Typical Bloomberg reader might not know who CDPR is. The typical Bloomberg reader probably has seen Cyberpunk commercials and can parse "game maker". I imagine it's an editor decision to make the headline clearer to general readers.
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[Bloomberg: Jason Schreier] - Cyberpunk Game Maker Faces Hostile Staff After Failed Launch
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Thanks everyone! Glad that Sapkowski eventually got a more satisfactory deal.
I think it's because it was CD Projekt Red developers (the development studio) asking these questions from the parent company/publisher CD Projekt. People often seem to conflate the two here.
That's true but the title is long already, it could have been "CD Project Red, Developer of Cyberpunk 2077" for example. "Makers of Cyberpunk 2077" would have worked too without it looking weird. :p
Cyberpunk by far. CP making its money back on preorders actually makes the release state of the game a bigger disaster. They promised the world and delivered one of the jankiest AAA games of all time. The publisher's rep deserves to tank after this.
Avengers was just a bad game that always looked like a bad game.
I wonder why not use "Cyberpunk Developer Faces (...)" instead.
'Game Maker' sounded to me at first like it was talking about some custom engine or something.
Does 'Developer' sound too non-specific maybe?
3 or 4 years to build an FPS immersive RPG in a city HUB, with high detail fidelity and lot of sub-systems, with everything miles from what they learned to build over the years... Yeah, no suprised it needed more time. A shame for the devs but CDPR heads got it coming, they went all over "we are building the best game ever and will show to the world how it's done".
Nah but the way they dealt with the aftermath was indicative of the type of company they are. It was the least shit thing they have done but it should have been a softball and they still made it hard.
Yeah doesn't really jive with their "we leave greed to others" motto, when you're raking in millions on someone else's original property. And think that the originally paid 9500 dollars is what the source material is worth.
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I have a bleak opinion about this, I do have years of experience working crunches on doomed projects many years ago, often it saved the project but that's very specific to VFX, since missing serious deliverables in VFX means never getting a contract again, it's crunches to meet the deadline or everybody lose their job, the deadline is set by the hollywood studio based on already announced cinema release date. Another time the crunches just meant more mistakes, and it gets worse, and worse, and worse, it was a death spiral for ongoing projects, increasing financial troubles, they went bankrupt 2 years later.
It's not easy to imagine a good outcome for CDPR considering the damage to their reputation keeps piling on. Consumers are very angry, they actively hope the game fails and don't trust a patch will solve the fundamental issues with this game. Those who want a patch right now, or a refund, are dooming them to either crunch for a patch, or go bankrupt and lose their jobs. OTOH those who consistently don't care about waiting months for a patch and take it easy whenever broken launches happen, they are responsible for the continuing practice of launching a broken game and patching later. There are no good position to have about this.
If you want to "stick it to the man" and hope the investors to lose a huge amount of money, you doom the employees too. So what do people want? A magical patch in a month without any crunches? Their money back but everybody there keep their job? Those are not realistic options, and the only reasonable thing to hope for is a patch regardless of how much time it takes. Or a cancelation of the game on last-gen consoles. Not sure what else.
It's not easy to imagine a good outcome for CDPR considering the damage to their reputation keeps piling on. Consumers are very angry, they actively hope the game fails and don't trust a patch will solve the fundamental issues with this game. Those who want a patch right now, or a refund, are dooming them to either crunch for a patch, or go bankrupt and lose their jobs. OTOH those who consistently don't care about waiting months for a patch and take it easy whenever broken launches happen, they are responsible for the continuing practice of launching a broken game and patching later. There are no good position to have about this.
If you want to "stick it to the man" and hope the investors to lose a huge amount of money, you doom the employees too. So what do people want? A magical patch in a month without any crunches? Their money back but everybody there keep their job? Those are not realistic options, and the only reasonable thing to hope for is a patch regardless of how much time it takes. Or a cancelation of the game on last-gen consoles. Not sure what else.
What a shit show this has been. While I have no doubt the game will be in better shape a few months from now after a few major patches, I just don't see how CDPR is going to be able to attract talented people to work for them now.
So cd projekt reds reputation is gone now right, like unless they pull a no mans sky level miracle, its safe to say this company is dead to a lot of people
I personally think removing the game from last-gen consoles would do a lot, but it would also royally piss of so many more.
I feel like it might be the only "saving grace"
lol no. If they do a Witcher 4 with Ciri as the main character all this will be in the rear view for many.
The value of a stock doesn't determine how much money the company has unless they're looking to sell more shares and dilute. CDPR has been a highly profitable company that is entirely self sufficient, their board can be held accountable by shareholders and be replaced but that doesn't necessarily it means it hurts the underlying staff. Ultimately, share price is merely a reflection of investor confidence and sentiment, it means nothing unless the company in question is choosing to leverage the price for additional funding or borrowing.
Even if 25-30% of purchases are refunded, it's still a profitable game at this point. Consoles only accounted for 40% of total sales.
