CDPR execs face tough questions in unscheduled investors call

[Cal Jeffrey]

In the hot seat: CD Projekt Red held an unscheduled call with investors on Monday to clear the air over the Cyberpunk 2077 buggy release. Stakeholders asked CDPR executives many challenging questions regarding problems with the game and the greenlighting of refunds.

When asked if the company felt pressured to release the game even though the console version was in a terribly buggy state, Senior Vice President of Business Development Michał Nowakowski said that the decision was more about a failure in thoroughly looking at performance on base consoles rather than "internal or external pressures." It simply did not examine current-gen performance as closely as it did on next-gen and PC.

"It is more about us looking – as was previously stated – at the PC and next-gen performance rather than current-gen," Nowakowski explained. "We definitely did not spend enough time looking at that. I wouldn't say that we felt any external or internal pressure to launch on the date – other than the normal pressure, which is typical for any release. "

Nowakowski also said that he felt that the game made it through Sony's and Microsoft's quality certification process because they trusted CDPR to get the problems ironed out promptly after release. He added that the patching process has already begun, with an update released over the weekend and another rolling out next week. He reassured investors that in January, the game would receive huge improvements, and by February, it would have all of the major issues fixed.

Regarding the refunds, CDPR had to clarify that customers are not just handed refunds with no questions asked. For the most part, Sony and Microsoft are handling returns for digital versions and have guidelines and restrictions in that process. CDPR ultimately has no control over whether or not they issue those refunds.

For example, both companies require refund requests to be submitted no more than 14-days after purchase. Sony further expects that the game has not been downloaded and played. Microsoft looks at claims on a "case-by-case" basis. In any event, consumers may or may not get approved for a refund, and that decision is at the sole digression of Microsoft and Sony.

The execs also stressed that they were not encouraging customers to ask for refunds, despite the tone of their earlier tweet.

"We are not encouraging gamers to return the game; we hope they'll give us a chance to improve it on old-gen consoles," CDPR co-founder and joint CEO Marcin Iwiński stated. "We sincerely hope that gamers will prefer to wait for updates since they had waited so long for the game, but – again – this is our humble hope."

"I want to state that clearly, as there seem to be certain misconceptions," Nowakowski chimed in. "Our procedure here with Microsoft and Sony is not different
than with any other title released on any of those storefronts."

When asked about the number of refunds issued so far, Joint-CEO Adam Kiciński said they did not have those figures yet, adding that they have not determined if they will share those numbers outside of the company. However, he did say that it would share sales figures sometime before Christmas.

Kiciński also shed some optimism on the situation, saying that the longer people play Cyberpunk 2077, the more positive things they have to say about it.

"Sentiment is positive. With every passing day since the release, we're getting more and more positive feedback," the CEO said. "We started low, but we're gaining. [muffled] we started with a score of 70, but now it's 79. If you filter those who have played 10 hours or more, the score is 85 – so the more you play, the more enjoyment you feel."

The primary takeaway from the call was that CDPR wanted to make it clear that it was not abandoning Cyberpunk 2077, and that the stock prices that took a tumble, will recover. It ultimately expects the game to perform as well or better than The Witcher 3 did, which also suffered a shoddy release.

You can read the full transcript of the call on CD Projekt Red's website.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/87979-cdpr-execs-face-tough-questions-unscheduled-investors-call.html

 

[Uncle Al]

Sounds like these boys have a basket full of excuses with very few legitimate reasons .......

 

[Lionvibez]

Sounds like these boys have a basket full of excuses with very few legitimate reasons .......

Yup smells like BS.

How are you not going to test on the base consoles? There is probably more of those users than Next Gen + PC users combined.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

This is what I don't understand:

How did the PS4 version EVER get past Beta testing?

Like - who was the person who needed to sign off on it BEFORE they started printing disks?

I LOVE the game, but unless you've got a 3000 RTX beast of a rig, you ain't playing it right.

 

[Dimitriid]

I think that their release schedule and plan did not take into account the next gen console launch would be in such restricted numbers: I think that back in maybe March or April when making these decisions, they knew the PS4 and Xbox One versions would be lacking but they were betting on most people not caring cause most people were projected to be buying it and playing it on the PS5 and Series X consoles instead.

This is not unlike other console releases: If you go all the way back to GTA V the PS3 and 360 version at launch was also performing pretty roughly but at that point Rockstar was also betting on most people playing it on the new generation hardware.

