CD Projekt's Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 + Phantom Liberty Expansion Thread

[Myobi]

They already have recouped their losses from development. They have your money and don't give a fuck about anything else.

Their brand is irreparably damaged. CDPR went from beloved to shit listed overnight.
How impressive are cyberpunk's sales if they're directly responsible for damaging the sales of any game CDPR makes going forward?

Im not trying to be snide here but you WERE the one praising FO76 and how its "fixed now". People will simply forget CP77 ever happened.

I bought the game for the equivalent of $5 though

Fair enough, didn't actually know that.

Hold up, sorry if I'm a little late on this one, but how's that "fair enough", how is that even relevant to the point? You called him out for being an hypocrite cunt who shills for a specific company while shitting on others for doing the same... why does it matter how much he paid for it?

I can't really point fingers at this point because I paid 5$ for something like the Elite Dangerous DLC, to a company that's objectively bad and a game that's objectively bad.

...so? Almost everyone already paid for "objectively bad" games, and that's fine, just as it is to enjoy those "objectively bad" games, jokes aside, it's fine if the mofo enjoys Fallout 76, but c'mon, shitting on other companies for pulling shit like this while fondling bethesda balls is just laughable.

 

[Talby]

It's not just that it's broken and unfinished. Even if the game had launched in a polished and stable state, it would just be a mediocre and forgettable game.

 

[blessed king of longing]

Pawel Sasko fanboying over his own game for 2 hours:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/992313222

 

[Danikas]

 

[Wesp5]

Even if the game had launched in a polished and stable state, it would just be a mediocre and forgettable game.

Compared to what? It's certainly a lot better than "The Outer Worlds" and I can't remember any other 3D RPG being released recently.

 

[Hellraiser]

Was about to post they published the financial results for 2020. Anyway here's an English earnings presentation the first half of which is full of PR propaganda and buzzwords, the second half is more useful but it does not show the thing I was most interested in.

Namely I was looking for this in the actual 2020 financial statement:

The two figures at the bottom that I marked with the red frame are the value of development expenses (both finished and in progress, could include patches in the case of the latter)* capitalized that have not yet been amortized (so not impacting the reported profit). Looks like over half of the game's development cost was already reflected in the actual result and ~405 million potato will be in the coming years, at least that is the rough guess I have.

Also read that they were off by about a million less sold copies from what analysts predicted on average, although worse by 100k copies from the most pessimistic analyst.

*if they had anything other than developments than cyberpunk they were also included here, but I think it is safe to assume at least 99% of it was cyberpunk development that got capitalized and included in those figures.

tl;dr the result is hardly spectacular but it seems good enough and a far cry from the expected catastrophe. Also they want to pay out dividends so probably this all will be enough to pacify shareholders, and there will be no major shareholder revolt that could lead to something like a sell off of the company to a big publisher.

 

[Paul_cz]

Total budget of C77, both development and marketing, is 316 million USD.

That is a lot more than I expected - after all, Witcher 3 cost 81 million USD, incl. marketing.

Cyberpunk had 530 developers on it (peak), while Witcher 3 had 250 (peak). So twice as many.

I suppose getting that Porsche license, Keanu, all that music licensing and popstars - this stuff ain't cheap.

I am somewhat surprised the peak was only 530 devs. I expected it to be around 700. It is considerably less than what Rockstar had on RDR2 (1500).

 

[Tyranicon]

Total budget of C77, both development and marketing, is 316 million USD.

That is a lot more than I expected - after all, Witcher 3 cost 81 million USD, incl. marketing.

Cyberpunk had 530 developers on it (peak), while Witcher 3 had 250 (peak). So twice as many.

I suppose getting that Porsche license, Keanu, all that music licensing and popstars - this stuff ain't cheap.

I am somewhat surprised the peak was only 530 devs. I expected it to be around 700. It is considerably less than what Rockstar had on RDR2 (1500).

The real question is how many people CDPR had working on their "RPG" systems.

 

[Hellraiser]

I suppose getting that Porsche license, Keanu, all that music licensing and popstars - this stuff ain't cheap.

Not cheap sure, compared to the total mentioned budget though I doubt it was that expensive, at least so far. The cursory look I took at their 2020 annual report gives me the impression over half of that budget was actual game development.

It all depends on the license agreement, I would expect they paid a million or two million dollars up front and then agreed to some royalties fee per unit sold. That's how most licensing including brand royalties works from my experience. Assuming there is a per unit cut or sales revenue % paid to porsche, keanu or musicians, there is still the question whether royalties expected over X years were included in the mentioned budget or not. From a proper budgeting point of view I would assume they would have included it in the amount, in a figure equal to the projected sales times the respective royalties per unit (or % cut times projected sales revenue).

 

[Justicar]

https://www.ign.com/articles/cdpr-issued-some-30000-refunds-for-cyberpunk-2077

Hurr durr Cyberbug milion refunds.

CDPR Issued Some 30,000 Refunds for Cyberpunk 2077

 

[Cyberarmy]

"RPG" systems.

What systems

 

[Hellraiser]

https://www.ign.com/articles/cdpr-issued-some-30000-refunds-for-cyberpunk-2077

Hurr durr Cyberbug milion refunds.

