CD Projekt Will 'Vigorously' Defend Itself Against Recent Lawsuit

If investors can successfully sue anytime a company sells a poor quality product there wouldn't be many companies to invest in. Thus the term high risk investment.

This is just one big dumpster fire that keeps getting bigger..

@Bmartin001

Agreed!

Erm how about how they blocked sites from releasing reviews for the ps4/xbox one versions? They knew it was broken so they deserve what they get

Even if nothing comes of this, let’s hope all other game companies are taking note.
For £50 plus we expect quality in our games.
I’ve been playing Hivebusters on game pass and what a game. Now I’m actually looking forward to the next full instalment of Gears.

Yeah some of this stuff is just ridiculous. I recently had someone tell me they are jumping on a lawsuit because it gave them pain and severe mental anguish because the disappointing launch made them have panic attacks about other game launches. They also got a refund already and I am pretty sure they were just trolling with that but it shows how insane all of this lawsuit talk has become and how a lot of it is just people jumping on some bandwagon and trying to troll with it.

It's like we have no shortage of real problems that we are facing lately and when compared to the challenges of this year a disappointing video game launch seems like an incredibly minor event. Some people just really need to grow up, if you don't like the game get your refund and move on with your life, the world isn't going to end because you were disappointed by a video game.

@RedShirtRod @JayJ This is a bit different though, If you falsey claim a product you are putting on the market is perfect and this causes your stock value to inflate, you essentially lied about the value of your company. At least in the US, your shareholders are absolutely entitled to compensation. This isn't about releasing a bad product, it's about knowingly lying about the quality of the product at the cost of the people that own your company. Heck, even if you do it by accident you may have to reimburse shareholders (This is the industry I work in, I have had to reimburse shareholders due to accidents), so you heck well better reimburse them if you did it knowingly

Yep, this is more about misleading the investors than an indication of quality. You just can’t lie in order to artificially inflate stock prices, there’s a reason for securities laws.

@nessisonett @XBontendo look at the precedence. In the entertainment industry as a whole marketing deceit is common. How many trailers for movies showed you the parts with good graphics and strong acting only to be terrible? Disney is notorious for holding reviews until they feel like it.

The game is playable. Doesn't matter if it crashes a lot. Did marketing bend the truth? Sure but so do most others. Halo 5's had it seem like Locke and Chief would be in some epic battle. TLOU2 had Joel in a couple of scenes that he wasn't in. This doesn't give investors the right to sue Microsoft and Sony. No judge would entertain such a ruling.

@RedShirtRod They never showed footage for the console versions. I get where you're coming from, but it's not quite the same. It's not that it wasnt as good as what was advertised (you cant advertise opinion & I agree this would be pointless argument) but they marketed PC as though it was console, misleading consumers & shareholders both, that's false advertising. I have no strong opinions about this, I'm not suing anybody and frankly I don't much care who "wins", just saying that from an SEC standpoint this is a valid case.

@Kefka2589 well put

@Kefka2589 The problem with your point is perceived value and financial statements are two different things. Companies can't convince people that they are worth more than popular opinion. While the stock dropped $31 down to $19, Cyberpunk sold 13 million + copies. CDPR can easily argue that the investor opinion of the stock does not accurately depict the state of the company. CDPR did their part. They promoted a product. They made the product. The product works (once again, inconsistent crashing doesn't count). It sold well. Until their next earnings call this investor doesn't have grounds that CDPR lost them money. Public perception did.

@XBontendo Not showing footage doesn't mean they lied. So long as they didn't specifically say that the footage shown would be the same quality across all devices then it's not lying. If implying was a factor then any investor could sue Nintendo for the lack of 3rd party quality compared to Xbox and Playstation.

Overall it's the timing of this lawsuit that makes it frivolous. If absolutely zero ps4/xbox one copies worked there would be grounds but once again, a poor product is still a product. If CDPR comes out and says that they took a huge hit financially because of it then yeah, this lawsuit has grounds.

@RedShirtRod Yeah, this isn’t about what was given to consumers, this is about what was shown to investors. The whole “everything is fine, it works ‘surprisingly well’” rhetoric, the lack of any footage at all from the current gen versions etc. They were promised something that wasn’t delivered while CDPR haemorrhaged money on spin and marketing.

@Kefka2589 again, well put

@Kefka2589 Definitely don't think you're vilifying CDPR. They deserve scorn right now. I was only discussing what I know the precedence is. I've been out of the entertainment industry for roughly a decade but I never saw a successful investor lawsuit for a company marketing their product better than it actually was. Doesn't mean it's right to do so, it just hasn't been something I've seen judges react on. I have no problem being wrong, I'm only going off what I know.

