Lawsuit is happening sad days ahead

[DataEntity.390]

If some of the - second hand - backchannel info is true, then the drop in stock price is due to a large Polish pension fund selling all their shares in CDPR, that they had aquired five years back.

Great deal for them, BTW. Buying at ~20 zloty and selling at ~400.

All that would point towards this lawsuit being a bust. And like Rosen Legal states, nobody has come along to foot the bill quite yet for the lawsuit to go forwards.

 

[Force58]

This game was not developed for PS4. SONY is the main issue. They should know what they are selling.

Is the drug maker to be blamed if Sony sells drugs at PS Store?

Btw, Ghost of Tsushima is perfect at PS4. Awesome game made by awesome developers.

That's so wrong. Are you kidding, you have to be? They started development on the game 7 years ago, of course it was dev'd for the PS4 and Xbox One, as well as PC, next gen consoles weren't even on the radar then. What happened at some point during that 7 years was they got ultra greedy and decided to add the next gen consoles as well as Stadia. The dev teams couldn't keep up and we end up with that mess we all bought.

 

[DataEntity.390]

That's so wrong. Are you kidding, you have to be? They started development on the game 7 years ago, of course it was dev'd for the PS4 and Xbox One, as well as PC, next gen consoles weren't even on the radar then. What happened at some point during that 7 years was they got ultra greedy and decided to add the next gen consoles as well as Stadia. The dev teams couldn't keep up and we end up with that mess we all bought.

Then why did CDPR state in their investor calls that the game had become essentially a next-gen title?

 

[Briffault]

It's absolutely warranted, no doubt. Whether it's investors or consumers, doesn't matter, folks need to be held accountable for their behaviour and it's about time someone made an example out of these companies lying to folks, pulling into gross amounts of money, and handing back an unfinished product that needs a TON of work still. I'm glad they're being sued. May not go very far but hopefully it sends a message about being deceitful and greedy. As for the devs who actually worked on the game? I hope they're spared the trouble that the management will go through. But yeah, I'm glad they're being taken to court, they earned it.

 

[Force58]

Then why did CDPR state in their investor calls that the game had become essentially a next-gen title?

Because at some point in the 7 year cycle it had, as I stated. That doesn't mean at whatever point that was they they completely ignore the work they had started on the PS4 and Xbox One. Remember 7 years ago there was no mention of the PS5 or Xbox Series X. They knew full well that the PS4 and Xbox One game state was not where it should have been but decided to release it anyway. Is that right?

Somebody in the company should have stood up and said something. The game should not have released the way it did. It even has issues on PC and the next gen consoles. People would have been unhappy to go through another delay but I guarantee you it wouldn't be like it is now. What other game in the last 50 years has released in a state to the point where a "Sony" and "Microsoft" pull the game off their online store and offer refunds weeks after release?

 

[DataEntity.390]

Somebody in the company should have stood up and said something. The game should not have released the way it did. It even has issues on PC and the next gen consoles. People would have been unhappy to go through another delay but I guarantee you it wouldn't be like it is now. What other game in the last 50 years has released in a state to the point where a "Sony" and "Microsoft" pull the game off their online store and offer refunds weeks after release?

Other games have released in as bad or worse condition. Without offering any refunds or apologies. And both Sony and MS have happily kept them on their stores. The reason 2077 was pulled from Playstation Store, was because CDPR unilatherally offered refunds. 2077 still is up on Xbox store, BTW.

They knew full well that the PS4 and Xbox One game state was not where it should have been but decided to release it anyway. Is that right?

Did they actually know that? Given the fact that some console owners are running the game fine, would indicate that it is entirely possible they didn't think there were such large problems.

Because at some point in the 7 year cycle it had, as I stated. That doesn't mean at whatever point that was they they completely ignore the work they had started on the PS4 and Xbox One. Remember 7 years ago there was no mention of the PS5 or Xbox Series X.

They didn't start proper development on 2077 until 4 years ago. They did pre-production on it, while the rest of the team finished Blood and Wine. 2077 was unlikely to be much more than a crude prototype before that.

 

[Force58]

Other games have released in as bad or worse condition. Without offering any refunds or apologies. And both Sony and MS have happily kept them on their stores. The reason 2077 was pulled from Playstation Store, was because CDPR unilatherally offered refunds. 2077 still is up on Xbox store, BTW.



Did they actually know that? Given the fact that some console owners are running the game fine, would indicate that it is entirely possible they didn't think there were such large problems.



They didn't start proper development on 2077 until 4 years ago. They did pre-production on it, while the rest of the team finished Blood and Wine. 2077 was unlikely to be much more than a crude prototype before that.

Anthem was the only other game I can think of that released in such a bad state, but that was at least playable. I checked the Xbox store and you're right, my bad.

I can still play CP2077 but it runs like it's skipping a beat and with the screen freezing/locking up, it just takes away any sense of immersion. I'm playing on an Xbox One X so I can't imagine how it runs on a stock Xbox One. I think a lot of people are ignoring the issues the game has when they post on here, being fanboys or whatever, the hype was extremely high such that no matter how it released it'd be reported as being fine by some.

At any point during the 4-year dev cycle did CDPR come out and say the game was only for PC and next gen consoles? If not then it should have run fine on last-gen out the shute. Four years ago there wasn't much thought of next-gen either but if they did in fact decide back then to add next-gen to the release then they shouldn't have forgotten about last-gen. In the end it was probably too much for them to keep up with, even adding Stadia to the list. Still doesn't excuse the launch.

