5 ms·

100% agree, the game has been really fun to play for me on PS4. I think the issue here came from the PR strategy of CD Projekt Red, they were getting some nega

100% agree, the game has been really fun to play for me on PS4. I think the issue here came from the PR strategy of CD Projekt Red, they were getting some negative coverage and they came out and told everyone to just ask for a refund if they were unhappy. It seems like Sony didn't want to do that at first and with the shitstorm that it created, they decided great get a refund and we'll just remove the game from our store. Everyone loses. I think a better strategy would have been saying, "We hear you and we are working hard on it, we're confident we can get this experience in great shape soon. If anyone is considering buying now, please understand that the current version is a buggy and you might want to consider waiting." Instead they made promises of refunds they couldn't afford, hurt their distribution partners and might have created a death spiral for the game and their studio. How miserable it must be to be an employee who worked so hard on this game. My brother is pretty upset that he didn't buy it in time and when I tried to let him play on mine over shareplay, it doesn't let him because "the game is not released in our region" (the US).

tmoertel 6y ago
What I heard was that Sony does not want to both sell a game and allow it to be refunded on their platform. That combination invites people to play the game for free by just buying it and returning it later. So when CD Projekt Red announced that dissatisfied people could return the game for a refund, Sony stopped allowing further sales of the game.
- BoorishBears 6y ago
  As soon as a delay was announced after final master, I knew the game was being delayed because it failed validation with either MS or Sony (or both). I suspect a title like 2077 failing validation could get some wiggle room, likely what happened was Sony went back to CDPR with a laundry list of failures and gave them X amount of time to tackle them. It's possible the game went on sale despite not fully passing. But the moment it became clear that it was harming the image of a console they're still selling... that was that. After all, that's the point of validation. Usually the requirements are things that would reflect badly on the console like locking up and crashing vs "not being a fun game" or something.
  - cableshaft 6y ago
    I doubt it went on sale without fully passing the console manufacturer's certification process. As someone who has gone through the certification process a few times with these companies, they're not really testing 'does your game have bugs that kind of suck for the player', it's more technical, like 'do the names of controller buttons match our provided excel sheet that tells you what they need to say' and 'did we catch it crashing at certain spots' and 'did the game have periods when it looked like it crashed because there's no animation for X seconds but it's really just loading something and you didn't include a loading animation' or 'can i leave the game on pause for 24 hours and it hasn't crashed during that time', stuff like that. I don't think they try to 'beat the game' or anything either. And it's usually a standard checklist that can apply to every game. So something can pass certification but still be a buggy mess in spots, like have objects fall through the ground and stuff, or have crappy jaggy graphics with big dips in framerates like the PS4 and Xbox One versions of this game had. Although it's been a while since I've gone through the process, so I may not be remembering everything (they are pretty long checklists). Also when we got rejected it was usually just a few small things that we had fixed in a few days (but it took much longer to get queued up to go back through the process, that's what took so long for us). But we also made much smaller games. Well, I say that, but we did have a game that completely passed certification but the multiplayer networking ended up being super laggy on release and we got dinged pretty hard for that in reviews. The system had a multiplayer test zone where you could simulate low latency, but while we never had problems when testing, it didn't fully emulate what the production environment would be (or at least it didn't seem to for us). We weren't the only game that had that issue either, some high profile games had the same problem on that system and required a patch to fix it.
    - BoorishBears 6y ago
      I've worked on titles going through LotCheck and TCR (now known as XR if I'm not mistaken), I'm perfectly aware of how verification goes. I never implied that it's about bugs that suck for the player, in fact I said the opposite: "Usually the requirements are things that would reflect badly on the console like locking up and crashing vs "not being a fun game" or something." --- What I'm saying is I'm aware of what Cyberpunk 2077 means to these companies, especially with the timing in relation to new consoles and the holidays. 2077 is the kind of game that moves units. I'm very specific in the wording of my comment, it's not that games normally ever get a pass, and it is a standard checklist... but I also know Sony and MS giving CDPR wiggle room not out of selflessness, but out of "psuedo-necessity", doesn't sound impossible. I'm not saying it's common just because you have a AAA title, but 2077 comes across as the "perfect storm" to see this happen.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Kuraj 6y ago
You can still buy the physical version of the game no?
8bitsrule 6y ago
OTOH, they just got themselves a cash infusion ... proving the interest and the potential future ... found a lot of bugs ... and got a -whole lot- of free advertising. Rather like Librem, innit?
criddell 6y ago
It's more than just botched PR. The leadership of CD Projekt Red was saying the game was done and playable in January and only needed polish. Employees inside the company knew that was a lie. > Now, CD Projekt Red employees want to know why management led them down the wrong path and whether all that work was worth it. On the call, one employee reportedly asked why leadership said the game was "complete and playable" in January, even though that wasn't true. The company said it would "take responsibility," without elaborating. Another employee allegedly asked whether it's hypocritical for CD Projekt Red to make a game about corporations exploiting human beings while the company itself was pushing its employees well past their limits. https://www.svg.com/298958/cyberpunk-2077-devs-take-management-to-task-over-botched-launch/ https://www.svg.com/298958/cyberpunk-2077-devs-take-manageme...
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > Another employee allegedly asked whether it's hypocritical for CD Projekt Red to make a game about corporations exploiting human beings while the company itself was pushing its employees well past their limits. Or, they only just realized we already live in the early stages of a Dystopic Corporate Cyberpunk existence, and that the people who are asked to make mainstream mediums of it for mass consumption entertainment are not immune from that. I was a fan of things like Bladerunner/Judge Dread/5 Element since the 90s, and read my first Cyberpunk book in the early 2000s (Cryptonomicon) in HS but even then I could see the parallels back then. When I launched my fintech startup I spent a summer (2015) in Sunnyvale and felt we are already there, but people were far too distracted to see it. As a Californian I soon made my exit out SV and CA a priority for my own mental health and sanity and left for Boulder. Which which was always the plan but then it soon had the same issues after a few years.

tmoertel 6y ago

What I heard was that Sony does not want to both sell a game and allow it to be refunded on their platform. That combination invites people to play the game for free by just buying it and returning it later. So when CD Projekt Red announced that dissatisfied people could return the game for a refund, Sony stopped allowing further sales of the game.

