CDPR is indeed the same CDPR, and after the release of "2077", the ticket is still firmly bounced.
After the release of "Cyberpunk 2077" at the end of last year, CDPR has stated that the related free DLC program will be launched in early 2021. At the same time, its official website has also been updated accordingly to confirm the news. However, CDPR also hinted in the game announcement that the DLC will be delayed. At present, on the relevant pages of the "2077" official website, the DLC launch time has also been revised from the previous early 2021 to a few months later.
Bounced tickets have long been commonplace for CDPR, but since the word-of-mouth, after "2077" went life, both players and CDPR themselves have high hopes for this first updated DLC. Everyone hopes that it can restore a certain reputation among players. Looking at the current situation, it may be that CDPR wants to spend a long time polishing the content of the DLC, but from the feedback of the players, it can be seen that the bounced tickets obviously disappointed them.
Satellites can’t just be released
After the console version’s reputation collapsed, the PC version did not seem to be able to retain players’ hearts.
According to recent news from the foreign media GitHyp, one month after the release of "2077", the number of simultaneous online users on Steam has dropped from over 1 million to around 225,000, and the number of players has dropped by nearly 80%.
In contrast, CDPR's previous famous "Witcher 3" was released in 2015 with a maximum of 92,000 online users at the same time. One month later, the number of online users remained at 55,000, and it was three months after the game was released. , The maximum decline in the number of players is only 21%.
Although the overall number of players in "The Witcher 3" 5 years ago is not at the same level as the current "2077", from the perspective of the player loss ratio, it is clear that "The Witcher 3" is more attractive than "2077".
This is not surprising. After more than a month of release, most players have already played it. Let’s talk about whether "2077" is a good game? The answer may be yes.
Although the main body of the game has frequent bugs and the optimization is not ideal, it is still a good work from the perspective of the game design and the quality of the presentation.
But "2077" at this stage is just a good game, and there is still a big gap between the expectations of players or CDPR's own expectations.
In the eight-year research and development cycle, whether it is the official promotion of CDPR or the various pursuits of the user groups before, the "2077" satellites have been released one after another. In this process, the cool night city, Keanu Reeves, body modification, etc., portrayed a night city with infinite possibilities for players. Every player has his own ideal "2077" as if CDPR is not making "Cyberpunk 2077" but GTA2077.
This kind of huge market attention and player enthusiasm is the best reward for any game company. After all, in this era, even if you are scolded, you have to be scolded and become popular so that more people can see it.
As a result, what we see is that "2077" was released for only one day and recovered all the development and publicity costs for all eight years. Regardless of the word of mouth, stock price and other factors, from the perspective of game sales alone, "2077" is definitely a very successful commercial game. A large part of these achievements is due to the various "satellites" that CDPR has released time and time again in the past 8 years to attract players.
However, it is necessary to have the strength to release satellites and engage in publicity. No matter how good the publicity is, it will eventually fall on the finished game. After all, the "satellite" will always be on the ground.
In this regard, R star is a very positive representative. The cycle of "Red Dead Redemption 2" lasted 8 and a half years, and the labor cost alone was as high as 170 million US dollars. Due to the success of the first generation works, players also have very high expectations for this sequel, and R Star will release some game content and development progress from time to time. Of course, it has also experienced several bounces.
But in the end, R Star conquered the players with almost perfect game quality, and the game has attracted numerous praises after its sale. In contrast, the situation of CDPR is obviously much more miserable. After its release, word-of-mouth collapse and stock prices continue to fall.
Is this to blame CDPR? Of course, as a developer, it naturally has to assume the primary responsibility. After all, the current "2077" may not be accepted by many players even if it is a semi-finished product.
Is this not clear to CDPR? Obviously, they do. But it still has to stick to the sale, because it can't afford to delay.
When the development of "2077" was announced eight years ago, CDPR had not yet been launched. At that time, its game development work can be carried out completely according to its own plan, and every element envisioned by the game designer is perfect, and there will not be too much outside interference.
But today, 8 years later, CDPR is already a listed company, and it is the listed company with the highest market capitalization in Poland. The continuous bounce has been dissatisfied with countless players and shareholders. Investors will put pressure on it, stock prices will put pressure on it, and financial reports will put pressure on it. Therefore, it must rush forward, even if the company knows that many games are not perfect.
According to the revelations on Twitter by the developers who once participated in "2077", it can be seen that a lot of work in the development process of "2077" has been overturned and redone. The original expected release date of the game is June 2021. However, there was a conflict between the senior management and the R&D team in the design and deletion of the game content, and the senior management decided to release it in advance, which led to the current mess.