I loved witcher 3, but if they announced witcher 4, my main question will be two fold, one how many false release dates will it have, and should i even bother buying it on the consoles its announced for given that it will probably barely run on them if cyberpunk is anything to go by. After witcher 3 my expectations for cyberpunk were pretty high. Im playing on series x and its its fine, it not underwhelming considering its not natively supporting the system, because its not a base ps4 or xbox one, but still the fact that it cant run on the consoles it was announced for years ago its fucking embarassing. That being said, the city is insanely impressive, and i will give them props for that.
This kind of stuff is so important to be made public. Just like the the horrible state of Bioware with devs crying in closets that Jason also exposed or the rampant sex abuse at Ubisoft, unless there is persistent pressure nothing gets done(CEO of Ubi is still there unfortunately.)
I hope that all of this public shaming results in foundational changes at CDPR. I expect that there are certain individuals in leadership that are responsible for all of these bad decisions and maybe they are removed from the equation so that the good people there can go on working in a better environment.
I hope that all of this public shaming results in foundational changes at CDPR. I expect that there are certain individuals in leadership that are responsible for all of these bad decisions and maybe they are removed from the equation so that the good people there can go on working in a better environment.
Lol, this! It seems like everyone involved in the game is referred to as a Dev. People talking on a forum to the community being called a Dev and all I can think is what Dev, or even Dev lead, is going to be talking to low-level customers directly? They have important other stuff to do and leave that to others. I always try and figure out what their roles actually are ie. Product Management, Project Management, Marketing, CR, etc.
share price dumping likely leads to external pressures on the board
large investors may already be applying pressure
or they might look at the numbers, and decide that everything is fine
year of free dlc, a really good expansion, and this could all be in the past
i point out that gamedev can be super work-from-home friendly
and EVERYONE needs senior staff
so if i were on CDPRs board, I would be thinking about BIG WE ARE SORRY BONUSES
and not MOAR CRUNCH!!!
large investors may already be applying pressure
or they might look at the numbers, and decide that everything is fine
year of free dlc, a really good expansion, and this could all be in the past
i point out that gamedev can be super work-from-home friendly
and EVERYONE needs senior staff
so if i were on CDPRs board, I would be thinking about BIG WE ARE SORRY BONUSES
and not MOAR CRUNCH!!!
Tbh they shouldn't have offered it on base consoles. This should've been a next gen title exclusively if they knew the performance would be this poor. Greed got the better of them and now they paying the price for it. Here's hoping this fiasco teaches them to only announce a games release date when they're 100% confident they can make it.
I would say this mayhem beats out the likes of Anthem/Avengers because people were already skeptical of Anthem and Bioware's last game had been Andromeda, and while Avengers has undoubtedly not done well it's far more quiet and controversy-free than this Cyberpunk fiasco.
One thing I don't understand is this incessant need to call Jason's work an "agenda". In a negative way. Like, if creating a better work environment for developers is an agenda, isn't it a good one? Am I missing something? Am I supposed to want game developers to get burnt out on crunch after 5 years or less of being a dev?
You could see this coming from miles away.
All the bugs and shitty perfomance would have been easier to swallow had the game actually been great, but it was always equally clear that was never going to be the case.
Add to that the edgelord marketing, exploitation of labor and mishandling of minority representation and all I can feel is schadenfreude.
What makes it weirder is that 'game maker' has been used multiple times in the past as a name for software to make games. Maybe they wanted to free up the word 'developers' because they use that to reference the staff. 'Studio' would have been my pick.
All the bugs and shitty perfomance would have been easier to swallow had the game actually been great, but it was always equally clear that was never going to be the case.
Add to that the edgelord marketing, exploitation of labor and mishandling of minority representation and all I can feel is schadenfreude.
What makes it weirder is that 'game maker' has been used multiple times in the past as a name for software to make games. Maybe they wanted to free up the word 'developers' because they use that to reference the staff. 'Studio' would have been my pick.
"Agenda" is such a loaded, bullshit word; it doesn't really mean anything other than a dogwhistle (usually for the right of course). Everyone has an agenda, some good, some bad. In Jason's case, it's obviously a good agenda to have. I mean are people really trying to say "no, we DON'T want developers to have better work environments"?
he's writing for an audience at Bloomberg that likely knows little to nothing about video games. in a non-gaming context, "developer" is usually a shorthand term for real estate developer.
the place i work for does the same thing with gaming news
Probably CP. It had some high hype.
The amazing thing about Avengers is Anthem came before it and failed because of loot and end game content. Somehow Avengers manages to copy and paste exactly that plus crazy bugs and terrible match matching, among other things. All they had to do was not be Anthem and they ended up Anthem Avengers. At least Anthem has memorable and really solid game mechanics going for it.
Jobs was so fucking on the money here. It's insane how company, after company, after company, after company, falls into this same trap.
Hell it's how we got the launch focus of the Xbox One.
Same shit that happened to Windows 8 as well. All driven by marketers who saw the mobile bubble and said "we too."
Don't make me relive it.
I still can't believe you could release 8 onto the market after 7, in good conscience. I need a 5-part documentary on that one.
