Class-action lawsuits reportedly brewing over Cyberpunk 2077 buggy launch

[onetheycallEric]

Recap: A game eight years in the making, Cyberpunk 2077 was recently met with a disastrous launch. The game is riddled with bugs, and the performance on PS4 and Xbox One consoles was laughably bad. The outcry over the game became so loud, that CD Projekt Red directed customers to seek a refund in a public apology. This in turn led customers to flood Sony and Microsoft with refund requests, and subsequently, Sony responding by offering full refunds -- and taking Cyberpunk 2077 off of the PlayStation Store until further notice.

It seems the ride isn't over yet. And while we're all but hoping for a happy ending and a transformative process No Man's Sky-style, according to a report from The New York Times, there’s the real possibility of one or more class-action lawsuits in the aftermath of CD Projekt Red's tumultuous Cyberpunk 2077 launch.

It should be noted that while the game is still getting patched, and that's somewhat to be expected given its open world nature, your mileage will vary on how bad gameplay and bugs present themselves. For once, the PC appears to have received the better and more polished version, while next-gen consoles are better off, too.

While there’s not much to go on now, at least one future lawsuit is being investigated under the possibility of crimes committed that would violate Article 286 of Poland’s Penal Code. Article 286 seems to deal with misrepresentation or exploitation for the purposes of financial gain.

Welcome... to #Cyberpunk2077 on PS4 fat / XBO ! pic.twitter.com/77BSmEuw6y

— Legolas (@Legolas) December 9, 2020

Separately, Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP, a law firm out of New York, is also looking into a possible class-action lawsuit. According to its website, the firm specializes in securities and shareholder litigation.

It seems that in order for the lawsuits to materialize, they will hinge on proving that CD Projekt intentionally misled investors and shareholders.

#CYBERPUNK2077 PC 4K Ultra#NVIDIARTX #RTXON [Ray Tracing On] #VPEclipse
Jig Jig Street 💕🥰

Aspect Ratio [16:9]🖥️3840x2160px pic.twitter.com/ZaicDmCyMq

— Craig 💫 (@Craig__99) December 16, 2020

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https://www.techspot.com/news/88044-class-action-lawsuits-reportedly-brewing-over-cyberpunk-2077.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

The extent of this lawsuit should be that anyone who purchased this game on disk who is not happy with it should be able to return it for their money back.

Same goes for people who got the digital download.

Going Forward, games should not be made available if they don't work.

This could have ALL been avoided simply by disallowing PS4 owners and Xbox One owners from purchasing it unless it was understood that it would be downloadable on the Xbox Series X and the PS5.

That said: this game feels like "the new Crysis". I played it on my streaming rig that has a 9900k, 3090 and 32GB DDr4 with SSD and could still only muster 50 fps. That's ridiculous and it tells me this game was NEVER going to work on a last gen console - let alone one with a HDD and slower "everything".


I wasn't on the hype train.

I didn't care about this game or look up any news during its development process.

I wasn't even going to buy it.

I wrote it off as a Borderlands clone (a reason I never bought Far Cry: New Dawn).

But something about it made me give it a chance and I was shocked at how awesome a game it turned out to be.

This game absolutely succeeds on the PC and it's just sad that anyone in development had any belief whatsoever they could get it on last-gen systems. My Xbox One: Day One edition is so slow it barely boots up properly nowadays.

 

[nnguy2]

This is a great game on pc.

Dirty peasant console owners need to get better console.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

This is a great game on pc.

Dirty peasant console owners need to get better console.

I 100% agree with you, but I wouldn't type that comment myself because I'd get censored immediately.

Thanks for saying it.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The extent of this lawsuit should be that anyone who purchased this game on disk who is not happy with it should be able to return it for their money back.

Same goes for people who got the digital download.

Going Forward, games should not be made available if they don't work.

