Cyberpunk 2077 - Are you opting to refund your copy? Now removed from the PS Store

[Isaac]

2 hours ago, gospvg said:

Is this a first? Why was Fallout 76 not pulled which was also released in a poor state.

Will this hurt CDPR? 

A big lesson to the industry do not release your game in a poor buggy state.

 

From BBC

Sony has pulled the game Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation store and offered refunds. 

Players complained that Cyberpunk 2077 has been riddled with bugs and glitches and is prone to crashes.  

 

Because Bethesda didn't offer unequivocal refunds. This is Sony not wanting to set a precedent with their shit refund policy.

 

50 minutes ago, Bojangle said:

I’d imagine it’s partly Sony wanting to flex their muscle on CDPR and also an alarmingly high crash rate which has led to this. Fallout 76 was (is?) buggy but I don’t believe it’s crashing all over the place like this appears to be.

 

Nah it's purely the refund piece. If CDPR hadn't offered refunds Cyberpunk would still be listed.

 

42 minutes ago, Festoon said:

Staggering it came to this.

 

I'm not sure CDPR can survive it, to be honest. One thing is for certain - you'll definitely be seeing more Geralt again.

 

CDPR have already more than made the money back from their Cyberpunk dev costs, and have a storefront similar to steam that gives them loads of money too.

 

They aren't going anywhere.

[Isaac]

7 minutes ago, Festoon said:

 

Yeah, maybe, I think it's weird no-one is mad at Sony for letting a broken game on their store as well though.

 

It's quite funny that instead of doing a Microsoft (and just having a decent refund policy) Sony have just pulled the game.

 

Sony aren't the most consumer-friendly company.

[Bojangle]

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. None of us are in the position to say for sure either way. All I know is they’ve 100% breached the contract they sign upon receiving the FQA report which then allows them to publish the build.

 

IF CDPR wanted to argue this removal legally I don’t think “well they told people to get refunds” is going to hold up.

[Minion]

14 minutes ago, Festoon said:

 

Yeah, maybe, I think it's weird no-one is mad at Sony for letting a broken game on their store as well though.

The biggest release of the year? When it was released elsewhere? Imagine the hate they would have got...

[HarryBizzle]

I’m not going to argue for a second that Sony’s disastrous refunds and customer services are better than Microsoft’s, but in this one specific instance, I think an outcome which results in a significant impact to the publisher (regardless of Sony’s motivations) is a better outcome than saying that the game is horribly broken but you can still give us money for it if you like. 

[Isaac]

2 minutes ago, Bojangle said:

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. None of us are in the position to say for sure either way. All I know is they’ve 100% breached the contract they sign upon receiving the FQA report which then allows them to publish the build.

 

IF CDPR wanted to argue this removal legally I don’t think “well they told people to get refunds” is going to hold up.

 

The store is entirely owned and operated by Sony and it's at their discretion what's on there so I don't think anybody here is talking about CDPR challenging legally - we all know they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. 

 

It's more telling to me that there are games that are just as broken (or even more broken!) still listed and still being sold - the key difference being that these publishers haven't attempted to go over Sony's head and offer refunds.

[Festoon]

5 minutes ago, Minion said:

The biggest release of the year? When it was released elsewhere? Imagine the hate they would have got...

 

It's an Xbox exclusive console release now. What an unnecessary disaster.

[Minion]

Just now, Festoon said:

 

It's an Xbox exclusive console release now. What an unnecessary disaster.

You can still get the physical version, I don't see what you;re getting at, you seem to be having a go at Sony, first for letting it on their store, and now for removing it? Are you just arguing for arguing sakes?

[Bojangle]

18 minutes ago, Festoon said:

 

Yeah, maybe, I think it's weird no-one is mad at Sony for letting a broken game on their store as well though.

This is fair, but cert is not QA. The game being broken is on CDPR. If it passes the very specific TRCs, it passes. A lot of other issues were very likely highlighted in the FQA report as “this isn’t a failure but we recommend you improve/fix it”. At that point it’s totally on the developer/publisher if they address that or not. There’s an argument to be made for if that should or shouldn’t be the case here but cert is already a slow, shitty process. I can’t imagine anyone involved with it wants it to be even slower.

