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For a game to launch unfinished and to turn out disappointing is pretty common. Batman Arkham Asylum, Assassin's Creed Unity and No Man's Sky come to mind. Some

For a game to launch unfinished and to turn out disappointing is pretty common. Batman Arkham Asylum, Assassin's Creed Unity and No Man's Sky come to mind. Some even required full reboots, such as Final Fantasy XIV and the current work on Artifact and Anthem. What's different here is that this is the first that that a major release is getting delisted or refunded by all the major retailers. CD Project Red did not have a track record of thrashing, or shipping something half-baked. The Witcher 3's main game and DLC are among the most polished AAA releases ever, and great value for their price. This drove lots of people to be excited by Cyberpunk, since 2013. It's not just a story about crunch and unmet hype. It's a studio that simply let a lot of people down.

shp0ngle 6y ago
Arkham Asylum was disappointing? The 2009 game? I thought it was universally loved
- wetpaws 6y ago
  Arkham Asylum was perfect. Op is probably talking about Arkham Knight.
- mariusmg 6y ago
  He means the PC release of Arkham Knight.
  - fareesh 6y ago
    Arkham Knight straight up did not work on PC for my configuration for about a year or so. It would crash after one of the introductory sequences.
TAForObvReasons 6y ago
The studio also refused to let reviewers comment on the console versions, which is where a lot of the anger is directed. So you have a bunch of gamers who went on the PS4 version based on what they were seeing from the PC alone, not knowing the state of the game. The reaction wouldn't have been as strong if people knew what they were getting before committing
- mstade 6y ago
  I suppose that refusal came in the form of an NDA, but even so is that actually enforceable? Seems to me this whole debacle essentially amounts to false advertising, and if reviewers failed to mention that the thing doesn't actually do what it says on the tin but claims otherwise, are they not in some way complicit? I'm not a lawyer so I have no idea but I'm genuinely wondering whether a studio actually can order reviewers to stay quiet about such fundamental issues? Sure they can blackball the reviewer from future releases, but who cares if what they produce is crap anyway?
  - hh3k0 6y ago
    > […] and if reviewers failed to mention that the thing doesn't actually do what it says on the tin but claims otherwise, are they not in some way complicit? CDPR didn't provide PS4/XBOX versions for review until the day of release, afaik.
  - elevader 6y ago
    They most likely can't but reviewers basically depend on the goodwill of the publishers in order to get pre-release copies for early reviews. If they don't get them they will simply loose out on money (reviewing the game 1-2 weeks after everybody else already did so is kind of pointless) and I'd guess a reviewer would risk getting essentially blacklisted by the whole industry as there is no reason to assume that a reviewer would uphold one NDA but not the other. Game publishers also tend to advertise their content on said review sites and youtube channels so that would be another income stream gone.
    - mstade 6y ago
      All of what you say makes sense to me, but one thing still bugs me – is it not true that reviewers live and die by their reputation? If they brown nose publishers to not lose out on first mover advantage, to the point where they’re essentially aiding and abetting a bait-n-switch, does that not hurt their standing with the consumers of their reviews? Aren’t they in the trust business? Are their revenue streams so dependent on the good will and reach of publishers that essentially they are forced to be shills? I genuinely have no idea how this works, but it sure does seem odd to me. I’m still curious about what potential legal ramifications there might be for a reviewer saying a product is great when in reality it doesn’t even work, and they know it.
hh3k0 6y ago
> The Witcher 3's main game and DLC are among the most polished AAA releases ever Witcher 3 was notoriously unpolished at release with game-breaking bugs being a dime a dozen, though.
kungito 6y ago
Let's not forget games like Ghost Recon Breakpoint which released as sequels to successfull games which ended up missing half the game systems from the original like AI teammates which they are adding 1 year after release due to popular demand. Like, how hard can it be to reimplement a system which you already had in the game before. Wouldn't a game source code for a system like AI be orthogonal to the rest of the game code and easier to just port over to a new game. I cannot believe a game like Cyberpunk 2077 can not have driving AI in a 2020 game. It's been done already with various success rates in 100s of games. How badly do you have to mismanage to have nothing after 5 years of development?? Assassins Creed Valhalla crashes for me every 15 minutes on rx480. I get that a game would lag, but how the hell can it crash? You have exceptions which you cannot handle on any layer of your code? The game lags when the map is open. What is happening in then code for the game to lag when a world map is open? And it doesn't stop lagging as if it's finished with calculating something unrelated. It just lags
- RobotCaleb 6y ago
  Games are very complex interactions of various systems. There are many many ways that things can go wrong. Then you throw in the fact that you're on a significant time crunch and you're building a system that is impossible to test every interaction. They are complex
jcelerier 6y ago
> The Witcher 3's main game and DLC are among the most polished AAA releases ever what haha TW3 (and 2) were pretty much unplayable when they came out. Took a good year for things to not be a bugfest. Even with the very latest patches I still had a few glorious crashes in TW3.

