https://www.ign.com/articles/cd-projekt-spent-roughly-125-million-turning-cyberpunk-2077-around-post-launch
CD Projekt Red spent $125 million on Cyberpunk 2077 post-launch, repairing the game's reputation with the Edgerunners and Update 2.0 patches alongside Phantom Liberty expansion.
CD Projekt announced on October 5 that the expansion starring Idris Elba cost a hefty 275 million Polish Zloty (around $62.7 million) to develop and approximately 95 million Polish Zloty (around $21.6 million) to market.
I'm not saying repairing and adding missing functionality isn't a good size portion of that cost, but calling it a $125 million cost based on the cost of the expansion and marketing which were already planned regardless of how well the initial release did is miss-leading at best.
Yeah this headline should really just say the ~$41m they actually spent improving the game because that’s still an incredibly impressive number (2/3 the amount of a full expansion). I hate when there’s a good story to tell but they want to make it look even better so they decide to mislead instead of just saying the actually impressive thing
surely Edgerunners isn't fair to count toward that? That was already in the works before launch, it's not as though they had a bad launch and thought "wow we should do an animated series to repair reputation"
I looked up the budget and from what I can see they spent less than 4 million on it so excluding it they still spent a pretty penny.
Pre release I was so hyped for cyberpunk, was patient and waited for reviews, so voted with my wallet and didn't buy it, and just forgot it even existed
Watched Edgerunners animated series off the cuff and it had no business being as good as it was (same as Arcane - gj netflix)
The next time it went on sale I snapped it up and havent regretted it one bit. One playthrough on my old hardware, obligitory playthrough to test after I got an Rtx, and another now 2.0 is out - definitely got my moneys worth
A lot of the hate was undeserved, IMO. Besides one absolutely hilarious bug where I called my ride in an odd place, and another where part of a mission didn't trigger so I had to reload the last Autosave which was about 30 seconds back, the game ran well for me and a lot of friends at launch. And CDPR responded quickly and had patches out within a week fixing most of the gameplay affecting bugs.
I typically judge games pretty harshly, and my only experience with CDPR prior was Witcher 3, which dropped with some bugs but was patched within a week, and really didn't understand the level of shade CDPR received.
I think the console releases were largely to blame for the bad rep. Esp the older gen ones. I played from launch on PC and I had a lot of bugs but nothing game breaking and it didn't stop me from thoroughly enjoying myself.
I had a midrange PC at the time, and only encountered a handful of bugs my first play through.
Performance could be rough in downtown sections, but it’s was far from unplayable on day one.
I am firmly convinced that most of the people experiencing horrible performance or mystifying bugs were attempting to play the game on their smart fridge or something. If you had a decent gaming machine from the last 7 years or so, the game ran fine.
That being said, it should have never released on Xbox one or PS4. Those consoles were just too old and the performance wasn’t their.
A lot of the problems and stupid glitches people had were from playing off of a hard drive. The game really needs flash storage, even if it's SATA. That should've been a recommendation from the start, if not an outright requirement like it is now with 2.0.
I'm pretty sure the article is referring to the 1.6 patch, also called Edgerunners update, which released around the same time as the animated series.
Well it must have worked. All I heard for months when it came out was how bad everything about it was, then I finally got it myself and it quickly became one of the top favorite games of my life. Sorry for everyone who had a bad experience because I loved it so much.
I played initially on PC - occasional glitches but overall fine for a game at launch.
I think console players had a lot more issues.
I played it on PC at launch and thoroughly enjoyed it. They've completely redone the skill tree system and reworked a ton of the weapons/clothing/cyber gear. It's different now, but the story and core gameplay are still very much the same. I'm replaying it for the DLC and having a great time.
I'm in a situation where I don't have money to spend, but I can't wait to play the DLC someday.
I thought it was okay. It fizzled out pretty quickly for me as it felt half-baked and overly "gamey", which kept breaking the immersion illusion for me. I never did finish it. But I started over when Phantom Liberty dropped last week and it feels soooo much better. The immersion doesn't feel like it's being killed by a thousand cuts... everything feels more natural and believable now. It still has it's gamey moments, but they are a lot less obvious now.
