Lets talk about Q1 sales, multiplayer, quittings and media rumor mill

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That's a good point.

But if we can assume that marketing was far less noticeable, as most sales had already passed, and it would make little financial sense to throw hundreds of thousands into campaigns when the biggest sale spike is already behind.

Sooo, I don't think there's too much difference. Maybe in small scale, making some smaller social media marketing campaigns maybe... but it's not like 1 month after launch you can reach a lot of new people who weren't aware of that title.

It could be totally different scenario with smaller studios where they don't have such marketing budgets to even cause these millions of unit sales, so it could be more gradual for them where they keep trying to gain eyeballs by buying up Twitch streamers for sponsored gameplay content.

I'd love to bring out marketing budgets into discussion, but I don't think such data exists for public, so we'll just have to assume it's pretty even.



I want to be corrected with numbers.

Not by claims that making comparisons is pointless. If we can't agree that numbers matter there's not going to be much of a fruitful dialogue.

"People are individuals" has been thrown around thousands of years, and yet there has always been those being able to somehow manage groups of individuals as if they weren't. Every person has their own faith and yet they all have been going to same Church.

I'm sure you do.

That's what you want.

I want your numbers to prove you right.

But we don't always get what we want.

I would want you to start by understanding that the numbers aren't useful - because not only are you talking about a single case as some kind of statistically significant evidence - that's about a game that came out at an entirely different time, for two console platforms instead of 4 consoles, PC and Stadia - and you utterly ignore all other factors that would seem highly relevant, including the current pandemic, the other games released around the same time, and so forth.

What's even less useful is your inability to see that the "evil media" isn't focused on the drop in sales alone - but the way they reflect being below market expectation to a significant degree - which is the real issue with such a drop. But I guess such trivial details are not of much concern to you.

Beyond that, you provide zero sources for your numbers. You provide some kind of slides in a foreign language.

According to Wiki - GTAV had sold around 34 million copies by August 2014 - which is 7 months after your claim of 32.5 copies in 2013.

So, your very first "numbers" sentence contradicts what Wiki is saying - and you have no source.

Not only is your entire point a complete failure of appreciation for how reality works (hint: it goes beyond slides and made-up numbers) - your numbers alone are in question. But that's not terribly interesting, as even if your numbers matched up and were correct - they'd be useless for the reasons given.

Anyway, again, this is pointless. You're obviously not listening.

You're going to keep repeating "I want numbers to prove me wrong".

You might as well be asking for water melons to prove you wrong. It's probably not going to happen, and even if I did prove you wrong - we've already established that your standard of evidence is so far removed from reality that there's no way you'd be able to recognize being wrong even if the god of slides and statistics descended from the heavens and stamped the number "0" on your forehead.
 
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Is it really ok to compare this game, the very first of its franchise with the fifth release of the grand theft auto franchise? I am bluntly guessing here but how high is the chance that many features and base mechanics where taken over from one gta to another? Same for its customers while all CDPR got for its complete virgin pioneer game of the cyberpunk franchise where keanu reeves fans and those who played the witcher and did not completly ignore sci-fi.
 
According to Wiki - GTAV had sold around 34 million copies by August 2014 - which is 7 months after your claim of 32.5 copies in 2013.
"As of August 2014, the game has sold-in over 34 million units to retailers for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360."
Didn't Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 support digital distribution as well? Or at least PS4 and Xbox One had, right?

Also in the graph it says 32.5 million 2013, I didn't draw that graph.
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Actually I was doing some recalculating and it could be that number of sales should be in 1.1 million for Q1 or 366 666 per month.

So it might have actually been little bit lower than what it supposed to be in non holiday season. It's definitely in close range what sales of GTA 5 would have been in Q1.

Really hard to do math when you have to sum up those red bars in your head and then try estimate size of average green bar.


If my math is any more correct now, the game ought to sell this year 366 666 * 16 = 5,87 million copies then, pushing sales close to 20million in total, but since the sales appear to be slightly lower it could mean maybe 4-5 million instead? Then again a lot of people could be waiting for stuff to get fixed and new things added.

So for 2021 I'd say CDPR is going to end up in either side of 20 million total copies sold. We still have of course the wild card, next gen update, multiplayer announcement maybe E3 or maybe in end of year, expansions etc.
 
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I think many people (both those with no, practical experience in actual business ventures -- as well as those who I would argue are in business for completely the wrong reasons) are often far too focused on what "numbers look like". Let's hit some basic facts here:

1.) Unless I'm personally involved in the business in question, I have no idea what the numbers actually are. I have no idea what numbers a given company needs to see. I have no idea what a given company's actual expenditure is or what percentage of its revenue is profit. I'm mostly flying blind on assumptions and speculations.