Is a reasonable miscalculation to make and something they couldn't really predict but I guess they did not want to sound even worst by basically all but saying "You peasants were supposed to be playing this on the new consoles! Of course a title we constantly pushed as looking next gen was going to perform poorly if not on next gen consoles!"

 

[Benses]

This is not unlike other console releases: If you go all the way back to GTA V the PS3 and 360 version at launch was also performing pretty roughly but at that point Rockstar was also betting on most people playing it on the new generation hardware.

Didn't the GTAV release like a year after the ps4 and xbox one came out? How could they have been betting people would play it on the next gen console?

 

[Sherwoodnt]

They received death threats for delaying due to quality issues and then beat up for not delaying again it seems. That’s on top of criticism for crunch. All from probably 3 different sets of people.

Game developers are in a tough spot. I know there are plenty who would disagree I’m sure.

 

[yRaz]

They received death threats for delaying due to quality issues and then beat up for not delaying again it seems. That’s on top of criticism for crunch. All from probably 3 different sets of people.

Game developers are in a tough spot. I know there are plenty who would disagree I’m sure.

I just have a hard time understanding people's outrage compared to EA/activision/Ubisoft and basically mobile gaming.

Have we been conditioned to the point where sh*t developers get a pass just because it's what we expect when good devs make mistakes? It's like people forget the developers are just a group of humans working together all with the same problems we all have now.

They said at the start of November that they were having problems with performance on older hardware and that was the reason for the delay. It's not like they lied to us like the media is trying to make it out to be

 

[ThrakazogZ]

This is what I don't understand:

How did the PS4 version EVER get past Beta testing?

Like - who was the person who needed to sign off on it BEFORE they started printing disks?

I LOVE the game, but unless you've got a 3000 RTX beast of a rig, you ain't playing it right.

I can't speak to console performance, but I run a 1080ti and 1440p monitor, and my FPS stays in the upper 40's on ultra setting. It's a Gsync monitor, so upper 40's is smooth and playable for me. I'm sure I would need a 3000 series to play in 4k, though.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I can't speak to console performance, but I run a 1080ti and 1440p monitor, and my FPS stays in the upper 40's on ultra setting. It's a Gsync monitor, so upper 40's is smooth and playable for me. I'm sure I would need a 3000 series to play in 4k, though.

The 1080Ti can "run the game" but you don't get ray tracing effects.

A dude down south actually bought a 2080Ti from me because he tried to run this game on a 980Ti. He should get his package in the mail by Thursday.

 

[CrisisDog]

I've played this on my Xbox One X @ 1080p for about 5 hours now. Although I'm becoming bored with it, I can't say that I have had any "major" technical issues. I have seen: two NPCs that ran through each other; a 10 second loading stall (?) while walking; my character looks terrible (pixelated) when looking at a reflection (nothing like the creation screens). Otherwise, it feels like any other Xbox console RPG I've attempted to get into. Maybe the base model consoles are suffering much more, but I didn't notice anything game-breaking on the One X.

 

[wiak]

Greenlighing refunds??
customers in eu and some other countries can infact request a refund, no questions asked

 

[DZillaXx]

The 1080Ti can "run the game" but you don't get ray tracing effects.

A dude down south actually bought a 2080Ti from me because he tried to run this game on a 980Ti. He should get his package in the mail by Thursday.

Honestly the raytracing is nice, but I'm still waiting on games that are built from the ground up to use ray tracing.

Raytracing in this game is still mostly a gimmick and really doesn't change the look of the game as much as I would have hoped.

While I love the game I really wish they spent more time on the polish. The Driving mechanic is just down right a joke, I feel even the driving mechanic that GTA V or hell even 4 would have been way better. Physics in this game are highly lacking. The stiffness in the world is a huge standout, NPCs are worse than games we got more than a decade ago... They should have noticed this game was not worthy of last gen consoles even two years ago, It should have been a next gen game. Having to focus on getting this game running on such old hardware really keeps this game down. I feel it could have been so much more if the CPU limitations were not in place. This game should have been filled with drones flying around in the sky, streets packed with cars. People all over the place. Even on PC while driving the City is empty.

