CD Projekt Red tuvo una junta de emergencia ayer para dar explicaciones sobre la polémica situación de Cyberpunk 2077, especialmente por el pobre rendimiento en PlayStation 4 y Xbox One:
Los que responden a las preguntas:
- Adam Kiciński, CEO
- Marcin Iwiński, CEO
- Piotr Nielubowicz, CFO
- Michał Nowakowski, miembro de la junta y responsable de distribución
Las partes más interesantes:
Sobre el rendimiento en PlayStation 4 y Xbox One
We released Cyberpunk 2077 4 days ago on December the 10th. The game had a strong opening and we’ve got positive feedback from players enjoying it on stronger machines — PCs and next gen consoles and Stadia — but the initial feedback from those playing it on the oldest last-gen consoles is way below our expectations.
CD PROJEKT is a team that puts all their efforts and hearts to deliver amazing games. So how was it even possible that it has come to this?
After 3 delays, we as the Management Board were too focused on releasing the game. We underestimated the scale and complexity of the issues, we ignored the signals about the need for additional time to refine the game on the base last-gen consoles. It was the wrong approach and against our business philosophy. On top of that, during the campaign, we showed the game mostly on PCs.
This caused the loss of gamers’ trust and the reputation that we’ve been building through a big part of our lives. That’s why our first steps are solely focused on regaining those two things. We are concentrated on fixing Cyberpunk on last-gen consoles. The first substantial set of fixes was released over the weekend. The next set of fixes will be released within the next seven days. Big updates are planned for January and February, together with smaller fixes. Of course, PC gamers will also be getting regular updates and fixes to improve the game. We will do everything possible to prove that we stick to our values.
We truly hope that our efforts will let us rebuild the trust we have lost.
We definitely saw good initial sales, especially on PC. Obviously, the current situation will cause console sales to drop, but at this moment on Monday it’s far too early to provide detailed feedback on that; we’re still collecting data, especially from retail channels, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to answer this question precisely; however, as we promised prior to this call, we plan to release sales numbers before the holiday break.
Would having more developers help deliver the game on old-gens? In terms of delivering the game at a certain point, it’s really not about the number of people; it’s not like throwing in – in the last month – 200 or so people would actually help. So, the answer is no; this is not related to the fact that we could have thrown 300 or 500 more people into the fray and things would have happened differently.
We are not encouraging gamers to return the game; we hope they’ll give us a chance to improve it on old-gen consoles. One fix was released last weekend; another one is coming in seven days – but there is an option, obviously, and the easiest way is to ask the retailer for a refund. If that’s not possible, we also provide help. As of today it’s too early to say; we’ve just begun the process and 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. We’ll assess the situation in a couple of days when we have the numbers.
We have an internal QA department and we’re working with external companies as well. One thing that perhaps didn’t help us is COVID: internal testers are able to test the game working from home because we provide them with our own connected machines and so on, but external testers working for external companies were not able to test the game from homes – they have test centers and if they’re not there, they’re not able to work. So, we have seen a decrease in the number of testers, but I wouldn’t point to it as a major source of problems.
It is more about us looking – as was previously stated – at the PC and next-gen performance rather than current-gen. 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.** So that was not the cause.
In terms of the certification process and the third parties – this is definitely on our side. I can only assume that they trusted that we’re going to fix things upon release, and that obviously did not come together exactly as we had planned.
Regarding the third question – where we want to go with the PlayStation and Xbox – as stated in the statement made public today in the morning, we are planning to get the game in much better shape than it is now, of course, and a lot of that is going to be happening in December. Come January and February you’re going to see larger improvements – which we’ve stated already. We have also stated that if your expectation is that the game is going to be equal to, say, nextgens or PC in terms of performance, that definitely isn’t going to happen. Having said that, I’m not saying it’s going to be a bad game – but if you’re expectations regarding, say, visuals or other performance angle, are like this, then we’re openly stating that’s not going to be the case. It will be a good, playable, stable game, without glitches and crashes, though. That’s the intention.
Actually, the game is playable right now; that may be an important thing to state because it’s not like the game does not launch or is unplayable; I fully understand that the experience is far from satisfactory for a lot of people – and we do acknowledge that – but “not playable” sounds like it doesn’t launch at all, which is not the case. Versus PC – again, this is something we have stated before; you cannot expect PC-like or nextgen-like performance on last-gens, and we’re not claiming that.
Sobre el acceso de la prensa a las versiones de la pasada generación
For the second question – with regard to not showing the console version – we’ve actually shown console footage, but never on the last-gen consoles. The reason is that we were updating the game on last-gen consoles until the very last minute, and we thought we’d make it in time. Unfortunately this resulted in giving it to reviewers just one day before the release, which was definitely too late and the media didn’t get the chance to review it properly. That was not intended; we were just fixing the game until the very last moment.
Sobre el multijugador
We’re in an unanticipated situation and we’ll have to reassess. This is planned for January. We’re now focusing on managing the single-player release, working on patches, communication and – as I said at the very beginning of this call – our focus remains on gamers. We’ll see about further plans; the direction is obviously to proceed as planned, but we have to sit and discuss – and that will happen [inaudible].
Sobre los reembolsos
I’ll start – the question is whether Microsoft and Sony are participating financially in refunds. One has to understand: Microsoft and Sony have refund policies for every product that is released digitally on their storefronts. Despite several articles I’ve seen that things are being set up just for us, it’s actually not true – these policies are in place and have always been in place; they’re not offered specifically for us.
Anyone who has purchased any title on the PlayStation network or the Microsoft storefront can ask for a refund, and if it’s made within certain boundaries, usually related to time, usage and so on, can ask for that refund. Our procedure here with Microsoft and Sony is not different than with any other title released on any of those storefronts. I want to state that clearly, as there seem to be certain misconceptions. In terms of financial participation, when our product is refunded, the share from the store that Microsoft took is refunded, and of course it’s something that is subtracted from the share of revenues that would normally be transmitted to CD PROJEKT. It’s, of course, not shared with us and is instead refunded to the given player – the given customer. I think that pretty much sums up the first one.
Sobre una posible bajada de precio
We do not foresee lowering the price. We’re focusing on fixing the game to make sure that people are happy with the product, but there’s currently no discussion about changing the price.
Sobre la posibilidad de haber lanzado Cyberpunk 2077 solo para la nueva generación
So the answer here is “no”: next-gens get a completely different version of the game, so it’s not like we could have decided at any point recently to “flip the switch”, so to say, and change the old-gen version to the next-gen version and release only on next-gens. As you have noticed, there is no native next-gen release. The game runs on next-gens and takes advantage of how next-gens are performing, but it’s not like we had a next-gen version in our hands and decided to keep it on the shelf.
Let me add one more thing: [some time ago] we decided upon a last-gen version and, as you can see, we have not released a proper next-gen version – we don’t have it ready yet. What we did instead was promise that every single gamer who bought the game on last-gen consoles will get a proper next-gen update next year. This is what we’re working on and I sincerely hope that this will serve as another incentive for the gamers to keep the game and not return it – they will be able to plug their PlayStation or Xbox version into the next-gen consoles and the game will auto-update to a full-blown next-gen experience at no additional cost. So – I believe it does have quite some value.
Sobre el porcentaje de ventas en PC y consolas
Let me jump in – the preorder numbers were split between PCs and consoles with PC accounting for 59% of sales and consoles – 41%. Unfortunately we do not have the exact split between old and new console versions since we have just one console SKU for PlayStation and one for Xbox and we do not have direct visibility of how this CD or digital download is being used by gamers and which machines they’re using – the newest consoles or older ones.