2.) The comparison of GTA to Cyberpunk is a comparison to a company with nearly double the employees of CDPR and much higher production and maintenance overheads. Again, if I've never seen the difference between managing a company of 10 people vs. 100 people vs. 1000 people vs. thousands of people...I've got no basis to decide what sort of numbers would look good or bad.

3.) I don't need to be "#1, all-time, record-breaking, history-making, king-of-the-hill successful" to be a success. As I've mentioned many times in the past for discussions like this: Isn't it amazing how the hot-dog cart on the street corner or the greasy-spoon diner next to the gas station has been in business for almost 50 years...but the award-winning, 5-star steakhouse that charged $60 per plate went out of business in less than 3? Just because I know how to make a ton of money up front does not mean that I know how to sustain it. And never -- not once -- not at any point in history with any venture -- ever -- has that been necessary for a business to be successful.

4.) Probably most importantly, massive successes will be few and far between. Look very carefully at what any studio has done. The first Assassin's Creed was amazing. From what I remember, AC Unity didn't exactly do so well. Morrowind blew people's minds. How did Fallout 4 do, by comparison? Mass Effect 1 was utterly amazing! How's Andromeda's ratings and sales. And yet -- check this part out: Ubisoft is still there. Bethesda is still there. Bioware is still there.

Yup. People seem to like The Witcher 3 more than they liked Cyberpunk. That's fine! Work is now ongoing to make it a more engaging and appealing experience!

No, CDPR is not crashing in flames.
 
I liked Cyberpunk better than the Witcher myself. I never got past 1 hour in Witcher. I was overjoyed to hear CDPR was doing a non-Witcher game because I liked the company and needed some actual hope concerning the Game industry after I had fan boy over Bethesda for a decade.

Witcher seems like a good story driven RPG. But I suppose I wanted something else because I am very picky about Medieval combat mechanics in my Action RPGs and not as picky about combat with bullets in my Action RPGs.

Doesn't CDPR have a significant advantage that Bethesda, Rockstar and similar US companies do not have? They have some support by their government right? I do not get the feeling CDPR is going anywhere near out of business in the foreseeable future.
 
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My one takeaway from the briefing was that they actually don't know what the physical sales have been like yet, all they know is that their distributors haven't had to purchase more stock. The physical copies were all reported in q4 figures as the distributors stocked up in anticipation of launch/Xmas sales. They clearly didn't hit anticipated volumes, which is understandable given the issues at launch.

Apart from that, I agree with everything @SigilFey said, I really don't know enough about their business to make a judgement. But I do know you can't compare two very different quarters in any business, particularly one that relies on a long development and product release cycle.
 
I don't recall many media stories predicting doom for the company. I've seen a few forum posts trying to make that claim, but that's about it.

A lot have speculated that sales, despite being strong, probably haven't been as strong as the company had hoped. That's different than predicting doom and gloom for the company.

Regarding game code, that used to be a forbidden topic on the forums. If it isn't any longer, then I'll just say that nobody was worried about the 99% you quoted who may not understand the code. I think they were more worried about the 0.000001% who would not only understand it, but leverage it to try to find exploits into people's systems.
 
1.) Unless I'm personally involved in the business in question, I have no idea what the numbers actually are. I have no idea what numbers a given company needs to see. I have no idea what a given company's actual expenditure is or what percentage of its revenue is profit. I'm mostly flying blind on assumptions and speculations.
I would agree with this fully. However, CDPR themselves seem very keen on using data and figures sans all context when it suits their agenda, look at the recent articles about how many hours players have spent in game or how many players picked which relationship partner. It is a tried and tested thing to use hard facts and data, presented without the proper context to re-inforce an accompanying narrative. The ol' cherry picking of data that suits, while discarding data that doesn't.
 
I would agree with this fully. However, CDPR themselves seem very keen on using data and figures sans all context when it suits their agenda, look at the recent articles about how many hours players have spent in game or how many players picked which relationship partner. It is a tried and tested thing to use hard facts and data, presented without the proper context to re-inforce an accompanying narrative. The ol' cherry picking of data that suits, while discarding data that doesn't.

So does every company. I don't like business for exactly this reason. It's not upfront. It's never wholly honest. It can't be, because that would allow my competition to take full advantage of my situation. That would be a pathway to financial ruin. And every company will do whatever it can to represent itself in a positive light and avoid revealing any details about trouble spots. What purpose would it ever serve for a company to say, "We've had a really bad quarter and don't foresee any big improvement in the future. We have no prospects to rectify the situation, and we're not certain if what we are doing will be sustainable. But we're confident! We're seeking new investors."

:oops:

I'd like to see one company in the history of the stock market that has ever presented their earnings like this, even if they were about to shut their doors forever. Business will always report what looks best.