The Main Story and Side Quests are a blast to play through and the overall game mechanic works. Its easily one of the best games to come out in the last decade. Maybe Starfield will be the game to really show what a next Gen RPG could be like. As Cyberpunk is largely a giant side step. In many ways Skyrim (hell even Fallout) was more impressive at launch.

 

[LuckyMenace]

Honestly, they should've pushed the game to Nov, 2021 but it's clear that they were running out of money. We forget that COVID has made development so much more difficult and time consuming that a few months of delays would not have made up the lost resources. The fact we even got a release in 2020 is nothing short of a miracle.

It's easy to talk trash on the internet to these incredibly hardworking developers, but we were going through a pandemic that upended all our lives. I'm sorry that your video game isn't working right but let's give some perspective before we swing the mighty ban hammer on everything CDPR have done in the last 8 years.

 

[psycros]

The game would've been playable on current gen consoles if they hadn't been quite so ambitious with the graphics. Visuals are all that most companies seem to care about now, to the point that developers limit the rest of the game in order to accommodate the eye candy. Yes, I understand that they want the game to be somewhat "future-proof", but the reality is that most players will have blazed through every iota of release content within two months of purchase. I'm sure CDPR is already hard at work on the first DLC which only added to the release pressure. I would really like to see a freeze on the graphics arms race for a few years in order to let gameplay catch up.

 

[loki1944]

Honestly the raytracing is nice, but I'm still waiting on games that are built from the ground up to use ray tracing.

Raytracing in this game is still mostly a gimmick and really doesn't change the look of the game as much as I would have hoped.

While I love the game I really wish they spent more time on the polish. The Driving mechanic is just down right a joke, I feel even the driving mechanic that GTA V or hell even 4 would have been way better. Physics in this game are highly lacking. The stiffness in the world is a huge standout, NPCs are worse than games we got more than a decade ago... They should have noticed this game was not worthy of last gen consoles even two years ago, It should have been a next gen game. Having to focus on getting this game running on such old hardware really keeps this game down. I feel it could have been so much more if the CPU limitations were not in place. This game should have been filled with drones flying around in the sky, streets packed with cars. People all over the place. Even on PC while driving the City is empty.

The Main Story and Side Quests are a blast to play through and the overall game mechanic works. Its easily one of the best games to come out in the last decade. Maybe Starfield will be the game to really show what a next Gen RPG could be like. As Cyberpunk is largely a giant side step. In many ways Skyrim (hell even Fallout) was more impressive at launch.

Makes think of GTA IV; which still runs like total dog **** no matter the hardware.

 

[loki1944]

The game would've been playable on current gen consoles if they hadn't been quite so ambitious with the graphics. Visuals are all that most companies seem to care about now, to the point that developers limit the rest of the game in order to accommodate the eye candy. Yes, I understand that they want the game to be somewhat "future-proof", but the reality is that most players will have blazed through every iota of release content within two months of purchase. I'm sure CDPR is already hard at work on the first DLC which only added to the release pressure. I would really like to see a freeze on the graphics arms race for a few years in order to let gameplay catch up.

They should have scaled the graphics between pc and console sounds like.

 

[BSim500]

They received death threats for delaying due to quality issues and then beat up for not delaying again it seems. That’s on top of criticism for crunch. All from probably 3 different sets of people. Game developers are in a tough spot. I know there are plenty who would disagree I’m sure.

They're in a tough spot, yes, but it's largely self-inflicted. They started hyping the game far too hard and far too early. CDPR's marketing dept wants gamers whipped up into a frenzy. Problem is CDPR's management seems incapable of "joining the dots" that 'peak hype' is supposed to coincide with a highly polished "final release", not halfway through beta testing. If they'd have just quietly worked on Cyberpunk 2077 at the start then delayed the hype train by 18-24 months, they wouldn't have been pressured to release too early and the game would have been released "when it's ready" sometime in 2021-2022, probably to a lot of praise.

 

[Digitalzone]

Hm... CDPR did a fraudulent marketing.
Not showing base consoles gameplay, not allowing console versions reviews, false promises "It runs well on base consoles", false claims about features of game. They bassicaly promised everything.
CP2077 is an epic failure for whole gaming industry IMHO. It's a failure of Sony and MS for even allowing this game to get on their platform, it's failure for bribed game journalist giving the game good marks, it's a failure of brainwashed CDPR fans who thought CDPR is anything better and it's ofc failure of CDPR to set the threshold in game industry even lower than it already was.

