I "mostly" agree. I don't believe it was intentionally deceptive. I believe the devs knew they were coming off the very successful Witcher 3 so people will draw parallels and they played that up by having in game items with witcher logo and keywords like "milfgard" etc scattered throughout which intentionally or not gives the impression that this will be similar but a step above. Adding to that, the cyberpunk genre comes with it's own set of expectations where it holds nothing back. So while I agree with you, I do believe they let things spiral where they should have managed expectations from early on, particularly knowing they now have less control having gone public.I can fully respect the overall sentiment in this, but I'll stand my ground against the endless hordes that the game was never for even one, split second represented as anything other than it was. I'll put it this way: if some unknown studio had appeared out of nowhere and delivered the same game, people would probably be saying the following:
"It's a fun game, but it misses the mark in a few key areas. It's also rough around the edges, offering nothing on the open-world end that hasn't been seen before. Technical issues abound: graphical glitching to problematic controls. Most notably, the version released for last-gen consoles was simply not ready for release yet, and it was yanked from the Sony and Microsoft marketplaces within days. The studio has announced that they're on it, however, and even offered extended refunds for those customers. Nice to see that sort of accountability. Generally, however, the game is very impressive! From the design of the world to the incredibly acted dialogue scenes -- there is an almost overwhelming amount of love and detail crammed into every inch of it. Character customization is pretty slick, with lots of options to create the sort of V you're envisioning in your mind. Definitely worth checking out if you're into the dark, gritty, merciless world of Cyberpunk!"
But...since it was CD Projekt RED...creators of the legendary Witcher series, especially the all-time classic The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and it's astoundingly good expansions and piles of awards...now the response is:
"...complete trash...!"
"...gotta be kidding me, right...!?"
"...lied to all of us...!"
"...betrayal...!"
"...never buy anything from the studio again...!"
...etc.
Amazing how context can warp reality in the mind. I could easily show the same type of pattern for any number of widely celebrated studios. Once people become accustomed to a certain type of thing, they begin to take it for granted. They don't remember that sometimes, things go sideways. That doesn't mean that a studio intentionally misled people. (Especially not while trying to organize the final stages of a game using elements of cinematography the likes of which has only rarely been attempted before, and never on a project of this scale, while dealing with a company that was simultaneously growing to a size they had never dealt with before, and supporting numerous other projects simultaneously...just as the worst global pandemic in living memory struck and they couldn't even go into the studio to work on it.)
My guess is that this will be what decides the court case in CDPR's favor. Investors allowing themselves to be dazzled by hype as much as many players were. Individuals putting more weight on what the studio was saying than the words that were spoken actually meant by plain, objective definition. The same individuals who would have chosen to act differently if it had been a studio other than CDPR.
That's the kicker. If I put my faith in investing in a company -- even in the throes of such amazingly unprecedented challenges -- whose responsibility is that in the end? Of course, the company is going to try to argue their strengths and maintain my investment. Of course, there are pretty significant obstacles facing the studio because of COVID. Of course, there's a likelihood of things not coming together so perfectly. Of course, if I choose to withdraw my investment mid-stream, I'm going to take a loss.
But it's my decision. I cannot make the choice to remain invested in that situation, hoping for the best, and then spin 180° after things hit some major bumps and claim that it's everyone else's fault I didn't make all the money I was hoping to make.
Ah...here we come to a critical point. I 100% disagree. I found more role-playing in CP2077 than I did in TW3. Being raised in the 1970s and '80s, role-playing to me means choice and consequence. Interacting with the world, and having it react to me accordingly. I started to get a bit jaded and annoyed with RPGs around the time that Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition got really huge. I friggin' hate math...and now my RPGs were becoming @#$%!ng spreadsheets of numerical data that needed a #$%@!ng scientific calculator process! It was missing the whole point! (I honestly never looked at things like the Ultima series or Fargoal as "RPGs" until years and years later -- I just thought of them as "video games" at the time. And I liked those, too.)
People that grew up in the later 1980s and '90s will think of RPGs as table sessions surrounded by stacks of books, and screens, and a thousand different types of dice, and little miniatures on a tactical map. They're likely to have played mostly pre-made modules -- at least to start with. And CRPGs meant things like the D&D Goldbox series, Ultima, and hack-and-slash dungeon crawls like Wizardry, Might and Magic, or Eye of the Beholder.
People that grew up in the late 1990s and early 2000s likely think of RPGs to mean things like Daggerfall, Final Fantasy, Diablo, Deus Ex, and Fallout 1 & 2. Games with a lot of character that were either grind-fests or what had always been referred to as Action/Adventure games (with some RPG elements thrown in). In my experience, most "people that love RPGs" from this generation have never once in their life played a tabletop RPG.
People that grew up in the 2000's to the present most likely look at RPGs as meaning MMOs, games like Skyrim or Mass Effect, or even games like Assassin's Creed or Borderlands. We've now come so far from what a "role-playing game" originally meant, that it's like saying Spam is a form of pemmican. (Yeah...I guess both meat products are likely to eventually wind up in a tin...)
Thus, while your opinion on the game is perfectly valid, and it either provided the experience you were looking for or it didn't, which is entirely your prerogative and decision...
...there is absolutely no qualified way of saying, "They claimed it was an RPG -- and it's clearly not. They misrepresented the product!"
Erm...which definition of RPG are we using again? No hope there. None. The term has become hopelessly mired in a fog of perceptions, mechanics, and accepted definitions. Trying to argue from this stance will have the entire, subsequent argument tossed out as "speculative / ambiguous".
This is why, personally, I put a lot of stock in clear definitions for various genres. It's fine for new genres to be created -- or for something to fall between genres -- but the genre definitions themselves should be clear. Language is communication, and any time communication dissolves into this level of inaccuracy, I feel there should be a more active, authoritative body of experts that handles this and adjusts official definitions accordingly. (There are several...but they're nowhere near active or authoritative enough to apply to the average person in day-to-day practice...nor to gigantic industries that just blatantly ignore them.[...I'm not bitter.
So, what will need to actually be presented in the court case is the language used (word-for-word) and the imagery shown in the context of the language used (again, word-for-word). My belief is that many people (the investors not the least) are about to receive a bit of a lesson in how what we think in our minds...because we think so...based on assumption, interpretation, expectation, and desire...is 100%, completely, unequivocally, and unarguably different from what has actually been said and shown.
(Unless someone did try to misinform or withhold the truth intentionally. In which case, the preponderance of the evidence should be overwhelming. And in that case, this will be a sharp lesson in how not to do business with investors.)
But I'll state in closing that nothing I was ever shown led me to believe the game would be different than it was. I was seriously impressed that the game managed to maintain the cinematic and choice/consequence execution from beginning to end, was outright surprised to the depth it went in places, and felt that the bugs were a nuisance that did not detract much from the experience that the publicity and advertising actually exhibited. Many parts of the game exceeded my expectations: like Johnny. I can't go on enough about how absolutely engrossing the character was, and I think Reeves was the perfect choice. I would never have thought that way. Awesome job.
I thoroughly enjoyed the game, especially Silverhand as you mentioned. He was a welcomed surprise and I loved him more than I thought I would. People who outright say the game is trash are being disingenuous, however you may feel about the launch and bugs, the story and RPG elements (yes it's more RPG than W3 no question about that) were well done. The sheer amount of detail that went into the design and immersion are some of the best I've experienced in recent memory.
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