For me it went from a 6/10 to 9/10.
I'm playing for the first time, amd my only real gripe is I wish the gorgeous cyberpunk world were more like Yakuza, with a million random minigames. Other than that, it's been a blast.
The main story was pretty good, especially the Panam ending, which should have been the successor to Fallout: NV imo. Easily could have been it's own game, excellent, 8/10.
I picked it back up in the post game after the skill tree rebalance and tried to get the highest heat level possible with the cars with guns on them, but the police kept getting lost, which decreased my heat level. Max tac couldn't find me in a big intersection. I dejectedly uninstalled the game and decided to play something else. The red engine just can't handle hazard level 5 interactions that well :/
I also played a quest, but it was just a "find a dead body" radiant quest for which I got about $2,500. I want more main storyline and less paper mache missions. The art direction and main storyline(s) are strong, but everything else feels really mushy to me. Witcher 3 was pretty solid all the way through.
Have they fixed the broken AI yet?
When the game first came out you could walk around the corner to hide from the police. And none of the NPCs knew where any of the roads were, so they were just scrape along the side of building for no reason at all.
Yes and no. The AI is significantly better… but it’s still not great. Case in point: cops will chase you now, but it doesn’t take long to get a feel for how to fudge their pathing and lose them.
Thing is, on pc the game was always good to great. It was only a shitshow on the old consoles apparently (don't play on consoles since the N64 days).
The game was far from the disaster media made it look like. Ratings on steam are not so bad even at launch for example.
The game had problems on outdated hardware, which was many consoles that I now think these players to be the audience for most video game media.
Most people had no or few problems to play the game, and the game was great right from the start.
The sad part is that this sets the standard (again) that companies can market the hell out of an unfinished game, release it buggy as hell, and still make an amazing profit. This doesn't bode well for the future.
Well, if you don't buy unfinished games like me, you get to play this amazing game for just $30 on sale.
Eh, I dunno about the rest of you, but after 2077 I feel pretty good. Tuned out Starfield and the initial craze and feel...no fomo. I wait for games like BG3 to come out of early access before playing, and only play the games in early access that are actually worth it, like Sons of The Forest, which was pretty decent even at launch (when the fun bugs are still in, and weapons have not been balanced in the slightest!)
I'm hitting the now old classics, Battlefield 1 is excellent, Inscryption is awesome, and the AA and AAA games I do play are quite polished.
If you can count on games just being shitty at launch, you have nothing to worry about. I'll play the last of us in a few years. I played Days Gone recently and loved it. There's enough good games these days to have a packed steam library.
This one! I haven't learned how to link yet, sorry.
Oh I see you aren't a sh.ithead.
Sh.itjust.works/c/patientgamers
Does it? I personally would not buy anything from CDPR ever unless I got no better option. Many would think the same.
Money they could’ve spent up front, to actually make the game not a total shit-volcano.
Absolutely, I remember seeing the original preview trailer with the tag line “Release Date: When it’s ready.” And I was like wow mad respect this is gonna rock. What a fucking bait and switch that was.
I can say I am replaying it now on the exact same PC setup I used 3 years ago and it is a completely different experience. No crashes, no glitches (so far), no random naked T posing on my motorcycle (which is kind of sad, that shit was hilarious). The skills system is totally reworked and I put it to hard difficulty and the enemies now put up more of a fight (AI is still kind of dumb tho). Cops actually chase you, you can finally shoot out of your car (there’s also new skills in the skill tree for improving vehicle abilities). Sooo it’s worth revisiting even if you don’t buy the DLC, IMO.
IIRC, CDPR had delayed it a number of times for just that reason, but were eventually pressured into releasing earlier than they wanted. On PC, there were some minor issues that were quickly patched, but none that negatively affected my playthrough.
were eventually pressured into releasing earlier than they wanted.
