You don’t need me to post the parade of gifs showing how broken and beyond the veil broken it was at launch. Recall it was so broken that Sony had to remove it from purchase. I hate this revisionist crap.
Sony only removed it because there was a mass-refunding problem since CDPR told people they had to contact Sony to get refunded, while that wasn’t Sony’s policy. Had nothing to do with how broken the game was (which it was).
Pretty simple root cause analysis to conclude that the game’s brokenness was the ultimate reason though. Like, why was the game being massively refunded?
Sure, but Sony didn’t decide to take it down because it was broken. Only because people were refunding. Bit pedantic, but I see a lot of revisionist history going on in this thread and just wanted it to be clear.
we can be clear that sony removed it because it was so broken that people were mass refunding it. it’s revisionist to say “it had nothing to do with how broken the game was”. the broken game is the direct cause.
It’s still early morning for me, so I apologise for my words and thoughts being muddled.
I just meant the direct reason they removed it wasn’t because it was broken. They would have removed any game that was being mass refunded. But yes, the reason people were refunding was because it was broken.
With realistic expectations, the game has always been a good experience, imo of course. I did not follow any coverage of the game until after release, so I wasn’t sure of what to expect. I’m not excusing their shortcomings, but I feel like the community leaned hard into the “bad game circlejerk” as soon as it came out. I played once at release and got the worst ending. After edgerunners, I played it through three times, the last of which on very hard and with all the endings earned.
I enjoyed it! The 2.0 update is an interesting shakeup. I’m playing through a 4th time and having a good time
I did get all the hype but after a lifetime of experience working in live performance marketing and software marketing, my position is that all marketing is a lie, and with limited experience in journalistic criticism, that too is as subjective as whether you prefer chocolate or strawberry ice cream.
in the end you experience something — regardless of the overall quality, some parts are better than others. And that’s it. That’s experience. Sometimes you love it, sometimes you don’t. Your fave is someone else’s least and vice versa.
That’s wanted by the marketing team tho. Hype creates profit, regardless how shit your product is. There is a reason why the Diablo 4 Facebook ad says “the fastest selling ARPG ever” instead of something tangently related to gameplay. It’s banking on hype sales, product comes second. They need to rake in quick profits to appease their shareholders.
Social media has conditioned people into swarm thinking and instant gratification instead of introspection and reflected decisions. Nobody gives a fuck about long-term consequences anymore. It’s sickening.
Going by the journalistic coverage of the game, yes. If you played on an XB1 or PS4, yes. I’m fortunate to have played it on a competent (not insane) PC and had little to no issues. It wasn’t bug-free, but the issues I encountered were minor and didn’t really bog down the experience tbh
I do and aside from one serious bug that made me start over I had a good time with it, I think summer 2020. I didn’t finish my first playthrough and am waiting for it to install so I can start #2.
This revisionism is quite tiring but I guess that the development companies are counting on it.
The problem with Cyberpunk was not “just bugs” but a 40 minutes video that tells lots of lies and was clearly stated as “fake” to drive up the hype for it.
What you see today was shown as if “ready” 4 years ago. And today we still can’t see the hacking as shown in that video.
On top of that there are all the design decision that are simply terrible but no amount of patches will fix, like the looter shooter approach to loot, levels on enemies, etc etc.
Overall, it’s not a matter of “realistic expectations”. We were lied to and that’s just it.
Starfield is the latest example, While not as crashy/ buggy as Cyberpunk was… You can see the lack of finish, the amputated systems, etc etc, that scream that it is a half finished mess, just like Cyberpunk, and was shoved out the door way too early, just like Cyberpunk.
They wouldn’t have nearly as many problems as they did if they waited another 6 months for the initial release. I have a pc with a 1060 card, and I bought it relatively soon after launch, and it was extremely buggy, and I could barely play even at low settings. I made it maybe a 1/3 into the game before I just gave up and decided to wait until it was improved. I just installed again last week and started another play through, and even pre-2.0 it was markedly better and I could get a consistent 30+ fps on medium.