This could have ALL been avoided simply by disallowing PS4 owners and Xbox One owners from purchasing it unless it was understood that it would be downloadable on the Xbox Series X and the PS5.

That said: this game feels like "the new Crysis". I played it on my streaming rig that has a 9900k, 3090 and 32GB DDr4 with SSD and could still only muster 50 fps. That's ridiculous and it tells me this game was NEVER going to work on a last gen console - let alone one with a HDD and slower "everything".


I wasn't on the hype train.

I didn't care about this game or look up any news during its development process.

I wasn't even going to buy it.

I wrote it off as a Borderlands clone (a reason I never bought Far Cry: New Dawn).

But something about it made me give it a chance and I was shocked at how awesome a game it turned out to be.

This game absolutely succeeds on the PC and it's just sad that anyone in development had any belief whatsoever they could get it on last-gen systems. My Xbox One: Day One edition is so slow it barely boots up properly nowadays.

yes, they should not have allowed the game built for the ps4/xbone to be purchased and played on the ps4/xbone.

We have seem far more complex games run fine on the ps4. Cp2077 is blatantly unfinished, it's not a PS5 game that was backported. There was no indication what the PS5 would be rocking when this entered production, hell when this game first started amd was still rocking bulldozer, and dual cotes were more common them quad cores in gaming pcs! Even if technical work on the game didnt start until 2016, that was the first year of zen. Intel was still pushing quad cores and AMD struggled to hit 4 ghz. The PS4 was only 3 years old, and depending on what part of 2016 youre in, the 980ti was still the big dog with hawaii in a desperate bid to hold back maxwell

What SHOULD have happened is SONY/MS flagging the game due to terrible performance, and refuse to let the game onto the store until the product is finished. If it becomes the defacto standard to begin offering refunds on blatantly broken games, I'd bet that the verification process would begin paying a lot more attention to game performance.

 

[m4a4]

I do hope whoever was in charge of changing the whole "It'll be out when it's ready" to "Get it out for the holidays on every platform" gets what they deserve. Definitely negligence from higher up to have such a launch on the consoles.

That said, took me about 60hrs to beat the main quest and all side quests (with plenty of distractions) on PC. Only a few bugs that had me loading a checkpoint.

 

[Kirby1]

There's nothing stopping this from running on past gen consoles besides some better optimization. They might even need to lower the graphics settings further but the gameplay itself is simple, the AI is simple, the physics are average. There is nothing about this game that should prevent it from working on last gen consoles. Just because ray tracing is demanding on PC, does not at all mean last gen consoles can't do it without ray tracing. I expect the performance on past gen will get smoothed out pretty nicely.

 

[Eldritch]

Just some suits trying to extort a company for some quick cash. Game is good on PC and console players can refund it.
Where the CAL comes into picture? Defrauding Investors? Is having a buggy release a fraud? Someone better alert Bethesda then.

 

[bviktor]

What a bunch of entitled morons. First they complain the devs are working overtime, then they complain about the delays, now they complain the game is released too soon.

Rage culture. You just can't please them.

 

[RedGuard]

*rockets and bullets flying overhead*

Me playing Cyberpunk 2077 without an issue with headphones on: Life is good.

 

[Faelan]

I got my PC version refunded. I’m sure there’s a decent game underneath all the bugs and lackluster performance (can’t even get 60fps on my 3090 without resorting to tweaks), but I’m just not willing to keep supporting this kind of behavior over and over again. By the time this is in a solid playable condition, it’ll probably be on sale on Steam. I’ll grab it then.

 

[stewi0001]

Lawyers want money too.

 

[amghwk]

People forget that this game started development with the PS4 and Xbox One in mind. 8 years ago, there was not even the blueprint for a PS5 or Xbox Series X/S architecture available for the developers.

CDPR directorial team f-ked up with their over-hype of their own game somewhere in recent times.

Once RT was available CDPR jumped to ramp up their game to keep up with the times and further fuel their hype.

It fell flat.