My guy, they developed and published the game themselves. They pressured themselves.
I think he means the developers were pressured by CDPR's upper management. The devs were saying that the game wasn't ready, but management was telling them it had to ship, anyway.
That's what I just said. CDPR upper management is still CDPR, it's a distinction without a difference.
It very much is a difference. If you've ever worked a corporate job, the relationship between devs and execs is exactly the same as a publisher and studio relationship. The devs did not want to release the game yet, nor do I think they wanted to support legacy consoles, but the shareholders forced that on them.
But that does not matter to us as consumers. The product was intentionally released half baked, whether the decision was made by someone within CDPR or outside, it is the same.
I don't care about their company organisation, I care about the product.
Anecdotally, I played on PC at launch, no mods or fixes and had a pretty good time. The most buggy things I encountered were people clipping into my car when driving and forcing me to hit them. Random stuff, but nothing too bad IMHO, not like game crashes, awful lag/latency, save corruption, etc.
Definitely not bug free, I ran into those often, but I felt like they were mostly trivial. As another concession, I did have an above average rig so I didn't really fall into any of the terrible optimization problems.
I also enjoyed it playing on GeForceNow. I didn't build up any game specific hype. I only looked forward to the next CDPR game and avoided most trailers and footage. Going into the game without expectations likely helped a lot.
Yeah same, I had quite a good time with the game on launch with a gtx 2080 but I appreciate the console players probably didn't have fun.
I mean and there are a ton of people who are super into the far cry games even though I see them as generic games. Like sure people can find the game fun but I was expect CRPG levels of details but what I got was CDPR's version of Far Cry minus the pointless filler with capturing radio towers (thank god for that) but filled with all the other filler from those games. The story writing was pretty good and that was its big advantage but the AI was pretty brain dead, which made the fighting rather dull. Add on top of that on launch you could literally stand in the same exact spot and clear a section of the AI and then repeat ad nauseam. I haven't kept up with far cry since maybe 3 but I have played the Division 2 although that game has many failings one of its biggest pluses was the AI was pretty smart compared to most other AIs in the modern day and I would hope the other "Tom Clancy games" would use a similar AI but who knows.
Like having cyberware only be useful for combat, just feels like a pointless thing. We should have RP/world moments with them but at least in 1.0 there was none. Just the game is filled with so many missed opportunities. The og trailer for this game was sold on the importance of Cyberpsychos but in the game they are just some filler quests that you can get some lore on before you fight them but vanilla you got nothing unique for doing it (apparently in 1.2 you are now given a proper reward for it but it shows how sidelined that "questline" was). Very little destructible terrain. Like I'm not some fanboy who watched every trailer before release. I only watched the 2013 and the E3 gameplay premiere for it before buying the game whenever it released (after seeing it was scored pretty highly by reviewers). It was just a deeply disappointing game where they basically showcased the prologue showing how "reactive" the world was but beyond the prologue the world really doesn't take in account of the things you have done. There are some things but its alot smaller than what was showcased.
Lol you can watch YouTube videos to see how shit it was. There’s really no reason or basis to argue this with the monumental amount of evidence that proves it. Sony pulled it from their online store because it was so bad.
Don’t port your software for a toaster and tell your consumers that it’ll run fine.
I'm not familiar with the mods, but the combat was definitely rebalanced. Enemies scale with your level now, guns themselves were rebalanced, armor is on cyberware instead of clothing, and the new perk trees are more consistently useful instead of some perks being worthless and others being game breaking.
And Very Hard is still a cake walk :(
They supposedly increased the combat AI, I suppose that only matter to Gear of War style players
enemies scale? to whag degree? also heres what one mjnute of modded rebalanced combat looks like but yiu should look into more vids to undersyand all the differences https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1qoHZxn664I
enemies scale? to whag degree?
Damage, hp, and drop rarity. It means you can go anywhere in the city at any level (after act 1) and both the challenge and rewards will feel good. It's also nice because you can grab the iconics you want for your build right away instead of playing half of the game without them.
