunity too good to pass up. Launching in a few months would have lost those sales, while delaying the game (again) until holiday season 2021 would have destroyed a lot of hype and anticipation. From what I’ve seen, the game is still doing well in terms of sales. Tough situation, but considering the options, an understandable move. It’s a classic example of being forced to choose between two bad decisions because you failed to make an adequate plan in the first place.

Kapura 6y ago
It's difficult to view this as a rushed launch when the game was originally scheduled to release in April, and has received multiple delays, supposedly to fix the last remaining bugs.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  No, it's not. Multiple delays mean that not only couldn't they set enough time initially, they were repeatedly incapable of setting enough time when extending the timeline, or unwilling to do so. Which makes it quite easy to view as rushed. Its a pretty common pattern for rushed releases.
mywittyname 6y ago
I highly doubt it. The gaming industry today is very different from what it was even ten years ago. It used to be that games made a healthy chunk of their income in the first month of launch. Back then it made total sense to rush a crappy game out before the holiday season. However, today, the best selling games do so at steady rates over the span of years. The first month or so of sales may only represent 10-20% of total sales over five years. The Witcher 3 looks like it sold around 1.5 million preorders, but almost 30 million units in total. All the bad publicity around this game is going to reduce gross sales of CP2077 and ensure that the public is leery of pre-ordering a CDPR in the future.
- keiferski 6y ago
  The average customer of Cyberpunk 2077 doesn’t know or care what the video game media is saying, nor do they know or care who CDPR is. The game will be fixed with some patches in a month or three and it will continue to be exceptionally popular.
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    Why do you say that? All of my friends who are playing/taking about the game are discussing the reviews more than the game itself.
    - keiferski 6y ago
      I mean that’s kind of my point: you and your friends are more familiar with games. Cyberpunk 2077 is pretty mainstream and probably one of the most advertised and hyped games of all time. Most people buying it will not be “gamers”.
    - Notorious_BLT 6y ago
      As a counter-example, all of my friends who are playing/talking about the game spent the first several days after its release playing the game in all of their offtime (including some taking the day of release off) and haven't really talked about the reviews at all. We have occasionally talked about funny bugs or thing we wish were a little different (wish it would zoom out the minimap while driving, for example), but most discussion has been positive
    - baumandm 6y ago
      Anecdotally, I don't personally remember the launch of The Witcher III, but I read a comment that indicated it was also initially buggy. I picked up the GOTY Edition some 3 years later during a frequent sale, played it, and enjoyed it. It's still a frequent top-seller on Steam according to SteamDB, and it's a 5-year old game. Unless CDPR drops the ball in a major way, I'd expect Cyberpunk 2077 to have a similarly long-tail of popularity, meaning most people who will eventually play Cyberpunk 2077 have yet to do so. There are also a lot of video game players who don't follow video game news.
NationalPark 6y ago
It was only in the Playstation store for a week, and they're offering refunds for those who could buy it, so I doubt they made enough money off that particular platform to justify burning all the goodwill. And the lawyering hasn't even started - Sony is probably angling for some kind of damages since this was supposed to be a major holiday release.
kart23 6y ago
CDPR's whole ethos is to release games without DRM, since they saw better sales without it for the witcher series. They reason that if they have a good product, people will pay for it. But if the product isn't good, is that still true? I think theres gonna be a good amount of piracy that will eat into PC sales for cyberpunk, since a lot of people will think "why the hell would I pay $60 for a buggy game that I might not even like?"
TameAntelope 6y ago
I think this is going to be the take that ends up in the, "truths that people don't want to accept" bin, because it means quality isn't the end-all that gamers want it to be. If the choices are a) Delay again and risk losing the company or b) release a buggy game and use the revenue to repair the damage done to the company's reputation, I think the right move is b.

Kapura 6y ago

It's difficult to view this as a rushed launch when the game was originally scheduled to release in April, and has received multiple delays, supposedly to fix the last remaining bugs.

dragonwriter 6y ago
No, it's not. Multiple delays mean that not only couldn't they set enough time initially, they were repeatedly incapable of setting enough time when extending the timeline, or unwilling to do so. Which makes it quite easy to view as rushed. Its a pretty common pattern for rushed releases.

mywittyname 6y ago

I highly doubt it. The gaming industry today is very different from what it was even ten years ago. It used to be that games made a healthy chunk of their income in the first month of launch. Back then it made total sense to rush a crappy game out before the holiday season. However, today, the best selling games do so at steady rates over the span of years. The first month or so of sales may only represent 10-20% of total sales over five years. The Witcher 3 looks like it sold around 1.5 million preorders, but almost 30 million units in total. All the bad publicity around this game is going to reduce gross sales of CP2077 and ensure that the public is leery of pre-ordering a CDPR in the future.

keiferski 6y ago
The average customer of Cyberpunk 2077 doesn’t know or care what the video game media is saying, nor do they know or care who CDPR is. The game will be fixed with some patches in a month or three and it will continue to be exceptionally popular.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  Why do you say that? All of my friends who are playing/taking about the game are discussing the reviews more than the game itself.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    I mean that’s kind of my point: you and your friends are more familiar with games. Cyberpunk 2077 is pretty mainstream and probably one of the most advertised and hyped games of all time. Most people buying it will not be “gamers”.
  - Notorious_BLT 6y ago
    As a counter-example, all of my friends who are playing/talking about the game spent the first several days after its release playing the game in all of their offtime (including some taking the day of release off) and haven't really talked about the reviews at all. We have occasionally talked about funny bugs or thing we wish were a little different (wish it would zoom out the minimap while driving, for example), but most discussion has been positive
  - baumandm 6y ago
    Anecdotally, I don't personally remember the launch of The Witcher III, but I read a comment that indicated it was also initially buggy. I picked up the GOTY Edition some 3 years later during a frequent sale, played it, and enjoyed it. It's still a frequent top-seller on Steam according to SteamDB, and it's a 5-year old game. Unless CDPR drops the ball in a major way, I'd expect Cyberpunk 2077 to have a similarly long-tail of popularity, meaning most people who will eventually play Cyberpunk 2077 have yet to do so. There are also a lot of video game players who don't follow video game news.

NationalPark 6y ago

It was only in the Playstation store for a week, and they're offering refunds for those who could buy it, so I doubt they made enough money off that particular platform to justify burning all the goodwill. And the lawyering hasn't even started - Sony is probably angling for some kind of damages since this was supposed to be a major holiday release.

kart23 6y ago

CDPR's whole ethos is to release games without DRM, since they saw better sales without it for the witcher series. They reason that if they have a good product, people will pay for it. But if the product isn't good, is that still true? I think theres gonna be a good amount of piracy that will eat into PC sales for cyberpunk, since a lot of people will think "why the hell would I pay $60 for a buggy game that I might not even like?"

TameAntelope 6y ago

I think this is going to be the take that ends up in the, "truths that people don't want to accept" bin, because it means quality isn't the end-all that gamers want it to be. If the choices are a) Delay again and risk losing the company or b) release a buggy game and use the revenue to repair the damage done to the company's reputation, I think the right move is b.