CD Projekt RED’s boss Adam Badowski has probably realized by now that his recent push for crunch to get Cyberpunk 2077 out by its revised December 10th release date wasn’t a great idea.
The developer, despite telling investors that the game runs “surprisingly good” on consoles, decided to restrict pre-launch reviews to the PC version only and released an abysmal mess on consoles. Even the PC version came with a plethora of issues, documented in nearly every review. The subsequent reaction from its community couldn’t be brushed under the rug, prompting CD Projekt RED’s management to take responsibility…internally.
According to an email obtained by Bloomberg, Badowski told developers that they will still receive their bonuses that were tied to Cyberpunk 2077‘s reception because, well, they aren’t the ones at fault.
“We initially had a bonus system that was focused on the game’s ratings and the release date, but after consideration, we believe that measure is simply not fair under the circumstances,” wrote Badowski. “We underestimated the lengths and complexity involved to make this a reality, and still you did everything you could to deliver an ambitious, special game.”
Despite Cyberpunk 2077 celebrating eight million preorders, news of the buggy launch reached investors and CD Projekt RED’s stock fell by 29 percent, as reported by Games Industry. The positive reviews weren’t enough for the shares to recover, and 7.8 percent of the aforementioned drop came after the official worldwide launch.
CDPR has offered no mea culpa to its community, but did promise to release performance updates.
[Source: Bloomberg, Games Industry]
Leave a Reply