it includes how much they spent on making the DLC and marketing for it. Around 2/3rds of the money still went into fixing/reworking the game from what I can tell
Why do you think it didn’t go into devs? Maybe you are being cynical, but managers and CEOs are definitely devs too, they need their extra motivation to convince themselves the game is gooder.
headline number is only the equivalent of ~200-300 tech employee salaries for 3 years, less for junior, more for senior, less for designers, marketers, more for Directors, VPs, Execs…
Marketing isn’t cheap either. Can’t rely on word of mouth when that word is “shite”. Fixing the code would have been relatively cheap compared to fixing their reputation.
reportedly enforcing uncompensated overtime, allegedly trying to pay staff below minimum wage, and a toxic work environment cultivated by an alleged abusive leadership
Hardly surprising and it fits the scenario: a relatively small indie dev studio with only small-mid sized games under their belt with leadership deciding to buy into one of the most expensive IP available. Now, not only do they have a publisher looming over their work but are also under serious financial pressure to perform as well as expectation of a huge fan base plus promising a AAA sized game.
The leadership simply bit off far more than they could chew and panic set in, resulting in cut corners everywhere.
End result was a predictable disaster. Could have been avoided with smarter/better leadership. Clearly they didn’t think much of their dev team.
They could give away the game for free for a short boost in players, but they need to do something about the endgame first. Or else they end up in the same position they are in now.
Microsoft upped the Gamepass price on the basis that it would allow for bigger titles. Honestly I think they are delivering on that with Starfield and Forza Motorsport amongst others. EA Play inclusion also adds value as does having the 2 out of the 3 most recent AC chapters. Ubisoft + can go suck a dick though, I want Valhalla and eventually Mirage on Gamepass.
“ reportedly enforcing uncompensated overtime, allegedly trying to pay staff below minimum wage, and a toxic work environment cultivated by an alleged abusive leadership.”
Why even attempt AAA game with such a small budget/team size ratio?
It would have been a good game if they had cut the amount of developers and the scope of the game to fit the budget. I’ve recently tried smaller games like Dysmantle and they’re great, why not even pixel/FF style Lord of the rings game? That would be awesome and cost less
Absolutely, I remember seeing the original preview trailer with the tag line “Release Date: When it’s ready.” And I was like wow mad respect this is gonna rock. What a fucking bait and switch that was.
I can say I am replaying it now on the exact same PC setup I used 3 years ago and it is a completely different experience. No crashes, no glitches (so far), no random naked T posing on my motorcycle (which is kind of sad, that shit was hilarious). The skills system is totally reworked and I put it to hard difficulty and the enemies now put up more of a fight (AI is still kind of dumb tho). Cops actually chase you, you can finally shoot out of your car (there’s also new skills in the skill tree for improving vehicle abilities). Sooo it’s worth revisiting even if you don’t buy the DLC, IMO.
IIRC, CDPR had delayed it a number of times for just that reason, but were eventually pressured into releasing earlier than they wanted. On PC, there were some minor issues that were quickly patched, but none that negatively affected my playthrough.
I think he means the developers were pressured by CDPR's upper management. The devs were saying that the game wasn't ready, but management was telling them it had to ship, anyway.
It very much is a difference. If you’ve ever worked a corporate job, the relationship between devs and execs is exactly the same as a publisher and studio relationship. The devs did not want to release the game yet, nor do I think they wanted to support legacy consoles, but the shareholders forced that on them.
But that does not matter to us as consumers. The product was intentionally released half baked, whether the decision was made by someone within CDPR or outside, it is the same.
I don’t care about their company organisation, I care about the product.
Anecdotally, I played on PC at launch, no mods or fixes and had a pretty good time. The most buggy things I encountered were people clipping into my car when driving and forcing me to hit them. Random stuff, but nothing too bad IMHO, not like game crashes, awful lag/latency, save corruption, etc.
Definitely not bug free, I ran into those often, but I felt like they were mostly trivial. As another concession, I did have an above average rig so I didn’t really fall into any of the terrible optimization problems.
I also enjoyed it playing on GeForceNow. I didn’t build up any game specific hype. I only looked forward to the next CDPR game and avoided most trailers and footage. Going into the game without expectations likely helped a lot.
I mean and there are a ton of people who are super into the far cry games even though I see them as generic games. Like sure people can find the game fun but I was expect CRPG levels of details but what I got was CDPR's version of Far Cry minus the pointless filler with capturing radio towers (thank god for that) but filled with all the other filler from those games. The story writing was pretty good and that was its big advantage but the AI was pretty brain dead, which made the fighting rather dull. Add on top of that on launch you could literally stand in the same exact spot and clear a section of the AI and then repeat ad nauseam. I haven't kept up with far cry since maybe 3 but I have played the Division 2 although that game has many failings one of its biggest pluses was the AI was pretty smart compared to most other AIs in the modern day and I would hope the other "Tom Clancy games" would use a similar AI but who knows.
Like having cyberware only be useful for combat, just feels like a pointless thing. We should have RP/world moments with them but at least in 1.0 there was none. Just the game is filled with so many missed opportunities. The og trailer for this game was sold on the importance of Cyberpsychos but in the game they are just some filler quests that you can get some lore on before you fight them but vanilla you got nothing unique for doing it (apparently in 1.2 you are now given a proper reward for it but it shows how sidelined that "questline" was). Very little destructible terrain. Like I'm not some fanboy who watched every trailer before release. I only watched the 2013 and the E3 gameplay premiere for it before buying the game whenever it released (after seeing it was scored pretty highly by reviewers). It was just a deeply disappointing game where they basically showcased the prologue showing how "reactive" the world was but beyond the prologue the world really doesn't take in account of the things you have done. There are some things but its alot smaller than what was showcased.
Lol you can watch YouTube videos to see how shit it was. There’s really no reason or basis to argue this with the monumental amount of evidence that proves it. Sony pulled it from their online store because it was so bad.
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Aktywne