Cyberpunk 2077 Devs Reportedly Fire 'Hostile' Questions At Management

Well its very obvious by the resulting game, so I'm not surprised the developers knew it was far from ready, but as usual its those doing the real work who'll suffer due to the stupid decisions of those in charge

Refreshing to hear this point of view. Definitely also feel sorry for the Devs. As for the corporate execs and marketing department who pushed this, you've ruined your entire companies reputation within a week. I used to sing the praises of CDPR and GoG. No more, just another EA to my eyes.

Maybe angry Redditors will finally realize the problem is not lazy devs, but greedy business types? Not that a culture of rage should be encouraged towards anyone, but they should stop attacking the devs and game reviewers and know who the real bad guy usually is. Of course it's more likely CDPR corporate leadership will resign than gamer rage harassment stop, and CDPR corporate leadership have likely only resigned to a yacht.

It's a mess!
The only good thing that may come out of this is that CDPR learn from this and don't ever do it again. Maybe even some other gaming publishers also take heed. Here's hoping this is the case.

I really feel for the devs. These are people who worked far too many hours for months while the higher ups actively sabotaged them. They’ll be the ones taking the brunt of the crap too.

Just let your dev team finish their bloody game before releasing a broken mess!

I’d be furious if I were a developer too. Awful management decisions can ruin everything.

@nessisonett Agree with you all the way. The devs put a lot of hard work in the game. Night City is one of the most beautiful video game cities ever created. It's just too bad that an amazing framework built by the devs was overshadowed by the myriad bugs and more glaringly, the inefficacy found in the gameplay systems like NPCs, law enforcement AI, driving and crafting due to CDPR management wanting to release an unfinished game early for holiday sales.

Good read, by the way. "Bugs aren't the problem with Cyberpunk 2077 — CDPR's decision to release an unfinished game is":
https://www.retbit.com/2020/12/17/cyberpunk-2077-bugs-cdpr-review-npc-police-ai/

This game was basically an early release build, one of those early access games you see occasionally. They should have just released it under that status, then there wouldn't be all of these people getting angry. I guess like releasing an Elder Scrolls/Fallout quality launch in 2020 just isn't acceptable anymore. Kind of puzzling considering how common it is for games to release unfinished these days, almost like the gaming community is incredibly selective in when/where to direct their outrage.

The management should be held accountable. Whether they lose their bonus or get fired, something should happen. Management are the ones responsible.

@Grot not fimiliar with the Miyamoto quote. Please share.

@Jacoby I'll help.

A delayed game is ultimately good, a rushed game is always bad.

Or words to that effect.

@pip_muzz Even though that quote dates back to the days before game patches, modern publishers have been taking advantage of patches to get away with embarrassingly bad launches. Full price early access, review embargos, and carefully cultivated hype trains.

This is unfortunate. After the amazing long-term love and support the Witcher 3 got it is sad to see CP2077 come out the gate such a mess. Based on their past history I imagine they will continue to patch the game until it works properly- but this is why I waited to buy this one.

@pip_muzz Try telling that to the guys who developed games like Duke Nukem Forever, Too Human, and Daikatana. That's a pretty bad quote that doesn't really hold up to reality, sometimes delaying a game a lot can result with it being really outdated when it finally releases with plenty of it's own problems. Or they might pull a StarCraft Ghosts and just wind up cancelling the game because it took too long with too much work needing to be done to bring it up to a next gen.

I think this game was at the point where thanks to next gen they pretty much had to release it in it's present state this year or who known when it would have gotten released next gen, if at all. At least this way the game is out there and it gives them something to continuously improve, where we are guaranteed to see a proper next gen version with the bugs fixed and numerous improvements before too long. It's pretty much a GTAV release in a sense where releasing it on older hardware won't really hold it back from later improvements, and it gets the game out there to a wider audience during a transitional era.

Such as shame to think they spent years building their reputation and company with the amazing Witcher series of games and DLC Support etc. Now know one is going to trust them again.
It will take a long time to develop another game and it would have to be GOTY AAAA and release with out a hitch to get the trust and reputation they spent making for years back.
Maybe the only good from this, is a lesson for other companies not to release a shoddy game.
You are always remembered more for your last game and by your last mistake.

Obviously the game was not ready, we can all see that now.

But after 8 years, why wasn't it ready? That's a lot of time... Was it mismanaged? Did they constantly reinvent the wheel? Were developed systems thrown out and new ones developed from the ground up?

@Jacoby "a late game is late for a while. A bad game is bad forever."

@Tharsman That might have been the case back in the pre-internet era where the game you got on disc/cartridge was the only version of the game you would get, but if there is anything we should have learned by now in the modern era of gaming it's how patches can turn a game into a completely different experience. I mean just take a look at the development of No Man's Sky and how the game you would play today is totally different from the game that you would have played when it initially released. This is the era of the mega-patches, and games releasing before they are finished is common practice as a result.

@Tharsman I read they worked mostly on Witcher 3 post-launch support until 2016 on Wikipedia if I recall. So really only 4 years of producing the game on a technical level.

@Jacoby “A delayed game is eventually good, while a rushed game is forever bad. “

Granted he said this back when what was shipped was the final product unless some expansion/sequel was made that players had to go rebuy.

Nintendo does somewhat hold to this though as they try to ship as complete as possible usually and will restart development (see metroid prime 4 as a current example) and delay rather than hold to a hard release date.

However considering not all devs keep rolling out patches after release it can still apply. Look at CP2077 as a delayed game with an early access beta that you pay for and it still fits.

Granted, management often has owners/shareholders screeching at them. Sadly they likely can’t take dev concerns to those people. Devs are likely mad at people stuck in the middle.

@JayJ few games survive a disastrous launch. It takes a lot luck to even have the money, after a bad launch due to bad quality, to fix a game post launch.

No man Sky was a very disappointing launch, but I don't recall it being seen as unplayable and a terribly looking mess. It was simply overhyped and missed a ton of features.

@Grot Sadly in this day and age the notion of most games being complete on disc is just a joke.

All these crocodile tears over the fall of a game development company. They'll turn it around, don't worry. The game itself is great and in time it'll become the second No Man's Sky (few people talk about the mess it was initially, most praise the devs for sticking with it- same thing will happen now). The myth of CDPR being the knight in shining armour had to fall sooner or later. It's a business enterprise.

I bet the share holders are pi$$ed off big time as well.

The management here is on a whole other level. "Why did you say the game was ready last year?". "yeah.... That's our fault". "Why did you make everyone work ot and then ship like this". "our bad", "was that you dancing naked to the macarena in the middle of times square last month?". "Let me explain the context about that..."

I am pretty sure they were asking hard questions and management took it as hostile. Shame we live in a world where decision makers are not held responsible while they lay off the people who just did their job. But that would be a fair world... we can't have nice things.