Who is responsible for the Cyberpunk 2077 controversy?
The controversy surrounding Cyberpunk 2077 is quite justified; the game doesn’t run for a meter. But who is responsible for the mess?
It was supposed to be the game release of this decade, but the initial results are mediocre at best. Cyberpunk 2077 is a masterpiece in many ways, but that depends entirely on which platform you use. On the last-gen consoles, it’s an absolute mess. That resulted in death threats to the developers and a massive run for refunds. But who is actually responsible for the Cyberpunk 2077 controversy?
Cyberpunk 2077 controversy by CD Projekt Red?
Cyberpunk 2077’s launch was anything but smooth and the ensuing controversy disastrous for CD Projekt Red. The exceptionally likable Polish developer has long been known as a gamer-friendly company. But this launch changed that perspective.
Cyberpunk 2077 was not shown on last-gen consoles in the run-up to December 10. Why not, that soon became clear. The game does not run on that hardware for any reason. Add in all the delays and gamers are disappointed with CDPR to say the least.
But is it the developer’s fault? Well, yes and no. Employees tell Bloomberg that there is currently a lot of chaos within the company. Developers are said to have had fierce discussions with management.
Mismanagement
The Cyberpunk 2077 debacle is therefore mainly caused by controversy within CD Projekt Red itself. According to employees, the board has made promises time and again that the employees could not deliver.
For example, the game would have been almost finished and playable in January. That turns out to have been a marketing talk, because it was not true at all. In recent months, employees have also been forced to work 6 days a week; also called ‘crunch’.
It is a phenomenon that is very controversial in the gaming industry and that Cyberpunk 2077 would not have to deal with. The management had explicitly promised not to apply a crunch. Add to that unreasonable deadlines and you have a deadly cocktail for a game release.
We are also responsible
It should be clear, the management of CD Projekt Red is clearly in need of replacement. But at the same time we, the gamers, may also need to make some changes.
After all, our expectations have never been as high as with Cyberpunk 2077, which would create an inevitable controversy. After all, the game could never get as good as our imaginations suggested.
And that fantasy continues to place higher demands on games. For example, watch Skyrim (2011), The Witcher 3 (2015) or Batman: Arkham Knight (2015). Titles with gigantic expectations, which were terribly buggy at launch and were ultimately found phenomenally good.
In none of those cases were death threats sent to the developers (as far as we know). There was no mention of ‘the most disappointing game ever’. It is not only the buggy product that is disappointing, but also our expectations of it.
Regardless, it’s an indisputable fact that CD Projekt Red made a blunder with Cyberpunk 2077’s last-gen launch. bin. Let’s have faith in the developer, who has applied his excellent support over and over again and will undoubtedly do so this time.