@Kefka2589 I can agree with you on that. If CDPR had a closed door meeting that hasn't been made public it would change the entire dynamics of the situation.

@XBontendo Are you seriously trying to imply that it is unheard of for a video game publisher to hype up an upcoming video game? It is in no way illegal to push marketing hype for a new upcoming product, and if it is disappointing, well that is what press and reviews are for. If hype is suddenly illegal pretty much the entirety of the video game industry is in trouble, because just about everyone is guilty of having hyped up a disappointing video game before.

@Kefka2589 Anything regarding investors is an entirely different situation from what a lot of people have been shouting about and that actually sounds like the most valid scenario for there to be a lawsuit, but that said what they are trying to sue them over sounds like a common occurrence on the market so they will have to prove that they did something illegal as opposed to the investors simply making a bad investment. In any case I am sure the lawyers will handle it, but this is pretty far from being an angry gamer situation.

@JayJ Not at all, but it is misleading to not show footage for a console version of a game and let the market assume it looks like what you've shown.

Not trying to press buttons and if you like the game, that's great, just saying I think the lawsuit has weight. As I said earlier, my profession is in the stock market so it's hard not to look at it from an investor angle

@XBontendo That's ridiculous a large portion of games get hyped and released with little to no gameplay footage seen before their release date. You can't suddenly act like common practice is outrageous and unacceptable on a selective basis.

@JayJ Agree to disagree then. I'm largely in the same boat as Kefka, but he's a lot more eloquent then me. I'm not trying to say graphics are the only thing at play here, and I'm not thinking about it as a gamer, but in the specific instance of this stock and the validity of a lawsuit from shareholders. Not trying to press buttons, sorry

As far as documented deception and resulting damages to investors, CDPR doesn't have a prayer. Their only hope is to fix the game ASAP and get it reinstated on all store fronts. They have to get their stock price up, before they get nailed and have to compensate investors. Meanwhile, the refunds are also adding up too. This is why you don't pull this crap...

@Olliemar28 Love the Anamanaguchi profile pic. Fantasy was a great album

Don't you just love how investors get to sue in federal court, meanwhile employees and customers have to settle for Arbitration which is often rigged.

This isn't a gamer case, it's securities related. The thought is that a company(key word next) knowingly mislead it's investors and customers about it's product and as a result lost its investors half their money. Think back to Barrick Gold and them lying about finding a massive gold mine only for it to be fake. No difference between the two is there? Hyped up something that turned out to be a lie, lost people a bunch of money.

@jakthebomb legitimately corporations run the world.. it's kinda *****. Musk is trying to make his own planet as we read this.

I have to say it’s pathetic to raise a class action lawsuits just because a game is buggy, it’s still selling by the ton, I bought it and it’s story is fantastic and unbelievably deep, the world is massively detailed. So you ignore the bugs anyway.. but to sue them for some graphics glitches is nothing more then free loaders, it’s investors and lawyers and the public, after their pound of flesh (cash).
And as others have said, you invest at your own risk, you know full well you could lose all your money on that investment, you can’t just sue anyone who may lose your investment..

@Krzzystuff So long as his planet is not earth and he buggers off to live on it good for him! And good riddance!

@S1ayeR74 no idea how this will work out but hopefully it stops the trend of rushing out games before they are done.

CDPR did lie and they purposely hid the issues pre launch which is why there might be a case against them. I doubt they will be doing this again which is the silver lining.

@Krzzystuff Your kidding right.. it’s a game get over it. Does it affect you or your life? I doubt it.. and with the way gamers are these days, they send death threats if a game isn’t launched, then send death threats when they do launch but have bugs, then you have investors who demand games are launched when not ready because they are too greedy to see returns on their investments. But yes let’s all blame the games company and ignore the ridiculous unnecessary mountain of pressure they are out under.
Also why are other companies not being sued eh? Like the ones behind Fallout 76 which was more buggy?
Sorry but this isn’t going to stop games being released with bugs, perhaps if outside forces stop piling the pressure on they might.. I also don’t believe a word investor groups claim, if they had half a brain and an ounce of trust they would remember how much risk their is in investing.

@S1ayeR74 we might not be able to see eye to eye on this one. We all don't have to think alike so that's totally fine. Keep all the legal stuff aside but can you let me know if you think CDPR did anything wrong or you think it's no biggie what they did?