But this is a totally separate issue. Just because I have a good poker-face doesn't mean I actually have a bad hand. And just because I lose an ante or two doesn't mean I'm out of the game. Just look at the absolute flops of games that have been released as utter disasters that were never finished, and yet their studios went on to continue making title after title. In the meantime, companies like Bethesda, despite all of their success, have gone bankrupt on several occassions.

It's very easy to simply listen to people saying things because they think so, based on imaginings and assumptions that exist in their minds. And when lots of other people start agreeing with them...it suddenly starts becoming as good as fact in others' minds. That's not fact. It's usually not even insight. It's gossip. (And again -- there's nothing wrong with gossip for the sake of entertainment! There is a massive problem with gossip being accepted as substantial information.)

End result is that Cyberpunk 2077 sold millions and millions of copies (that were not returned despite even the very generous, extended return offer for last-gen consoles). A studio does not sell millions upon millions of copies of a game which somehow results in financial ruin.

There's no issue. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who actually liked the game and enjoyed their time with it. I liked it just fine and had a great time. I'm already planning what my next build will be. There are a lot of people still playing it now. I can cycle through servers on Discord and see "Playing: Cyberpunk 2077" on a regular basis, to this day. I also fully expect that CDPR will do a very good job polishing up the base game and adding meaningfully to it...even if it never reaches the same acclaim as TW3.
 
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No, there are laws which require publicly traded companies to present certain data, no matter how bleak these numbers are.

So...why would anyone then doubt the information released? Because CDPR is capable of completely pulling the wool over the eyes of a larger organization specifically tasked with ensuring accurate data is being reported? Because there's a huge, international conspiracy to cover up the truth that the company is actually on the verge of collapse? Who benefits from that?

You know what happens when a company crashes and burns? They crash and burn. Their numbers are so terrible that all investors jump ship, and the owners either look for a parent company to umbrella them, sell the business, or simply declare bankruptcy and shut their doors. They don't continue to fund 1,000+ employees for an additional 6 months, release ongoing updates, and continue development of other new products (Gwent, Monster Slayer, The Witcher Board Game, etc. [...all of which was done for free, of course, by over 1,000 employees who were not being paid, since there was actually no money, but were willing to risk their families, careers, and livelihoods to ensure the coverup succeeded!])

I promise you, from my own personal experience, that the numbers a business is reporting are going to be pretty accurate, but there are still a lot of ways of making something that was a relatively minor success look huge, and there are ways of making massive amounts of income seem tight. This is how the game is played. It all hinges on the actual goals of a company. I've personally worked with a company that intended to create a 5-year growth plan for the singular purpose of closing the business at that point so investors could cash out, resulting in nearly 200 people losing their jobs. Intentional, vile, and 100% legal. I've also personally worked for a business that was willing to suffer thousands of dollars in losses for several consecutive months, with the owner simply not taking any pay during that time, because they overreached and didn't want to cut and run on the client. The numbers do not dictate success, right, wrong, or any other concern. They dictate the physical number of dollars that went from this account to that account. That's it. I can be perfectly honest with that and still make it look like I'm growing exponentially with only a few hundred of dollars in actual profits to show...and I can pocket tens of millions and still argue successfully for a tax break and a bail-out.

Here's again, the facts: CDPR launched the game. It got some pretty negative reviews. They're continuing to work on the game because they want to make good games. You can't do that if you don't have the money to do that. I promise you, people won't work for free.
 
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So...why would you then doubt the information released? Because CDPR is capable of completely pulling the wool over the eyes of a larger organization specifically tasked with ensuring accurate data is being reported? Because there's a huge, international conspiracy to cover up the truth that the company is actually on the verge of collapse? Who benefits from that?

Where did I doubt their data?
Given their data it is not too far fetched to say they have to address a few issues.

That certain individuals act like their favourite sports team has lost because some media outlets do not continously praise this company is beyond me. There is a little more room than 0 and 1 or crash&burn and thriving.
 
Where did I doubt their data?
Given their data it is not too far fetched to say they have to address a few issues.

That certain individuals act like their favourite sports team has lost because some media outlets do not continously praise this company is beyond me. There is a little more room than 0 and 1 or crash&burn and thriving.

I'm not really following what your reference to the law was, then.

As for things that are beyond me, I could say the same about certain individuals who actively monger drama, and are unwilling or unable to differentiate between speculation and factual information, focused entirely on exploiting whatever negative inferences they can, for the purposes of their own publicity or simple, selfish angst. (Note -- I'm addressing the other extreme, not directly contradicting your statement.)

I do agree with your "...more room than 0 and 1..."! There is a LOT of room between 0 and 1. A tremendous amount of room. Options out the wazoo, actually, if someone is truly dedicated to making their business thrive. The test of a company is not how long they can sustain unmitigated success. It's how they handle the inevitable pitfalls and losses along the way. A lesser company would already have panicked and quit. At CDPR, everyone's pretty much just getting on with it.
 