I don't understand how people are quoting this video so much. These two situations could not be less alike.
Yeah, it doesn't make sense in context. This blunder happened because big game studios prove time and time again that their management can't properly scope out and staff projects.
It's got next to nothing to do with marketing calling the shots on what the product should be. That's not really the issue that people have with this.
At least Avengers could actually run on consoles.
At least the company behind Avengers didn't lie about what the game was or the state of the game or attempt to rig review copies to manipulate initial review scores.
At least the company behind Avengers didn't have a growingly-infamous track record of crunch, and have admitted that the game's current state is due to the extra time from the initial delay getting eaten up by COVID and wildfires.
At least both Avengers and the company behind Avengers don't push transphobic and racist bullshit, and in fact one of the few things Avengers nails is fully owning and nailing a Pakistani-American main protagonist.
Both have core issues that can otherwise be worked on with time, but all things considered SE can roll with the punches, and even CD can roll with the punches. CDPR developed a reputation as one of the "heroes" of the industry as a AAA pro-consumer developer/publisher, and they've thoroughly tarnished it pre to post release and no one knows if they'll even be able to address it given how deep the rot truly is.
It's because people bought the hype of CDPR being a Gamer-focused company who "left the greed to others" when they turned out to be just another corporation squeezing their workers dry to shit out another Minimal Viable Product to hit impossible deadlines imposed by shareholders. When you look at the details it doesn't fit but the emotional narrative Jobs is crafting here, of the Moneymen crushing the creatives, sorta feels like it covers it for a lot of people, so I can see why people are posting that video even if it doesn't really technically fit
The desire to increase scale I found very confounding after remembering their humble beginnings with the first The Witcher game. Its like after the huge gamble they took with The Witcher 3 with the scope of the game they decided to speedrun becoming a "AAA" game developer. They wanted to be year 20 Rockstar or the next Activision less than 10 years after shipping their first game. Doesn't matter who they have to trample on or over work to get there. Their outward culture being the friendly, consumer focused one with all that fuckery going behind closed doors was something else. That and the whole cultivating capital-g Gamers who have already scattered after this disaster launch.
I feel bad for the people they had working on this game.
I feel bad for the people they had working on this game.
I know that the situation is different. CDPR is not in a monopoly and there are still veterans in the team. At the same time is clear that they released this game before it was ready, following management guidelines which probably was under massive pressure for profits reasons. This video fits in this contest. They "gave more priority" to the sales and marketing people instead of listenings to the developers which said multiple times that the game wasn't read. They probably needed another 6 months or even a year.
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Hope the higher ups continue to get slaughtered. This entire game and situation behind it is about as fucked as it gets.
Good on the devs for speaking up.
Between this debacle and the whole gog issue with Devotion, their reputation has taken a huge hit in the space of a week.
Between this debacle and the whole gog issue with Devotion, their reputation has taken a huge hit in the space of a week.
I'd love to see an era where "Day 1" patches are relatively small because games have had the proper time to develop and QA the game.
If that means shorter games that take longer to make to avoid crunch (or better yet, unionize and make "crunch" illegal), then so be it.
If that means shorter games that take longer to make to avoid crunch (or better yet, unionize and make "crunch" illegal), then so be it.
Well shit. Of all the points that was the one my gut feeling was the most unsure on, dangit.
Doesn't change most of my post or my overall outlook but definitely good to know. Thank you very much for the clarification.
Everyone would prefer that. Problem is, most of the time it's not as profitable.
True. Very true.
There's gotta be a change though. AAA games aren't particularly sustainable and I say this as someone who almost only plays AAA games (yes, I am among the horde of unwashed masses).
Imagine spending 12-14 hour days for weeks on end designing and tweaking bespoke hallway art or some shit like that, and then a player literally runs through that hallway in about 3 seconds and gives zero fucks.
Disheartening.
There has to be real change across the industry, the media that covers it, and, most importantly, the consumers who buy these games.
I don't have much more to offer than I just feel bad for a lot of folks who just wanted to make games.
All these stories about crunch was eventually gonna lead up to this, it kept getting worse and worse and gamers kept turning a blind eye until eventually the products ended up being bad in actual noticeable ways, and now suddenly they want a refund.
This is a perfect storm of shit. Might I remind everyone that this company released a CGI trailer for The Witch 3 to pass it off as game footage. Everything from the developers doubling down on their shitty transphobia, edgelord marketing, shitty management and executives, and worker abuse was a recipe for disaster. I don't think any of us could have imagined it being this big though.
Edit - Looks like I was beaten to the joke.
Edit - Looks like I was beaten to the joke.
CDPR is such a fucking toxic company, I don't know how ingrained it is among the devs or if its just the high ups, these directors gotta fucking go for starters. This whole week is them just digging a hole though its been the past few years. Playing this stupid game makes me wish it was done by another dev. What a waste.
avengers will also be fine long term with it being GaaS with potential for a lot of future content. The company behind Cyberpunk has their name in the gutter right now.