That’s I think the issue. 2.0 obviously contains many more bug fixes, but that’s not really what that release is about and it’s been past just playable for a long time. I actually really like the idea of 2.0, which is not really a bug fix but rethink of some gameplay mechanics that make a lot of sense. Like, it was always infuriating that the best armored clothes in the game often looked absolutely stupid, so I like them making clothing pretty much just cosmetic, and then moving armor to the ripperdoc upgrades. Sure, they could have probably figured that out for 1.0, but once things get into player hands you are always going to learn something. Conversely, Skryim has shipped on every platform with a screen practically and ships every time with the same garbage ass inventory system from 2011.
So yeah, they (the whole industry) should be releasing games that are fully baked, but I really don’t mind the idea that they’re going to take a game and iterate on it more like a platform. I could see Cyberpunk being something I’m still playing in 10 years as long as they keep adding content and iterating, in much the same way that people are still playing the shit out of GTAV.
Okay, but you being able to eek out fun from it doesnt fundamentally change the fact that it was a buggy, broken, amputated mess that was released 2 years too early.
Well you got here by waiting 3 years to play a game that was perfectly fine about a month post-launch.
As someone who played on launch, with less than “best” specs - it was fine. I had the odd T-posing NPC or texture flicker, but I had decent frames almost everywhere and had a blast with a great game.
It was a very different experience for me. I had a blast playing this game when first released and didn’t find any game breaking moment. This could be due to me playing on PC? So with the latest patch I loaded up my V and found noting of merit had changed. Seriously I found it to be the same game with small UI and Skill changes. I was shocked to say the least, due to the enormous patch size. I still haven’t left training NC so I might find more changes but so far it’s still an enjoyable game.
The game was great for from day one.I can’t recall any significant issues. The Xbox one and PS4 stuff was dumb as all hell and shouldn’t have happened but everyone overreacted on the rest.
Tbf there are only 4 (plus expansion) of those, there has been a cod per year for like 15 years now and a fifa every year for 20+. Those are the egregious offenders, I’m fine with a game franchise getting a new game every 7 years or so as long as it’s clear the studio has actually put work into that game.
“These AAA publishers have, mostly, used this production scale to keep their top franchises in the top selling games each year.”
I never quite understood, why it’s not more popular among big publishers to create smaller games throughout the year. You can have risky AAA titles in development and compete in the AA market at the same time.
It's just easier to advertise a single big game rather than several smaller ones. Even if you are interested in games it's impossible to keep track of everything that's being released. More casual players are aware of even fewer games. That's why AAA games still sell so well because they are the only games a lot of people are even aware of.
If the companies have to split their marketing budget between multiple titles, they would reach a much smaller audience. And even if one of the smaller titles would be a hit, it probably sells fewer copies for a lower price.
Half the cost of the game is marketing. And marketing is an effort that builds upon itself
The more smaller games you have, the more you have to market to niches from scratch. And niches are generally more inclined to be informed users. And it takes a developer with vision to make a satisfying niche hit. Well it always takes vision but…
Meanwhile one big bombastic game will get a bunch of mainstream folks hyped over qualifiers of scope instead of quality. Yes, I am saying hype culture is primarily an idiot’s hobby, but idiots still got cash.
Plus, plus, most studios don’t really see their junior devs as something worth fostering. Better off burning them out and replacing them.
Because the first job of anybody who is responsible for green lighting game development at these huge publishers is to not get fired. Making a game that only just breaks even or even worse makes a loss puts you at risk of getting fired. Even a relatively small game from a large publisher costs a ton to develop and market and has increased risk that nobody will actually buy and play it, at least in the most profitable first few months.
Franchises are so popular with this crowd is because they do not have to worry about name recognition. Hardest thing about getting a brand new title out is just getting people to know it exists and then to be excited about it. Franchises you hardly have to to do any work for that, you know you are going to get press and gamer interest, they sell themselves right up until they release and people get the chance to see if its a house of cards or not.
Its that front loading of sales that they are after, the shops having to buy in stock, idiots who pre order or buy before its clear if the game is broken in someway. Its the most profitable time as the game is at its most expensive, and it enables rapid repayment of the development costs. Games that start slow and have a very long tail of sales do not interest them anywhere near as much as they have already moved onto the next project and already been judged on the initial (under) performance of the game.
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