BoorishBears 6y ago
As soon as a delay was announced after final master, I knew the game was being delayed because it failed validation with either MS or Sony (or both). I suspect a title like 2077 failing validation could get some wiggle room, likely what happened was Sony went back to CDPR with a laundry list of failures and gave them X amount of time to tackle them. It's possible the game went on sale despite not fully passing. But the moment it became clear that it was harming the image of a console they're still selling... that was that. After all, that's the point of validation. Usually the requirements are things that would reflect badly on the console like locking up and crashing vs "not being a fun game" or something.
- cableshaft 6y ago
  I doubt it went on sale without fully passing the console manufacturer's certification process. As someone who has gone through the certification process a few times with these companies, they're not really testing 'does your game have bugs that kind of suck for the player', it's more technical, like 'do the names of controller buttons match our provided excel sheet that tells you what they need to say' and 'did we catch it crashing at certain spots' and 'did the game have periods when it looked like it crashed because there's no animation for X seconds but it's really just loading something and you didn't include a loading animation' or 'can i leave the game on pause for 24 hours and it hasn't crashed during that time', stuff like that. I don't think they try to 'beat the game' or anything either. And it's usually a standard checklist that can apply to every game. So something can pass certification but still be a buggy mess in spots, like have objects fall through the ground and stuff, or have crappy jaggy graphics with big dips in framerates like the PS4 and Xbox One versions of this game had. Although it's been a while since I've gone through the process, so I may not be remembering everything (they are pretty long checklists). Also when we got rejected it was usually just a few small things that we had fixed in a few days (but it took much longer to get queued up to go back through the process, that's what took so long for us). But we also made much smaller games. Well, I say that, but we did have a game that completely passed certification but the multiplayer networking ended up being super laggy on release and we got dinged pretty hard for that in reviews. The system had a multiplayer test zone where you could simulate low latency, but while we never had problems when testing, it didn't fully emulate what the production environment would be (or at least it didn't seem to for us). We weren't the only game that had that issue either, some high profile games had the same problem on that system and required a patch to fix it.
  - BoorishBears 6y ago
    I've worked on titles going through LotCheck and TCR (now known as XR if I'm not mistaken), I'm perfectly aware of how verification goes. I never implied that it's about bugs that suck for the player, in fact I said the opposite: "Usually the requirements are things that would reflect badly on the console like locking up and crashing vs "not being a fun game" or something." --- What I'm saying is I'm aware of what Cyberpunk 2077 means to these companies, especially with the timing in relation to new consoles and the holidays. 2077 is the kind of game that moves units. I'm very specific in the wording of my comment, it's not that games normally ever get a pass, and it is a standard checklist... but I also know Sony and MS giving CDPR wiggle room not out of selflessness, but out of "psuedo-necessity", doesn't sound impossible. I'm not saying it's common just because you have a AAA title, but 2077 comes across as the "perfect storm" to see this happen.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Kuraj 6y ago

You can still buy the physical version of the game no?

8bitsrule 6y ago

OTOH, they just got themselves a cash infusion ... proving the interest and the potential future ... found a lot of bugs ... and got a -whole lot- of free advertising. Rather like Librem, innit?

criddell 6y ago

It's more than just botched PR. The leadership of CD Projekt Red was saying the game was done and playable in January and only needed polish. Employees inside the company knew that was a lie. > Now, CD Projekt Red employees want to know why management led them down the wrong path and whether all that work was worth it. On the call, one employee reportedly asked why leadership said the game was "complete and playable" in January, even though that wasn't true. The company said it would "take responsibility," without elaborating. Another employee allegedly asked whether it's hypocritical for CD Projekt Red to make a game about corporations exploiting human beings while the company itself was pushing its employees well past their limits. https://www.svg.com/298958/cyberpunk-2077-devs-take-management-to-task-over-botched-launch/ https://www.svg.com/298958/cyberpunk-2077-devs-take-manageme...

Melting_Harps 6y ago
> Another employee allegedly asked whether it's hypocritical for CD Projekt Red to make a game about corporations exploiting human beings while the company itself was pushing its employees well past their limits. Or, they only just realized we already live in the early stages of a Dystopic Corporate Cyberpunk existence, and that the people who are asked to make mainstream mediums of it for mass consumption entertainment are not immune from that. I was a fan of things like Bladerunner/Judge Dread/5 Element since the 90s, and read my first Cyberpunk book in the early 2000s (Cryptonomicon) in HS but even then I could see the parallels back then. When I launched my fintech startup I spent a summer (2015) in Sunnyvale and felt we are already there, but people were far too distracted to see it. As a Californian I soon made my exit out SV and CA a priority for my own mental health and sanity and left for Boulder. Which which was always the plan but then it soon had the same issues after a few years.