WTF Happened with Cyberpunk 2077?! | Games ReCAP

what the [ __ ] happened to cyberpunk 2077 find out in today's games recap hello i am brandon pham and you can catch your game news every monday wednesday and thursday all right let's get to it cd projekt red has come off of a hot streak with the witcher series and for eight years gamers worldwide were looking forward to the release of cyberpunk 2077 an original title that promises to usher in the new generation of consoles by revolutionizing everything cyberpunk 2077 is set to continue rpg elements that the developer is known for in an expansive world but it will be in a dysotopian sci-fi infused future and then within a week of release everything went to [ __ ] it all started with jason schreier the resident game developer ball buster when he shared how cd project red reached out to him to announce how cyberpunk 2077 would be avoiding crunching in 2019 and

then exactly a year later in 2020 a company-wide email was sent out to staffs to basically say never mind first of all hilarious second of all don't tattletale on yourself to the number one dude who makes a career out of ousting companies for doing bad [ __ ] to their employees the fact that cd projekt red reached out to him personally showed that they know that he is the guy that he exposes companies for this type of stuff and ruins their reputation it's like people starting their sentences with i don't want to be racist but and proceeds to say something super racist who knows how things could have played out differently and cd projekt red bad crunch culture could have just slid under the radar and said they got the jason schreier on their ass now because you bother him about you being a normal company by not wanting to abuse the people that work for you with unpaid overtime people don't get a pat on their back for not punching people out in the streets so why should you

meanwhile jason schraar can't wait to see you mess up because now he has his story so of course the team at cyberpunk reinstated mandatory crunch in fact they have been crunching 100 plus hour weeks for several months and this was the only beginning of all the bad press that ensued investors analysts and gamers listening in on a recent company call cd projekt red co-ceo adam krasinski pretty much shrugged off years of crunch reports regarding crunch actually it's not that bad and never was of course it's a story that has been picked up by the media and some people have been crunching heavily kasinsky told people who have monetary stake in the company contrary to multiple reports of intense overwork and uncertain timelines but a large part of the team is not crunching at all since they have finished their work it's mostly about q a and engineers programmers but it's not that heavy of course it would be an extended bit but we have

feedback from the team they're happy about the extra three weeks so we don't see any threats regarding crutch shortly after the comments were made and after the story got picked up by mainstream media kosinski apologized in a private email to all cd project developers from the bottom of my heart i would like to apologize to everyone for what i said during tuesday's investors and conference call i had not wanted to comment on crunch yet i still did and i did it in a demeaning and harmful way truth be told it's only now when the stress connected with the delayed decision and the call itself is lifted that i am fully realizing the true extent of my words i have nothing to say in my defense what i said was not even unfortunate it was utterly bad for that please accept my most sincere and honest apologies i always was and am still proud of the heart and soul you put into what you do every day cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed three

times and the company has spent 121 million dollars so far on the game's development has created expansive next-gen technologies including a powerful scalable game engine new ai advancements and a mocap studio this is the biggest game cd project red has ever done so it carries the biggest crunch uh time along with it but you know what after all that drama cyberpunk 2077 finally releases yearly reviews were in and for a moment everybody seemed to agree the weight and suffering was really living up to its hype across all marks this heightened the excitement even further and the gamers were well i couldn't wait to get their hands on this game even the studio executives at project red were brimming with passion within the first days of release they announced 8 million pre-orders were sold and cyberpunk 2077 has already recouped its development costs and a memo issued that first friday by cd project the company was making bank and you know

why i know because they didn't mind sharing the breadcrumbs to employees and executives by announcing that bonuses will no longer be tied to metacritic scores a ridiculous near perfect score that very few games actually achieves but it's okay they are on a money high and don't mind bending the rules a bit and am in the christmas spirit or something we initially had a bonus system that was focused on the game's ratings and the release date but after consideration we believed that measure is simply not fair under their circumstances we underestimated the lengths and complexity involved to making this a reality and still you did everything you could to deliver an ambitious special game in all fairness executives didn't have to budge on this but they did which is at least the one decent thing they've done for the past year of mandatory crunching but like all honeymoon phases this feeling of just conquering the world came down crashing