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It's very easy to simply listen to people saying things because they think so, based on imaginings and assumptions that exist in their minds. And when lots of other people start agreeing with them...it suddenly starts becoming as good as fact in others' minds. That's not fact. It's usually not even insight. It's gossip. (And again -- there's nothing wrong with gossip for the sake of entertainment! There is a massive problem with gossip being accepted as substantial information.)
Amen to that.

I liked Cyberpunk better than the Witcher myself. I never got past 1 hour in Witcher.
Same here. I've never got myself into Witcher series. I played past Witcher 1, give up trying half way in Witcher 2 because there was a difficulty spike, never was too interested on the lore similar way like I would by Warcraft. Witcher 3 I bought recently mostly because my brother was constantly reminding about the game and telling me I should play it, but stopped playing after slaying Griffin. I watched the Netflix series and it was okay, well at least most of the episodes. I think it took too many missions with magical creatures and made Geralt like that player who always chooses to help NPC's no matter how small their task is. On other hand I think he's very hard character to get right and I'm certainly no Witcher expert not having read any of the books and like I said, just played through Witcher 1 only which I remember very little of.

But I really liked Cyberpunk from start to finish. There was couple things that irritated like how you're constantly being reminded about your sickness and sometimes it feels like you're walking through a long cut scene, where theren't not really much happening gameplay wise. For example before shooting down AV you're driving into this solar plant facility to turn on switches, but you can just go have a coffee and walk outside, take a shower and come back and you still find your character alive, while Panam is reminding you how you need to hurry. At least send some guys to protect the area or something. There's few drones protecting the area but nothing else coming your way, no matter how long you wait.

I watched a ton of reviews and I really liked what DrDisrespect had to say about the game (I've heard he had some controversy I guess but lets not let that impact how we watch his review).


If they just tuned some aspects of the game and made it less like walking through long cut scene, and tweaked few areas where they clearly wanted you to go through in certain order, like in Clouds where you're supposed to give up all your weapons, talk to the joytoy, get some deep conversation with them, and then have this stealth section where you get to meet Woodman. If the opening to the Clouds was little less restricted and more in players control that mission would have been excellent.

Another part is with the Voodoo boys where you're forced to go through so many dialogues where you can't just say no to anything and give them middle finger, because you're required to enter cyberspace with their aid. If they could just somehow tweak it so that you could join Netwatch and attempt to catch Alt Cunningham, but she just overpowers them and isolates you, similarly how it's done with Voodoo Boys, that'd be interesting. Maybe even have third option where you seek help from some ripperdoc and they'll have facility to hook you into and go under Ice, same things happen and then when you're out the ripperdoc asks "So how did it go? Did you get what you were looking for?", that would have been great.

It's just these main story missions kinda sunk some of the charm of how they feel too straight forward where only thing preventing you from progressing is if your F key broke.

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But lets go too much into opinions about the game. I'm sure CDPR recognizes themselves what the players wanted the game to have.
 
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My one takeaway from the briefing was that they actually don't know what the physical sales have been like yet, all they know is that their distributors haven't had to purchase more stock. The physical copies were all reported in q4 figures as the distributors stocked up in anticipation of launch/Xmas sales. They clearly didn't hit anticipated volumes, which is understandable given the issues at launch.

Apart from that, I agree with everything @SigilFey said, I really don't know enough about their business to make a judgement. But I do know you can't compare two very different quarters in any business, particularly one that relies on a long development and product release cycle.
You make an interesting point with relation to physical stock. And it has me wondering... I did just put in a preorder at my local retailer network to have a physical copy for PS4 shipped to me. But in this day and age, how much physical stock would be consumed, specificaly when offsetted with digital versions. I read and see many people who like a digital library via steam or PSN or whatever. and there's many digital providers.
Bringing me to the core question: how, based on what, would one calculate how much physical stock one needs these days?
 
(Publicly traded) Companies cannot, because they must not, only report what looks best.
Oh, sure, they release their quarterly reports as demanded by law etc. And yes, people from Goldman Sachs or Bridgewater do know how to read them but that's just all they are - a set of numbers.

But then come the investors' calls, interviews for business magazines, analyst reports, statements of direction and usual PR stuff - you know, the whole marketing communication. Those allow to give some nuance to all the numbers law required. And yes, sometimes they also allow to blur some red spots and make they at least yellow.

I work for one of the biggest publicly traded corporations in the world, with all the audit and regulatory compliance you can dream of. We've been losing a key market battle with our competition for years now, failing to adapt to the market with the numbers leaving a lot to be desired.

We've also been "winning key battles", "growing in key areas", "shifting our strategic focus" in every goddamn quarterly report released.
 
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