Amusing and funny to read people debating it should not have been made available for the base consoles, when the game was based on these very "base consoles" along with the PC tech available 8 years ago.

CDPR f-ked up. And it stinks now. Just go home and sit on it.

It's hard to correct the rabid, blind fanbase. Despite the flaws, the fans and those fearing the backlash gave it high reviews. If this blunder was made by another developer, people would have started their curses from day 1.

 

[Nobina]

Releasing this for PS4/Xbox One was a bad idea IMO. I'm all for supporting old hardware but there is no chance this runs properly on last-gen consoles without looking like ***. As for the bugs, that's not the consoles fault, they happen on PC as well. I didn't buy the game yet cause I'm sane but number one thing I hear about it is that it's a buggy mess regardless of the platform and in that sense there is a case to be made.

 

[alexnode]

Honestly it is a very good game ... probably the best of the decade. But it shouldn't have been released for last gen and it needed a bit more time for QA ... two months maybe. On the other hand I love having it on my hands for the holidays and I know that if the red team manages to survive this attack from all sides they will fix the game and it will sell for at least 4 more years.

 

[tacobravo]

I think these lawsuits are a money making scheme by the investors and shareholders in CDPR. They drive down the stock prices with these threats of litigation only to purchase them hella cheap. Of course CDPR will fix all of the bugs and their stocks will increase thus making a ton of money for these investors and shareholders.

 

[Avro Arrow]

See, here's the problem that I have with this. We have tort laws but we don't have TWIT laws.

Anyone who is an early adopter of anything in tech, whether hardware or software, and doesn't expect to have to deal with atrocious bugs is a TWIT.

This is why I never get anything that is less than a month old and I usually prefer nothing newer than three months old. However, I will be getting Far Cry 6 on opening day and I am fully expecting the game to be completely broken. With an expectation like that, there's no way I'm going to be disappointed or pissed off. Quite the contrary, if I'm able to play it at all, it will be a pleasant surprise.

That is attitude of someone who isn't a TWIT.

Besides, I'm sure that it's been blown way out of proportion to manipulate the stock prices because a co-worker of mine absolutely LOVES the game and he's only using a GTX 1070.

 

[Shadowboxer]

CDPR are a bag of dicks who purposefully hid the console version away from the press prior to release. They happily took all the preorder money whilst advertising the PC game. They effectively conned people.

I don’t understand why I keep seeing people defending CDPR for this sort of thing just because the last time they took everyone’s money for an undercooked product they spent the best part of a year fixing it?

I am loving Cyberpunk, I’m playing on PC and lucky enough to be able to turn RTX on ultra and I’ve not had any game breaking bugs. However that doesn’t mean I let CDPR off for mass deception. Ironically CDPR is an evil corporation! But hey, at least console owners buying from them are still getting a genuine cyberpunk experience lol.

 

[Lionvibez]

I think these lawsuits are a money making scheme by the investors and shareholders in CDPR. They drive down the stock prices with these threats of litigation only to purchase them hella cheap. Of course CDPR will fix all of the bugs and their stocks will increase thus making a ton of money for these investors and shareholders.

If you are a shareholder in CDRP isn't tanking the shareprice bad for your investment?

Or are we saying losing money on existing shares so you can by new shares cheaper is a good thing?

 

[BSim500]

So many 'loud' people here commenting on something they're not even bothering to understand. It boils down to this:-

Q3 2020 Earning Call Transcript:-

Shareholder : "The game has not been presented on base, not pro console PS4 and Xbox 1 so far. What is the performance of the game on this machine?"

CDPR CEO Adam Kicinski: "Of course, a bit lower than on pros, but surprisingly good, I would say for such a huge world. So, bit lower, but very good. That's the answer."