The tweet also revealed that the version of the game before a large number of deletions was as high as 160G, and the final version sold was only 70G, which shows the extent of the content reduction.
Perhaps this is why Musk has repeatedly stated that he will delist Tesla, and the CEO of Game Science, Yucca, rejected all investments and voices after the "Black Myth: Wukong" Demo exploded. He just wanted to close it. Door to concentrate on developing games. Capital harms people!
Is "patching" a good way?
Now, the first free DLC of "2077" has announced a bounced ticket, which is easily reminiscent of the scene after the release of "The Witcher 3".
Like "2077", after the release of "The Witcher 3", the reputation of players was not ideal, but the follow-up CDPR only reversed the reputation little by little through continuous updates and adding DLC content, and eventually became a masterpiece. Therefore, many players now start to expect the same thing to be reproduced in "2077".
Looking back at the game industry in the past two years, the most famous of the games that rely on "patching" to complete the counterattack is not "The Witcher 3", but "No Man's Sky" by Hello Games.
At the beginning of its release in August 2016, developer Hello Games stated that this is a game that can change the game industry. In their depiction, there will be hundreds of millions of planets explored in "No Man's Sky", unprecedented air combat, multi-ethnic civilization collision... this series of propaganda has also moved countless players. Only 5 days after the game was released that year, steam sales exceeded 700,000 copies.
But for those players who have purchased the game, what will follow is not the exploration of hundreds of millions of planets, unprecedented air combat, and the collision of multi-ethnic civilizations, but a catastrophic game experience. The so-called hundreds of millions of planets are those repeated scenes, the so-called multi-ethnic civilization collision is a variety of rough-made models...
Everything is completely different from the propaganda. The disappointed players did not experience any joy of exploration but were simply exiled to the real no man's sky.
The huge gap between the initial publicity and the final product has been condemned by countless angry players, and even the British Advertising Bureau has opened a review of the game's false publicity. History has always been surprisingly similar. CDPR was also investigated by the Polish government's consumer protection agency for its poor performance of "2077".
However, it is gratifying that, in the face of overwhelmingly negative reviews, Hello Games did not choose to remain silent or simply run away, but sincerely apologized and actively updated to add a variety of new content to the game. In the updates time and time again, they added back all the game elements they had promised little by little-within two years, the reputation of "No Man's Sky" has gradually improved.
In this regard, the founder of Hello Games, Sean Murray, said in an interview with the media afterward: “We have not said a word to the media for 2 years. We have also kept silent for the player community for three months. I originally wanted to sit. Write a perfect article in front of the computer explaining the reasons for the situation and future measures, but then I feel that in that situation, what you say is meaningless."
Use the product to talk, and the rest is just silly!
Today, this challenge is also present in CDPR. Perhaps in the follow-up we can see that CDPR is gradually improving the game with multiple free DLC updates, but for a well-known developer such as CDPR, this situation may not be the optimal solution.
First of all, the behavior of game developers to issue follow-up patches to improve game content is inherently undesirable and not worthy of praise, nor should it become a trademark of a game company.
For players, the 8-year development cycle of "2077", three bounced tickets, and the opening of pre-sales in June 2019, give players reason to have higher expectations for it. But in the end, they got a semi-finished game, and players have no obligation to spend money to buy a semi-finished game.
Secondly, even if every time developers will improve the game content through follow-up patches, not all players can accept it. After the unsatisfactory experience in the early game, a large proportion of players will choose to quit directly. In addition, those players who have approved the improvement of the game through follow-up patches can also choose to directly become a "waiting party", and then choose to buy after the game is updated and perfected for 1 year.
This situation is fatal to game companies. After the game is released, the cost cannot be quickly recovered. For developers, especially small and medium-sized developers, it will impact the health of the capital chain. At the same time, frequent reliance on patches to improve game content will also seriously overdraw the company's reputation.
Conclusion
Looking back at the development history of the game industry, from the initial Atari to the later index, we have seen too many game companies come to an end due to the failure of game design.
As the game company with the highest market value in Poland, CDPR is no longer the small workshop that year. The success of the "Witcher" series has made it a well-known star developer among the players. However, in terms of volume, there is still a considerable gap between CDPR and game development giants such as EA, Ubisoft, and R Star. So far, the only successful works are the Wizard series. Therefore, CDPR does not have much capital to squander.
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