[Majora]

31 minutes ago, Festoon said:

 

Yeah, maybe, I think it's weird no-one is mad at Sony for letting a broken game on their store as well though.

 

This is a misunderstanding of what certification is. It's not Sony and Microsoft's job to perform general QA on a title. They check that the game doesn't fail a very precise set of criteria, not whether the frame rate is dodgy or textures take a while to load in or the police AI is non-existent or quests become uncompletable. Good Twitter thread about this here:

 

 

[Kryptonian]

What’s FQA?

[JoeK]

2 minutes ago, Kryptonian said:

What’s FQA?

 

I imagine the F is for 'Fuck'. 

 

The rest is probably self explanatory  

[englishbob]

From the BBC article...

 

"Problems reported include choppy frame rates and screen tearing"

 

...which is about 99% of everything released

[NecroMorrius]

7 minutes ago, englishbob said:

From the BBC article...

 

"Problems reported include choppy frame rates and screen tearing"

 

...which is about 99% of everything released

 

99% of games don’t run at 14fps at 480p. 
 

Anyway, make or break time for CDPR. This is the moment they blow the whole operation open with a big tell-all and management admit to rushing the game out while hiding the console versions to get their bonuses. Regardless of performance on last gen, and even regardless of all the bugs, the game isn’t finished. 

[Bojangle]

16 minutes ago, Kryptonian said:

What’s FQA?

Format QA in this case. Cert, basically.

[HarryBizzle]

59 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

 

I hadn’t heard of this game, but this is absolutely pathetic. Many messages from Chinese bots, in other words.

[Alex W.]

Oh yeah, it’s obvious CDPR are cowards.

[englishbob]

8 minutes ago, Moz said:

 

99% of games don’t run at 14fps at 480p. 
 

 

No idea what the performance is on PS4, or Xbox for that matter. I'm still amazed it was released for PS4 and Xbox. 

 

It should logically be available only on the PS5 store, but then as-yet it is not a native PS5 application, so they are screwed there too. 

 

Physical media wins!

 

CDPR as going to be spending more time fixing base PS4 and Xbox issues than they are anything else right now I reckon

[Bojangle]

 

29 minutes ago, Isaac said:

 

It's more telling to me that there are games that are just as broken (or even more broken!) still listed and still being sold - the key difference being that these publishers haven't attempted to go over Sony's head and offer refunds.

They take it on a case by case basis, so it's impossible to compare two different games with the info we have and say "Why has Cyberpunk been delisted but but not this?" Are any of those "broken" games the biggest news in gaming right now? Do we know the crash rate of Cyberpunk vs these other games? etc

Again, I'm not saying the refund stuff didn't come into play (CDPR knew full well about the store policies for each of the platforms they publish on but I suspect they knew exactly what they were doing with that statement), I just don't believe it's the sole reason for this. The quote from the conference call saying "Well I guess Sony and Microsoft assumed we'd fix it" was another attempt from CDPR at throwing the platforms under the bus. Knowing how the Cert and waiver system works they've almost certainly breached the contract/not met expectations set from Sony in terms of when stuff would be fixed so now Sony are saying fix it first and then we'll list it again. So they're not even letting them use the Rapid Patch system to get around cert submission, which is a big oof. 

[Captain Kelsten]

CDPR really have fucked this launch at every conceivable turn, haven’t they? Delays. Mandatory crunch. Allegations of poor workplace practices. Sexism, misogyny, transphobia, and now releasing what will likely go down in history as one of the messiest launches of all time. 

 

Lightning struck with W3 and they’ve not managed to bottle it a second time round. They’re acting like a much bigger, more experienced developer than they really are and that’s showing now. 

[Festoon]

1 hour ago, Minion said:

You can still get the physical version, I don't see what you;re getting at, you seem to be having a go at Sony, first for letting it on their store, and now for removing it? Are you just arguing for arguing sakes?

 

Eh? I don't even own a console. Calm down. I'm not 'having a go', I'm just asking. I forget how invested people are in these companies.