You still gradually get more powerful as you get more perks. It's just not as simple as out levelling the enemies anymore.
also heres what one mjnute of modded rebalanced combat looks like
TTK is still pretty high compared to that video, unless you invest heavily in the Cool tree and focus on headshots.
Personally I hate scaling in games. It makes leveling up feel pointless or even punishing. Nothing feels better than returning to the intro area as a god and nuking the npcs from orbit
You know, normally I would agree with you, but this one feels different to me. I think it's because there's no endgame, so if I out-level all the enemies then there's nothing left to play for.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://m.piped.video/watch?v=1qoHZxn664I
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
How can that be so extremely expensive? I'm sure that money did not go into salaries for the devs, so where did it go?
headline number is only the equivalent of ~200-300 tech employee salaries for 3 years, less for junior, more for senior, less for designers, marketers, more for Directors, VPs, Execs...
It's funny that companies think we give a shit how expensive it is for them to operate. Just make something good. That's all that matters
Idris Elba doesn't work for free.
Marketing isn't cheap either. Can't rely on word of mouth when that word is "shite". Fixing the code would have been relatively cheap compared to fixing their reputation.
Why do you think it didn't go into devs? Maybe you are being cynical, but managers and CEOs are definitely devs too, they need their extra motivation to convince themselves the game is gooder.
I wonder if they would have saved a ton of money getting it closer to this product prior to release, or if it would have taken the same amount of time and money regardless and just maybe saved their reputation a bit?
Probably could have spent less if it was given more time to bake, glad they invested it though 2.0 really brought the game closer to where it needed to be. Still not what was promised back in 2018, but it's playable and enjoyable enough now.
They did a pretty good job fixing it up... but it also took like 4-5 years. Some things I'm like "it took at least 5 years for you to think of implementing this??"
Edit: 5 years meaning it should have been added during the initial development.
5 years meaning "from the start of development". A lot of these things should have been there from the beginning.
$125 million and the game still sucks. I beat it at launch and I can't even tell where they spent all that money. Hotdog textures must be expensive.
So yeah, it was just people saying BS at the release, the game was perfect, like the CEO said few weeks ago in an itv.
The game was so perfect that it was delisted from the PlayStation store because of bugs and performance issues.
Nah, it wasn't removed for technical reasons; Sony removed it because CDPR went behind their back and blanket-offered refunds. Which was the right thing for CDPR to do from a consumer-friendly perspective and from a PR perspective, but they should have communicated with Sony more first seeing as refunds on PlayStation go through Sony's store. I thought it was a bad look for Sony, though, personally.
That's not to excuse Cyberpunk 2077's performance on consoles in any way - they deserve flak for that.
Still cdredproject CEO said it was bashing at the release, and the game didnt deserved so much hate...
Any product that releases in such a poor state and expects full price definitely deserves the hate. The game was unplayable on half the platforms it released on for months.
Someone told me this a week ago and I think it's a perfect summary of what happened:
disliking cyberpunk is an opinion people who don't form opinions have. I'm sure there are people who had glaring technical issues ruin their playthrough and that's fair. But for most of them it's just a fear of clowns/ hatred of pineapple pizza mouth sound they can make.
I had it at launch on ps4 and I enjoyed it for the most part. I just endured the low frame rate because it was near the end of the ps4 life cycle and it seemed every game coming out for ps4 at the time had a shitty frame rate, so I never considered it an issue unique to Cyberpunk.
I agree only a little. The game got more flak than it deserved. It was mostly a good game.
BUT CDPR brought this on themselves by building up massive hype with excessive promises they in the end were not able to deliver on. In addition they stubbornly tried to get a next gen game on last gen consoles which also failed hard.
I think a lot of the stuff that went wrong was management and marketing related and could have been avoided.
The game got more flak than it deserved.
It was a literal slideshow on past gen consoles and they knew that so they tried to prevent reviewers from warning people. Then happily took full price from consumers for it.
Literally no amount of flak would be enough for that shady shit.