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CD Projekt Red had almost a decade to design the great Cyberpunk 2077 myths. The game’s reviewers had only a couple of days to evaluate it, and they were paralyzed on how they could represent it. Players who had spent $ 60 at this cyberpunk pleasure palace in 2019 were reeling; all the hot air hummed out. A professional critic, Kallie Plagge, gave Cyberpunk 2077 a 7/10 in GameSpot“Not even a frying pan” criticizes him for building a one-dimensional world, disconnected side missions, and large-scale technical problems. Mass harassment attended the review. The reactionary YouTubers, who had no access to the game, spent long videos dismantling his criticism, dissecting his playtime and playing style. But only a few days later, once the players finally played Cyberpunk 2077 themselves, many did a 180. “Everybody was talking bad about her, but I’m starting to agree with Kelly [sp] Plagge, ”read a popular post on / r / cyberpunkgame.
CD Projekt Red is not the first or the only gaming company to conduct psychological marketing operations. In 2016, Nobody’s heaven literally promised to the world and other infinities; was programmed to be the most expansive, the most immersive, the most plus game until then. But because the studio behind it, Hello Games, didn’t offer it to reviewers before launch, gamers found the hard way that it didn’t meet the basics like multiplayer connectivity. This year alone, WIRED received more than a dozen offers to review great games that came with NDAs attached. It is not always to hide flaws; sometimes it’s to avoid spoilers or the result of an overzealous PR team. But putting those kinds of handcuffs on critics ultimately hurts the people who buy the games.
As the market size of the games industry reaches $ 60.4 billion, the pressure to micromanage the review system grows ever higher. As an example, Bloomberg reported that CD Projekt Red developer bonuses were contingent on a 90+ on Metacritic. (That changed after launch.) The company had created the video game equivalent of a genie in a bottle. So he did what everyone does when they get a modicum of power: control the narrative. CD Projekt Red declined WIRED’s request for comment.
The same incentives also rig the system against developers, who do six-day workweeks and sacrifice work-life balance to manifest slogans such as “a city that is larger than life,” “sets new standards in terms of images, complexity and depth “. These are modern expectations for a 60-hour AAA open-world game, an increasingly bloated and increasingly unsustainable genre. In June, former PlayStation executive Sean Layden lamented the enormous financial and labor burden of developing such games for GamesIndustry.biz. “I think the industry as a whole needs to sit down and say, ‘Okay, what are we building? What is the expectation of the audience? What is the best way to convey our story and say what we have to say? ‘”
Yet eight million pre-orders say that all this stage management benefits someone. Video games are particularly susceptible to bait and switch. Games are both identities and hobbies: a place to be yourself and explore who you are and something you do and own. Better customization, bigger worlds, better graphics, more, more, more, it can’t go on exponentially. But a system that feeds on hope will only grow as much as the trust placed in it.
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