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Rebellion is in the air at Polish video game publisher CD Projekt SA after the company’s long-awaited and three-time-delayed latest title was released with scathing criticism of the issues.
Frustrated and angry staff posed questions to the board during an internal video meeting Thursday that opened with management apologizing for the disastrous launch of Cyberpunk 2077, according to two people in attendance. It was a fitting atmosphere for a company whose slogan, displayed on posters all around its Warsaw office, is “We are rebels”.
The developers asked direct questions about the company’s reputation, the game’s unrealistic timelines, and relentless overtime in the months and years leading up to the game’s December 10 release.
The meeting took place before Sony Corp is shockingadthat it is removing Cyberpunk 2077 from PlayStation Store and will offer a full refund to any customer who requests it. At the staff meeting, the directors of CD Projekt said they had reached an agreement with Sony but did not give details. In one Twitter On Friday, the company said that “following our discussion with PlayStation, a decision has been made to temporarily suspend digital distribution” of the game.
A spokesperson for CD Projekt said the company would not comment on the internal meeting discussions.
Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the biggest games of the year and has been a financial success, selling over 8 million pre-orders and recording record sales for PC games. But gamers found the game to be full of bugs, especially on the latest generation PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, sending in CD Projektstocks falland major fans and critics to describe Cyberpunk 2077 as unfinished. CD Projekt stock fell 12% in Warsaw on Friday, punctuating a steady decline this month that wiped out the year’s gains.
During the development of Cyberpunk 2077, staff endured several periods of long overtime, includingsix day weeksto complete the game, Bloomberg reported. When asked about this critical moment in the Q&A, the directors said they intended to improve production practices in the future, but did not elaborate, according to a person who was there.
An employee asked the board why it said in January that the game was “complete and playable” when it wasn’t true, to which the board replied that it would take responsibility for it. Another developer asked if the directors of CD Projekt thought it hypocritical to play a game on the exploitation of companies by expecting their employees to work overtime. The answer was vague and unusual.
Many industry watchers have wondered why Cyberpunk 2077, which was first announced in 2012 and was delayed three times in 2020, still seems unfinished. Several current and former staff who worked on Cyberpunk 2077 all said the same thing: The game’s timelines, set by the board, were still unrealistic. It was clear to many developers that they needed more time.
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