[Festoon]

48 minutes ago, Majora said:

 

This is a misunderstanding of what certification is. It's not Sony and Microsoft's job to perform general QA on a title. They check that the game doesn't fail a very precise set of criteria, not whether the frame rate is dodgy or textures take a while to load in or the police AI is non-existent or quests become uncompletable. Good Twitter thread about this here:

 

 

 

That's interesting, thanks.

[alex3d]

Sony kicked them out of PS Store? Crazy stuff. CDPR shares are down 15% today, by the way.

[Eighthours]

2 hours ago, Alex W. said:

CDPR have issued a statement that delisting the game and giving everyone refunds was a decision they reached after discussion with SIE. The game will, eventually, be patched and updated - but for now it's not available.

 

 

I wonder what the odds were of Cyberpunk 2077 going full PT. Someone put a quid down for a laugh and now owns the Galápagos Islands.

[mikeyl]

2 hours ago, Mars said:

 

Ps4, and even console, isn't their 'mass market'.

 

The 'niche' PC audience accounted for 59% of pre-orders, including sales through a store front that gives CDPR 100% of revenue. I'm not defending anything they've done, but this view is a bit wonky. 

 

 

 

That’s another example of their niche pandering. What’s the Witcher’s console sales? Something like well over 70%. Same for something like GTA V.  That’s where the actual dolla is and that’s what they should have prioritised instead of making it look nice for the 1% of the 30% of PC users with the setup to play/review it.

 

And is it really necessary for the character in the tweet to be arse first? What if I wanna get to know her as a person or a fighter. It’s clearly all about the arse in a pose you’d never see Gerald from the Witcher striking.

[Festoon]

26 minutes ago, Doctor Shark said:

CDPR really have fucked this launch at every conceivable turn, haven’t they? Delays. Mandatory crunch. Allegations of poor workplace practices. Sexism, misogyny, transphobia, and now releasing what will likely go down in history as one of the messiest launches of all time. 

 

Lightning struck with W3 and they’ve not managed to bottle it a second time round. They’re acting like a much bigger, more experienced developer than they really are and that’s showing now. 

 

I think this is it, to be honest, the experience thing. And the PC development with all the GPU visual tech tricks clearly overwhelmed their common sense at some point.

[footle]

5 minutes ago, mikeyl said:

That’s another example of their niche pandering. What’s the Witcher’s console sales? Something like well over 70%. Same for something like GTA V.  That’s where the actual dolla is and that’s what they should have prioritised instead of making it look nice for the 1% of the 30% of PC users with the setup to play/review it.

 

And is it really necessary for the character in the tweet to be arse first? What if I wanna get to know her as a person or a fighter. It’s clearly all about the arse in a pose you’d never see Gerald from the Witcher striking.

 

You're confusing volume with revenue.

 

100% of £50 at launch from their own store, or 90% from the Epic store > 60-70% of discounted sale prices over multiple years: which is where the volume is, and which they'll get from the next gen versions anyway over time.

GTA V shipped later on PC, and most of the revenues there are "free to play" shenanigans.

 

[Minion]

7 minutes ago, mikeyl said:

And is it really necessary for the character in the tweet to be arse first? What if I wanna get to know her as a person or a fighter. It’s clearly all about the arse in a pose you’d never see Gerald from the Witcher striking.

The Xmas barrage of perfume adverts must really trigger you. 

[Waggo]

Don’t think I saw a mainstream review of the game less than 8, which just goes to show what a joke games journalism now is.  
 

Yeah they mention bugs, but they are still actively conspiring to sell you a game which is fundamentally broken.

 

 (Disclaimer: I have not played it so making that assumption based on Sony pulling the game and CPDR offering to refund).

[Lorfarius]

Just now, Waggo said:

Don’t think I saw a mainstream review of the game less than 8, which just goes to show what a joke games journalism now is.  
 

Yeah they mention bugs, but they are still actively conspiring to sell you a game which is fundamentally broken.

 

 (Disclaimer: I have not played it so making that assumption based on Sony pulling the game and CPDR offering to refund).

 

All those reviews were of the PC version weren't they?