CDPR Issued Some 30,000 Refunds for Cyberpunk 2077

I expected the refunds and bugs were overblown for clickbait and shitposting (or shorting stock), but this is a way lower number than I expected.

 

[Tyranicon]

https://www.ign.com/articles/cdpr-issued-some-30000-refunds-for-cyberpunk-2077

Hurr durr Cyberbug milion refunds.

CDPR Issued Some 30,000 Refunds for Cyberpunk 2077

I expected the refunds and bugs were overblown for clickbait and shitposting (or shorting stock), but this is way less than I expected.

A good number of those has to be on the Playstation store. Edit: The article indicates this 30,000 refund number is from CDPR's own refund program, so I'm not sure if it includes PS and Steam refunds.

Which, as a reminder, CP2077 still isn't for sale on PS platforms.

 

[Gargaune]

https://www.ign.com/articles/cdpr-issued-some-30000-refunds-for-cyberpunk-2077

Hurr durr Cyberbug milion refunds.

CDPR Issued Some 30,000 Refunds for Cyberpunk 2077

I expected the refunds and bugs were overblown for clickbait and shitposting (or shorting stock), but this is way less than I expected.

I half-called it. I was certain that the refunds would be far, far lower than the internet drama was speculating on, but this is much lower still, I thought they might possibly go to the low six figures will all the histrionics.

 

[DeepOcean]

Even if the game had launched in a polished and stable state, it would just be a mediocre and forgettable game.

Compared to what? It's certainly a lot better than "The Outer Worlds" and I can't remember any other 3D RPG being released recently.

To be fair, "better than the Outer Worlds" is a meme that is becoming the codexian version of "thousands of hours played" on EA investment PR lingo.

 

[Paul_cz]

https://www.ign.com/articles/cdpr-issued-some-30000-refunds-for-cyberpunk-2077

Yeah that is significantly less than the performative outrage would let anyone believe, but...it's obvious.

 

[Zer0wing]

The real question is how many people CDPR had working on their "RPG" systems.

Not Mike Pondsmith for sure... Now where his fat ass will get excuses now when Cyberpunk 2077 turned out to be a kaleidoscope of everything that he feared to be in a Cyberpunk video game? How CDPR is different than other triple-A shlock producers?

 

[Tyranicon]

The real question is how many people CDPR had working on their "RPG" systems.

How CDPR is different than other triple-A shlock producers?

Other AAAs don't manage to get themselves banned from Playstation.

 

[Paul_cz]

Other AAAs don't manage to get themselves banned from Playstation

Because no other AAA offered unconditional refunds with which Sony didn't want to deal with.

 

[Tyranicon]

Other AAAs don't manage to get themselves banned from Playstation

Because no other AAA offered unconditional refunds with which Sony didn't want to deal with.

At some point, you have to admire the giant, brass polish balls of someone who pulls the rug from under their business partners in order to salvage their own PR. Especially when you produce a product that arguably doesn't even work on your business partner's platform, and prevented anybody from reviewing that version of the game.

And the best part, you get people to blame your business partner! Class-A brass balls.

 

[Myobi]

Other AAAs don't manage to get themselves banned from Playstation.

Every time someone mentions this... all that comes to mind is this shit:



GG Sony x,D

 

[Twiglard]

At some point, you have to admire the giant, brass polish balls of someone who pulls the rug from under their business partners in order to salvage their own PR.

Really, that's how you see it? It looks more like basic decency to me.

 

[Gerrard]

Any minute now.

 

[Tyranicon]

At some point, you have to admire the giant, brass polish balls of someone who pulls the rug from under their business partners in order to salvage their own PR.

Really, that's how you see it? It looks more like basic decency to me.

What do you call blanket bans on reviewing console versions of your game? Is that also common decency? How about promising refunds without alerting Sony (who is the one actually processing those refunds, BTW) and swamping their support staff with more work, in a vain attempt to look good?

The idea that CDPR is a company "for teh gamerz" is long dead and buried. They're full corpo now.

 

[Tyranicon]

Also, just dropping this here. Normally, I don't go out of my way to badmouth a company, but the extent and skill of CDPR trying to cover their own ass is astounding.

30,000 copies refunded? Lol what a joke.

https://www.vg247.com/2021/04/23/cyberpunk-2077-refunds-real-cost-cd-projekt/

Here's the pertinent part.

In the conference call, CD Projekt touched on refunds for Cyberpunk 2077. The developer/publisher specifically discussed the Help Me Refund campaign, saying that some 30,000 refund requests were submitted through it. This ended up costing the company $2.23 million all told.

Help Me Refund was a campaign designed to offer disgruntled players, who could not get a refund directly from retailers/digital stores, full compensation. It was a limited-time programme CD Projekt came up with in the wake of widespread mistrust, seemingly as a way to salvage some of its reputation.

But Help Me Refund is only a small part of the cost of refunds. The company also revealed in the same report that $51.2 million (including Help Me Refund) was the real cost of refunds in 2020. CD Projekt said those expenses are, “provisions for returns and expected adjustments of licensing reports related to sales of Cyberpunk 2077 in its release window, in Q4 2020.”