^ "The game runs very good, surprisingly good on old consoles" said CDPR's CEO to investors as documented in an earnings call. Two weeks later CDPR announce refunds for how badly it runs on same consoles. Hence the not incorrect accusation that CDPR's CEO was "deliberately misleading investors".

tl:dr : It isn't about gamers wanting refunds at all nor "you should have bought a new console, sneer, sneer said the Master Race Edgelord" but potentially accusations of stock manipulation (or worst case, insider trading charges if senior CDPR staff were dumb enough to sell stock at the time of this call then buy some more after it fell in December...)

 

[mAdmAnDingo]

So many 'loud' people here commenting on something they're not even bothering to understand. It boils down to this:-

Q3 2020 Earning Call Transcript:-

Shareholder : "The game has not been presented on base, not pro console PS4 and Xbox 1 so far. What is the performance of the game on this machine?"

CDPR CEO Adam Kicinski: "Of course, a bit lower than on pros, but surprisingly good, I would say for such a huge world. So, bit lower, but very good. That's the answer."

^ "The game runs very good, surprisingly good on old consoles" said CDPR's CEO to investors as documented in an earnings call. Two weeks later CDPR announce refunds for how badly it runs on same consoles. Hence the not incorrect accusation that CDPR's CEO was "deliberately misleading investors".

tl:dr : It isn't about gamers wanting refunds at all nor "you should have bought a new console, sneer, sneer said the Master Race Edgelord" but potentially accusations of stock manipulation (or worst case, insider trading charges if senior CDPR staff were dumb enough to sell stock at the time of this call then buy some more after it fell in December...)

But isn't this case about investment fraud? Or have I got it wrong here? Have I misunderstood and/or missed something? Isn't it that CD Projekt mislead investors in regards to CP2077 to obtain financial benefit, and then went on to lose that investment thanks to the launch disaster and Sony's removal of CP2077 from the PS Store? Both insider trading and investment fraud are serious offenses, but isn't this case specifically corporation investment fraud?

Or am I missing something here? Is that just the way I or the press are misunderstanding it? Because my very limited understanding of Securities Fraud is this:

What Is Securities Fraud? Definition, Main Elements, and Examples

Securities fraud is a form of white-collar crime that disguises a fraudulent scheme in order to gain finances from investors.

www.investopedia.com

-Securities fraud, also referred to as stock or investment fraud, is a type of serious white-collar crime that can be committed in a variety of forms but primarily involves misrepresenting information investors use to make decisions. The perpetrator of the fraud can be an individual, such as a stockbroker. Or, it can be an organization, such as a brokerage firm, corporation, or investment bank. Independent individuals might also commit this type of fraud through schemes such as insider trading.-

So securities fraud does indeed cover insider trading on the individual level. But securities fraud also covers investment fraud on the corporation level, which is what I think CD Projekt are being accused of here. Because misrepresenting information investors use to make decisions, applies to both cases. So misleading investors at investment meetings, to obtain financial benefit, would qualify, would it not?

So is this case about insider trading? Or is it what others are saying, and it is about CD Projekt purposefully misrepresenting to the investor/shareholders to secure funds, and Sony's resultant removal of CP2077 from the PS Store that resulted in a loss of secured investor funds?

I think that we are both correct in our definitions of 'securities fraud', but which variant is actually applicable to the lawsuit case here? The law firm building the case is stating this:

CD Projekt may have misrepresented itself to investors in order to secure funding, and they are actively calling for any investors/shareholders who were affected by the removal of CP2077 from PS Store to contact them.

Surely that means it is not insider trading that CD Projekt are being accused of, and instead it is straight up misleading investors at investor meetings to secure financial benefit?

Or am I missing something here? How would insider trading, be applied to this specific lawsuit case being built? I am open to all possibilities, theories, and knowledge, I am just trying to understand the lawsuit case they are attempting to build here.