Bugs and glitches are acceptable, the fact the game is one of the worst looking console games is unacceptable. Not to mention, the basic game mechanics are missing and were coded likely by monkeys. Looking at the AI...

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Honestly the raytracing is nice, but I'm still waiting on games that are built from the ground up to use ray tracing.

Raytracing in this game is still mostly a gimmick and really doesn't change the look of the game as much as I would have hoped.

While I love the game I really wish they spent more time on the polish. The Driving mechanic is just down right a joke, I feel even the driving mechanic that GTA V or hell even 4 would have been way better. Physics in this game are highly lacking. The stiffness in the world is a huge standout, NPCs are worse than games we got more than a decade ago... They should have noticed this game was not worthy of last gen consoles even two years ago, It should have been a next gen game. Having to focus on getting this game running on such old hardware really keeps this game down. I feel it could have been so much more if the CPU limitations were not in place. This game should have been filled with drones flying around in the sky, streets packed with cars. People all over the place. Even on PC while driving the City is empty.

The Main Story and Side Quests are a blast to play through and the overall game mechanic works. Its easily one of the best games to come out in the last decade. Maybe Starfield will be the game to really show what a next Gen RPG could be like. As Cyberpunk is largely a giant side step. In many ways Skyrim (hell even Fallout) was more impressive at launch.

Cyberpunk is what happens when a game spends too much time in Development Hell. Remember Duke Nukem Forever?

You get a game that’s designed for one system, only it can’t run well on that system, but as technology matures, the developers try to implement new tech which doesn’t mesh well with the fundamentals...and then you get budget overruns which eventually turn into forced releases... that end up getting overrun and continue to build hype.

In the end, everyone is disappointed.

I am fortunate to be able to afford a great machine, but most people can’t run this game properly.

 

[Irata]

They received death threats for delaying due to quality issues and then beat up for not delaying again it seems. That’s on top of criticism for crunch. All from probably 3 different sets of people.

Game developers are in a tough spot. I know there are plenty who would disagree I’m sure.

Seems like they delivered on both - late delivery yet still plenty of issues.

It‘s been in development for what.... eight / nine years ?

 

[BSim500]

Not to mention, the basic game mechanics are missing and were coded likely by monkeys. Looking at the AI...

Traffic AI is beyond broken:-
Nice, um "approaching" traffic...
And immersive distant traffic...
Which car shall I steal, the silver one, the red one, the green one?...

^ I predict that even an "extra year of patching" is going to need an extra year of patching...

 

[Theinsanegamer]

They received death threats for delaying due to quality issues and then beat up for not delaying again it seems. That’s on top of criticism for crunch. All from probably 3 different sets of people.

Game developers are in a tough spot. I know there are plenty who would disagree I’m sure.

We hear this every time there is difficulty with a game, "muh death threats". Where are the reciepts? Nobody ever shows actual PROOF of these "threats", but the claim gets rolled out every time a game develoepr finds themselves over their heads desperately trying to finish a buggy product.

Boy calling wolf. We've heard that excuse WAY too many times with 0 proof to think its legitimate.

Hm... CDPR did a fraudulent marketing.
Not showing base consoles gameplay, not allowing console versions reviews, false promises "It runs well on base consoles", false claims about features of game. They bassicaly promised everything.
CP2077 is an epic failure for whole gaming industry IMHO. It's a failure of Sony and MS for even allowing this game to get on their platform, it's failure for bribed game journalist giving the game good marks, it's a failure of brainwashed CDPR fans who thought CDPR is anything better and it's ofc failure of CDPR to set the threshold in game industry even lower than it already was.

Bugs and glitches are acceptable, the fact the game is one of the worst looking console games is unacceptable. Not to mention, the basic game mechanics are missing and were coded likely by monkeys. Looking at the AI...

This should be evidence enough for anyone who thinks CDPR is any better then the rest of AAA trash. GoG is a great platform, but the developer side is slimey and incompetent.

Seems like they delivered on both - late delivery yet still plenty of issues.

It‘s been in development for what.... eight / nine years ?

No. The concept was shown off 8 years ago, but actual work ont he game did not start until the end of blood and wine for witcher 3.

Of course, CDPR also managed to piss off most of their polish dev team to the point they left the company, so instead they outsourced development to an american studio, which had experience with such titles as mass effect andromeda. What a FANTASTIC choice.