pretty quickly but let's let them savor the moment just a bit longer okay that's enough here comes the [ __ ] storm upon dismantling the tied in bonuses to the metacritic score some questionable practices were starting to unravel itself the bonus systems as cd projekt red was being exposed as being very patronizing team leaders would hand out red bird tokens to employees who felt they were deserving of praise and honors these tokens would be redeemable in a form of actual pay bonuses if the game met the previous set metal critic score goal these performance bonuses are set to occur on top of the existing contractual profit sharing payouts even with the benefit of a doubt that this was meant to be fair and logical practices like these only promote competition with people on the same team and what's worse is the reward wasn't even guaranteed it was based on a variable outside of an employee's control so the whole system

was rigged from the start aside from that gamers were starting to find bugs like lots and lots of bugs b ain't for the driver now triple a game nowadays are used to day one bucks and patches however these bugs were so bad that it was deemed unplayable actually it was so bad that playstation didn't even want the game on their store anymore and consoles were giving back refunds for digital copies the community was getting pissed and felt like they were lied to because they were on investor call cdpr co-founder marcin owinski says we've actually shown console footage but never on the last gen consoles the reason is that we were updating the game on last generation consoles until the very last minute and we thought we'd make it in time so instead of working from the bottom up cdpr worked on the newest console versions as top priorities as we all know in game development that is ass backwards and it's harder to

downres a game than to build responsibly on a low spec machine first it's always a little questionable as a business tactic since the playstation 4 and xbox one have the hugest installed fan base usually aaa games that are made in transitional console generation years avoid this mess by simply going for the big pie first on last gen consoles and then throwing a bone for the niche market next consoles instead cd pr did the exact opposite this is a huge neglect that cdpr is quickly answering for in the worst way possible as all this horribleness is unfolding the game still manages to cross another impressive milestone and hit 13 million units sold across all platforms but even with that celebration it was cut short as cd projekt red stocks took a 30 nose dive with the mounting news of bad press not only that internal meetings were happening and according to drayson schreier at bloomberg one staff member asked management white said that cyberpunk 2077 was complete in

january when according to that employee it wasn't another developer suggests that it was hypocritical to develop a game about corporate exploitation with the help of manatee overtime damn i really miss these awkward team meetings when [ __ ] hits the fan furthermore when asked about crunch the studio director said they had plans to improve production practices in the future but didn't elaborate on wright's dryer so it's clear that everyone is a little mad but executives are made to spin this type of thing all the time but the only ones that can really make them pay attention are the ones that pays them the investors and a simple zoom meeting wouldn't really settle this nope this can only be settled in court and it sure looks like it's heading that way a class action suit has been filed and investors are banding together to sue cd projekt red over bungled cyberpunk 2077 launch the plaintiffs call for the court to adjudicate whether the actions undertaken by the company and members of

its management board in connection with the release of cyberpunk 2077 constitute a violation of federal laws i.e by misleading investors and consequently causing them to incur losses cdpr said in the filing late on friday vowing to defend itself vigorously against any such claims so what does this all mean the community is pissed the internal team that isn't management is pissed and the people who are funding the studio is pissed at this point if i were them i would consult with the ghost of no man's sky to give some friendly advice on how to turn this ship around because if there is ever a better story than the fall of a champion it's the redemption kind but i'm afraid that the greed here and total lack of human discipline to the people that got these executives to where they are is starting to be out of reach i believe cd projekt red has for now tarnished their reputation of being a developer darling that took years to build by the way and destroyed it all in a matter of weeks but there's always

a chance as long as they make the game to what they promised and keep patching away as always i wish for the best to all the hard-working developers as you can imagine nothing hurts more than seeing something you poured your sweat and soul in for almost a decade then see it ripped apart within days especially when developers knew deadlines were unrealistic in the first place but these concerns were largely ignored maybe games before could get away with this and get lucky but one thing is clear this generation of games are getting bigger more expensive which also means stakes are higher and mistakes like this may not necessarily sink a studio but the company will have to work 10 times harder to earn the consumer trust back after violating it and that concludes today's games recap as always if you like this channel make sure to subscribe and be sure to come back every monday wednesday and thursday for your game news