shp0ngle 6y ago

Arkham Asylum was disappointing? The 2009 game? I thought it was universally loved

wetpaws 6y ago
Arkham Asylum was perfect. Op is probably talking about Arkham Knight.
mariusmg 6y ago
He means the PC release of Arkham Knight.
- fareesh 6y ago
  Arkham Knight straight up did not work on PC for my configuration for about a year or so. It would crash after one of the introductory sequences.

TAForObvReasons 6y ago

The studio also refused to let reviewers comment on the console versions, which is where a lot of the anger is directed. So you have a bunch of gamers who went on the PS4 version based on what they were seeing from the PC alone, not knowing the state of the game. The reaction wouldn't have been as strong if people knew what they were getting before committing

mstade 6y ago
I suppose that refusal came in the form of an NDA, but even so is that actually enforceable? Seems to me this whole debacle essentially amounts to false advertising, and if reviewers failed to mention that the thing doesn't actually do what it says on the tin but claims otherwise, are they not in some way complicit? I'm not a lawyer so I have no idea but I'm genuinely wondering whether a studio actually can order reviewers to stay quiet about such fundamental issues? Sure they can blackball the reviewer from future releases, but who cares if what they produce is crap anyway?
- hh3k0 6y ago
  > […] and if reviewers failed to mention that the thing doesn't actually do what it says on the tin but claims otherwise, are they not in some way complicit? CDPR didn't provide PS4/XBOX versions for review until the day of release, afaik.
- elevader 6y ago
  They most likely can't but reviewers basically depend on the goodwill of the publishers in order to get pre-release copies for early reviews. If they don't get them they will simply loose out on money (reviewing the game 1-2 weeks after everybody else already did so is kind of pointless) and I'd guess a reviewer would risk getting essentially blacklisted by the whole industry as there is no reason to assume that a reviewer would uphold one NDA but not the other. Game publishers also tend to advertise their content on said review sites and youtube channels so that would be another income stream gone.
  - mstade 6y ago
    All of what you say makes sense to me, but one thing still bugs me – is it not true that reviewers live and die by their reputation? If they brown nose publishers to not lose out on first mover advantage, to the point where they’re essentially aiding and abetting a bait-n-switch, does that not hurt their standing with the consumers of their reviews? Aren’t they in the trust business? Are their revenue streams so dependent on the good will and reach of publishers that essentially they are forced to be shills? I genuinely have no idea how this works, but it sure does seem odd to me. I’m still curious about what potential legal ramifications there might be for a reviewer saying a product is great when in reality it doesn’t even work, and they know it.

hh3k0 6y ago

> The Witcher 3's main game and DLC are among the most polished AAA releases ever Witcher 3 was notoriously unpolished at release with game-breaking bugs being a dime a dozen, though.

kungito 6y ago

Let's not forget games like Ghost Recon Breakpoint which released as sequels to successfull games which ended up missing half the game systems from the original like AI teammates which they are adding 1 year after release due to popular demand. Like, how hard can it be to reimplement a system which you already had in the game before. Wouldn't a game source code for a system like AI be orthogonal to the rest of the game code and easier to just port over to a new game. I cannot believe a game like Cyberpunk 2077 can not have driving AI in a 2020 game. It's been done already with various success rates in 100s of games. How badly do you have to mismanage to have nothing after 5 years of development?? Assassins Creed Valhalla crashes for me every 15 minutes on rx480. I get that a game would lag, but how the hell can it crash? You have exceptions which you cannot handle on any layer of your code? The game lags when the map is open. What is happening in then code for the game to lag when a world map is open? And it doesn't stop lagging as if it's finished with calculating something unrelated. It just lags

RobotCaleb 6y ago
Games are very complex interactions of various systems. There are many many ways that things can go wrong. Then you throw in the fact that you're on a significant time crunch and you're building a system that is impossible to test every interaction. They are complex

jcelerier 6y ago

> The Witcher 3's main game and DLC are among the most polished AAA releases ever what haha TW3 (and 2) were pretty much unplayable when they came out. Took a good year for things to not be a bugfest. Even with the very latest patches I still had a few glorious crashes in TW3.