@wahsobe: You keep throwing the term indie around in this discussion. You understand Red is only a part of the CDProjekt group, right?
They are a publisher, first and foremost, and own and operate one of biggest non-drm distribution platform on the web.
Red is anything but an indie studio.
I think your expectations and acceptance of this whole situation maybe comes from the fact these guys are much bigger than you think, hence should be held at a much higher level of scrutiny.
@lucidique: "You spend money to make money." I mean this isn't always true but you spend money cause you can't do it all yourself doesn't really sound that impressive.
If what you love costs money then you require money to do what you love, sooo, ya money's typically always a factor. It depends on whether you believe money is the driving force of an indie dev like CDPR. It certainly is with a publisher.
Do you have a legit source on the whole doctored screenshots bit, or is it just chatter from naysayers?
Personally I believe all said and done there was no intention to screw everyone over and more account this to pressure to release mixed with the belief that they would still be able to deliver an acceptable product by launch. I'm not saying others should believe the same thing but I would say they may want to hold off crucifying CDPR before allowing them the opportunity to stand behind their words. If they had a track record of making crap games and leaving them in a crap state after milking everyone of as much cash as possible I would be on the other side of this fence.
If passion was the name of the game, they could have waited to release past the holiday window. Again, i'm not saying this is all greed, but there certainly are better ways to show you are dedicated to releasing a quality game.
Last source was an exchange in one of Giantbomb's bombcast podcast for december 2020. I have no way to verify that it's legit, but i also have no reason to believe it's false.
Again, i'm not saying that the company was looking to screw people over. My guess is that there were milestone bonuses to be obtained within that time period, and not meeting that deadline would have meant less money for everybody involved.
They do have a track record of releasing games with issues at launch.
I'm still a fan and am not crucifying them, but i believe in people being held accountable for their actions, no matter the reasons.
@lucidique: If they were only about the money they wouldn't have spent a fortune on the game over the course of a decade. Sure a Publisher - might - but not an indie.
"The studio's own testing of this streaming technology showed improvements, and the studio felt the last-gen edition may be in a good place with the Day Zero patch, Iwinski said."
They made an educated guess that everything was going to be in a realistically good place on last gen systems and that's not how it played out. At that point you could imagine they weren't anxious to push back the launch day yet again.
You spend money to make money. This likely was not just about the money, but the end goal absolutely was the money. Not that i fault them, as the ultimate goal should always be money. I'm just pointing out the fact that releasing the game in this state was due to money. I stand by that opinion.
The technical issues with the game exist, in one form or another, on all platforms, including PC. My opinion that they knew about all this is reinforced by the fact that CDPR requested all review publications publish CDPR doctored screenshots and gameplay clips with reviews.
This is a major red-flag. This is as shady and dishonest as it gets.
As for making an educated guess, i think they took a calculated gamble. I think they gambled on the fact that most of you guys would be way too excited about this release to even care, and would likely defend them.
A fool and his money are easily parted, as they say.
I don't want to get on the Cyberpunk / CDproject Red hate bandwagon, but saying they never intended for any of this to happen does not sit well with me.
I feel these sorts of apology just make the situation worst.
This is unfortunate, especially considering it is very likely this was rushed to market in order to take full advantage of the holidays or to respect some sort of release window in order to qualify for bonuses.
I'm just hoping they patch things up and that the employees don't get too impacted by this.
I think the review title brings an interesting point : Is it really okay to sell an unfinished product?
This is not a question to the publishers or developers, as it has been proven time and time again that they will serve up content any way they want to, as long as we keep buying it.
For myself, i benefit incredibly from people shelling out top dollars to beta test these games, as it means i not only get a more feature complete product at a lower price point, but i also get something that is guaranteed to work much better on my machine.
What do you get for your trouble when buying these early access titles? You have less money to show for it, worked up frustration having to deal with issues and have a tarnished vision of not only the game, but the developers and publishers as well.
I don't mean to be rude, but you really have to be a sucker to fall for something like this.
lucidique's comments