Posted December 22, 2020
I've seen a few posts here concerned about GOG or CDPR's future after this disasterous failure of a lauch. In my opinion this is a public relations issue, not a monetary issue. They have made their money back and some withing the first week on pre-orders alone and considering that pre-orders isn't much of a thing on consoles as it is on PC, they have already made a hefty profit with console sales in the first days. Ultimately most people had a tolerable experience with the game and altough it is a far fetch from what was promised both in terms of performance and experience, you shouldn't take the experience of a vocal minority as the experience of everyone involved. I have a powerful rig and altough I was barely able to hit 60 fps with 2k ultra with ray tracing, my fiancee was able to play the game on high settings with a shitty 4 year old rig and have a similar experience in terms of performance. This means that in terms of performance it really comes down to personal preference and not everyone acts like they lost their left nut when the game dips below 60 fps. In relation to consoles, bear in mind that most people aren't really into this whole 'gaming' business so if they got this shiny new game through a physical copy they won't get refunds because most stores have a strict - if opened no refunds - policy. So even if they have a shit experience there isn't much they can do. And others will tolerate the bugs and just finish it, or even throw it at a side until they fix it. The biggest hit they had will have no doubt been through the refund of digital purchases, but the percentage of people buying digitally only on console is very low in comparison to physical sales.
This all means that just because you are hearing a lot of buzz around about outrage and refunds, it probably doesn't reflect the attitude of everyone and CDPR will be just fine financially.
CDPR will not be financially broke from this but they also won't be better off. They will have to work hard to get our trust back and that may not happen until their next release. I played this game and honestly it would have to get a full overhaul to make me want to play it again - they would have to make the city more lived in and less empty, make the vehicles work properly, have an actual night/day sistem, the AI would have to get a lot smarter, especially in relation to the Police AI and the RPG mechanics would have to be overhauled so that what you choose actually matters, like it did on the Witcher 3. Considering the state that it is in, I doubt such overhaul will happen and CDPR will just release a mediocre game that will remain a mediocre game and their is little that can be done about it. I like this game, but it isn't the masterpiece that it was announced and pronounced, almost like a cheap copy of what was promised.
But the question is, what can they do to restore trust, and is just fixing the game going to do that? I fear that for a lot of people CDPR just shattered that trust because of poor management and greedy corpos, can it ever regain it in your eyes or will it be relegated to another Bethesda or Ubisoft in your eyes?
Let me know your thoughts
This all means that just because you are hearing a lot of buzz around about outrage and refunds, it probably doesn't reflect the attitude of everyone and CDPR will be just fine financially.
CDPR will not be financially broke from this but they also won't be better off. They will have to work hard to get our trust back and that may not happen until their next release. I played this game and honestly it would have to get a full overhaul to make me want to play it again - they would have to make the city more lived in and less empty, make the vehicles work properly, have an actual night/day sistem, the AI would have to get a lot smarter, especially in relation to the Police AI and the RPG mechanics would have to be overhauled so that what you choose actually matters, like it did on the Witcher 3. Considering the state that it is in, I doubt such overhaul will happen and CDPR will just release a mediocre game that will remain a mediocre game and their is little that can be done about it. I like this game, but it isn't the masterpiece that it was announced and pronounced, almost like a cheap copy of what was promised.
But the question is, what can they do to restore trust, and is just fixing the game going to do that? I fear that for a lot of people CDPR just shattered that trust because of poor management and greedy corpos, can it ever regain it in your eyes or will it be relegated to another Bethesda or Ubisoft in your eyes?
Let me know your thoughts