Cyberpunk 2077: Boatchaid launching industry reveals widespread mistakes

“Cyberpunk 2077” was always expected and much talked about. But now that’s a cautionary tale.

Since Ken Reeves came to announce his participation in the title at the Electronic Entertainment Expo last year, the excitement for the game has been at a level that greets the new Marvel film. And the fact that it will deal with the subject matter – which includes skeptical appearances from an argument on race, gender and politics – means fans and the media alike were eager to spend time with the game.

But the game is broken.

Sony on Thursday took a drastic step to remove the game for the foreseeable future from its on-line store on the PlayStation console. For those who have already purchased the game, Sony is offering a refund. On friday Microsoft responded By offering refunds to fans but keeping the game available for sale on its Xbox console. The game’s developer, fan-favorite CD Project Red, whose “The Witcher 3” is one of the most popular games of the just-completed console pay generation, has promised to fix the game.

Updates that would put the game in the desired position are weeks and possibly months away. Warsaw, Poland-based CD Project Red Said by February The game should have enough patches to run enough on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The game isn’t without issues on either the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X either (it crashed on occasion for me), but it works better on the new hardware. Still, the new console, released just last month, is in short supply. For gamers on older consoles – most gamers – “Cyberpunk 2077” is in a very fragile state.

Sony said in a statement on Thursday that the company “strives to ensure a high level of customer satisfaction, so we will start offering full refunds to all gamers who purchase ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ through the PlayStation Store.” “To ensure that every player gets the expected experience on the Xbox, we will expand our existing refund policy to offer a full refund to anyone who buys ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ digitally from the Microsoft Store,” Microsoft wrote on Friday.

Forced to crush

Most of last week’s CD projects have gone on tour to apologize to Red, during which time the game also received more than a million pre-orders. Media advances were only given on PCs, where those with higher computers experienced minimal problems. But watching the game on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and watching significantly raises questions about how the studio previewed the game, and if the project that touched it would have been different from its sales.

“We will begin by apologizing to you for not showing the game on the Base Last-General console before the premiere and for not allowing you to make a more informed decision about your purchase,” the company executive read out in a responsible statement. Team. “We should pay more attention to it playing better on the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One.”

Domestic barriers to the current COVID-19 epidemic are certainly presenting challenges in many industries and “Cyberpunk 2077” was subject to numerous delays during the last year. For its final release date of December 10, the company admitted that some employees would be forced to be crushed, something that corresponds almost-to-the-clock to end the game.

Although the game is in a position to be played by those with the most powerful, most expensive PC technology, the decision to push with the widespread release of “Cyberpunk 2077” raises a number of questionable and unfortunate game industry tactics that have become the norm.

The main of them: it is okay to release the game in a nearby state, knowing that it will be a completely different product in the coming months.

While it is admirable that the medium of the game allows constant updates, turning games into life into the right function, this also convinces fans, believing they will be there when they work. To illustrate further, imagine a film released in an incomplete state, with the studio and the creative team, when customers actually expect to see it again in six months when it is finished.

‘Early access access’

Some developers accept these challenges.

Games are a complex medium that stitches art, technology, and storytelling elements together, shifting from computer elements to game engine updates based on the need for other elements, not to mention user feedback.

There is a practice of releasing the game in the so-called “early entry” to provide a more transparent view on the development process. This year’s critically acclaimed hack-and-slash game “Hades”, for example, was available for purchase in pre-release form for two years, before it was properly finalized.

However, this can hit any type of publicity and marketing campaign. The game industry is very secretive, and often tries to turn meaningless details such as the revelation of a character’s name into a news story. Early access access destroys this precautionary build-up.

Furthermore, when “Heads” came on the Nintendo Switch it probably wouldn’t be seen as a brand “new” game. Also, through this issue, work was done on any of the underlying issues, and once people started playing word of mouth that “heads” merged into the story and gameplay with enthusiasm.

I personally like games published in early access cases. It may be interesting to see how the game develops, but it makes more sense for me to wait until the game developers want it to be in its state. It is safe to say that “Cyberpunk 2077” is not there. Thus, console owners will be advised not to play “Cyberpunk 2077” unless its issues are expedited. The game that exists will be the same game that doesn’t exist in a few months.

But the decision to attack “Cyberpunk 2077” before the holidays draws attention to the long-running and underlying issues about how the mainstream industry views its entertainment. CD Project Red was aware of the game’s hiccups, but admitted that it failed to show how the title would run on PlayStation and Xbox One. For all the mythical big ideas about the future of the world that this game is, the studio finally got it. Considered a little more than product, one was expected to be ignored by consumers. The fact is that he was not ready for prime time.

When the Times was offered an interview with the CD Project Red team for a story running around the start of the game, before I had the ability to play the game at home, I became increasingly skeptical about doing game features. Events or previews of the game are always carefully crafted to show a fraction of the title that runs mostly nicely in the state with stitches, interrupted by public relations at any time to communicate from a specific moment of the game that the company deems safe. To cover – often detailed in nondisclosure agreements that the Times is not allowed to sign.

Instead, we limited our coverage to interviews with Reeves because we didn’t have access to a PC that could play games. The actor was certainly interested in the power of the interactive medium, and eagerly talked about how the user’s choice necessarily allowed him to play multiple versions of the same character.

Reeves himself didn’t see the finished version of the game at the time we spoke – and he admitted he would need a more game-oriented friend to show him. Project Red met with “The Vicher 3” and to gain a better understanding of how sports affect all mediums, his interest in the game was partly enhanced by CD Project Red.

“I don’t know where he’s going, but I know he’s going crazy.” “She is a good kind of puppet. Like, if I can play with animation, I have more control. “

And yet it’s rare, as we’ve seen at the Game Awards this month, to allow a developer to speak frankly about the art, principles and politics that inform every game. In such an environment, video games are handled with the cool precision of a new technological product rather than a function of entertainment. Thus, critical analysis around sports is more alive than ever.

In turn, the legacy of “Cyberpunk 2077”, regardless of how it resurfaced in 2021, will be remembered as the work of a studio that neglected the time its development team needed to finish the game – and in turn watched its fans and the media. There are swear words, such as he associates the product with both, in which he refers to being politically surrounded. This is far from the first time this has happened, but it has rarely been done openly.