 

[BSim500]

I think that we are both correct in our definitions of 'securities fraud', but which variant is actually applicable to the lawsuit case here? The law firm building the case, is stating that, CD Projekt may have "misrepresented itself to investors in order to secure funding." and they are actively calling for any investors/shareholders who were affected by the removal of CP2077 from PS Store to contact them, surely that means it is not insider trading that CD Projekt is being accused of, and instead it is straight up misleading investors at investor meetings to secure financial benefit? Or am I missing something here? How would insider trading, be applied to this specific lawsuit case being built? [/I]

It's probably "just" misrepresentation. What I meant was if the senior CDPR staff were dumb / unlucky enough to have sold stock at the time of telling investors "Yup, performance is very good on old consoles" at say 400PLN, and then bought back 1.3-1.5x more stock during the recent dip at 250-300PLN, that's not going to look very good at all in any securities audit, and any current investigation that's currently being looked at may well "branch out" and look into that too. I don't know if it's the case (and hope it isn't). It was a rather dumb statement of Adam to make though.

 

[mAdmAnDingo]

Okay got it. I am honestly just trying to understand what is going on with this case as much as everybody, I meant no offense, so I sincerely hope none was taken. I hadn't even considered insider trading as a possibility of the proposed lawsuit case, so that is why I was asking, because all of the sudden I felt as if I had completely missed or misunderstood something, and just as I had started to wrap my head around it.

As I said, my understanding of securities fraud is very limited, and securities fraud covers both insider trading and corporation investment fraud, so I wanted to find out if I had indeed misunderstood or missed something. But it does appear that might be one of the directions they are looking to go though, but let us wait and see what happens.

As with all such cases, it actually has to find its footing first, and it is still very early days, so there is not much to be said past the available information, and anything further would lead us into speculation/conjecture territory, and I think it is best we avoid that type of discussion here. But I am not defending CD Projekt/CDPR either, I am not pleased with their recent behavior, but my goal here is not to dump on them, and instead to just understand this specific case, and how it ties into recent events, so I have a better understanding what is being proposed here.

So I was only trying to further my understanding of the currently available information, to get a firmer grasp on what they are being accused of precisely, and exactly what type of case they are trying to build. And I honestly feel that I am still missing something, but that could just be the limited statement the law firm has released so far, and also my limited understanding of securities fraud in general.

But I do agree, it does not look good for a securities audit at all. So let us just wait and see for further development, and see if this case does indeed find its footing, because it may or may not. No point in speculating, because it may not even take off the ground, and if it does take off the ground, we can discuss it then.

And it's almost Christmas! And we should all be in high spirits and enjoying our downtime, if we are lucky enough to have any. Merry early Christmas bud!

 

[Danny101]

yes, they should not have allowed the game built for the ps4/xbone to be purchased and played on the ps4/xbone.

We have seem far more complex games run fine on the ps4. Cp2077 is blatantly unfinished, it's not a PS5 game that was backported. There was no indication what the PS5 would be rocking when this entered production, hell when this game first started amd was still rocking bulldozer, and dual cotes were more common them quad cores in gaming pcs! Even if technical work on the game didnt start until 2016, that was the first year of zen. Intel was still pushing quad cores and AMD struggled to hit 4 ghz. The PS4 was only 3 years old, and depending on what part of 2016 youre in, the 980ti was still the big dog with hawaii in a desperate bid to hold back maxwell

What SHOULD have happened is SONY/MS flagging the game due to terrible performance, and refuse to let the game onto the store until the product is finished. If it becomes the defacto standard to begin offering refunds on blatantly broken games, I'd bet that the verification process would begin paying a lot more attention to game performance.

I agree with you. They should have just stay with the older generation, made it work, and not try to supe it up for the latest generation. Now it's biting them in the ***.

 

[Danny101]

What a bunch of entitled morons. First they complain the devs are working overtime, then they complain about the delays, now they complain the game is released too soon.

Rage culture. You just can't please them.

They had 8 years. It wasn't a PS5/XBX targeted game until they decided to get ambitious. Should have just finished it as a last generation game and did the enhancements later.