I'll eventually upgrade to the Series X and hopefully by then the game will be in a better state. I'll also wait for the Jan/Feb patches as I resisted the urge to get a refund at the last minute.

 

[svzurich]

I hope they can weather the lawsuits and criticism to make this game a wonderful success and learn from their mistakes.

 

[TheRealTalidus]

Looks like the lawsuit is happening hopefully cdprojektred can recover and fix the game and add new content/restore to the game.

https://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-2010.html

Well unfortunately, since there is no real consumer protection against these kinds of practices, we have to turn to lawyers. Hopefully, it wakes up the industry because honestly, the software gaming industry NEEDs a good wakeup. Tired of these hyped out overpromise-underdeliver business practices of this industry. They take your money and then run and then say, "Sorry" on a communication and then send out a few facade patches to show "we're fixing the issues" when they we're the ones who knew of the issues all along.

Its just unfortunate, that CDPR is that company but, without controls in place for pushing out bad products, companies will continue to do it. I remember when a Beta was a Beta and a full release was a full release. Now its a f****** toss up of what you will get. It needs to be regulated.

 

[Force58]

Well unfortunately, since there is no real consumer protection against these kinds of practices, we have to turn to lawyers. Hopefully, it wakes up the industry because honestly, the software gaming industry NEEDs a good wakeup. Tired of these hyped out overpromise-underdeliver business practices of this industry. They take your money and then run and then say, "Sorry" on a communication and then send out a few facade patches to show "we're fixing the issues" when they we're the ones who knew of the issues all along.

Its just unfortunate, that CDPR is that company but, without controls in place for pushing out bad products, companies will continue to do it. I remember when a Beta was a Beta and a full release was a full release. Now its a f****** toss up of what you will get. It needs to be regulated.

Excellent post! There does need to be a shakeup in the gaming industry as the norm is exactly as you describe. It's as if AAA game companies decided to save money and get rid of all their QA and testing capabilities. It's just plain sad that just about every AAA title in recent years has launched this way. The excuses they give are laughable as well, if we ever get any. The post-release patching is not a viable solution.

CP2077 was released missing a ton of content that had been shown previously. This also happens to a lot of titles, publishers demand unrealistic release dates, game company management forces the dev team to the point where the only answer is to delete content and put out an unfinished game. This happens way, way too often, and again, has become the norm.

The ONLY way to stop this is to quit buying pre-orders. Everybody should wait until a game is reviewed before paying for it. This is something the content creators should continue to do, not get involved in the hype train, but review a game in an unbiased way.

 

[Trackah123]

The problem are always two things, money and deadlines, they go hand in hand. if it wasn't for these two things, developers could just make their game perfect in a relaxed workspace until game-release without any deadlines (which in return leads to crunching practices), financial issues etc.

To change this, you basically have to change the world, the economic system (consumption and demand), the world banks. Since money (survival) and deadlines affects almost everything on this planet.

 

[Bulletproff]

I hope this makes them realise that you just cannot release a game in this state and lie about what is in the game.

They unfortunately deserves this. Cyberpunk 2077 is the most dissapointing game of 2020

 

[VitaminArrr]

Is there a single person who doesn't know that investing in software companies is a high-risk, high-reward gamble?

That's WHY people invest in software companies!

Anyone familiar with the software industry knows, it has a total lack of any kind of established professional standards.

Lawyers have a Bar and can get their license to practice law revoked for malpractice. Doctors are under an even more stringent constraint. Construction companies need a license to take a contract to build a building, and they need a permit to do anything at all—then an inspector has to approve their work before the building can be legally sold.

Meanwhile the software industry is completely the wild west, and everyone knows it. There are no official, legal standards that dictate anything at all about how software must be written in order for someone to legally sell it or make claims about it. Even within the software industry itself, it's extremely uncommon for a software company to have any hard requirements of any kind for people they hire to write code.

So, given the fact that people who make software adhere to no common principles or standards, how can anyone in the world legitimately expect that anyone exists at a software company who can make accurate statements about what their software will be ultimately be like at some point in time?

I can buy that someone outside the software industry might not really understand this... but people forking over $$$ to invest in a company that operates in a wholly unregulated sector have no excuse. They knew it was high-risk when they invested. There should not be a legal golden parachute for software investors anytime a launch goes poorly.

People in this industry are all literally trying our best but the people at the top of any software company never have any kind of firm grasp on what the hell is happening. They are herding cats and praying they all use the litter box. When it works out, everyone wins big, but when it doesn't work out exactly as planned, then the high-risk investors can get left holding the bag to an extent.

But they knew that going in!

Ask me how I know...

(I'm an industry veteran, in business software though, but the same principles apply, so I know what I'm talking about.)

BTW I'm not saying there shouldn't be any accountability on behalf of CDPR. I'm just saying they would have had to extremely egregiously and knowingly engage in deliberate, coordinated acts of deception, and I just haven't seen any evidence or signs of something like that. What I've seen is a company that tried really hard to make a self-imposed launch deadline, with mounting internal and external pressures to meet it.

Given the fact that this industry has no accepted standards about how to trigger a launch abort, how do investors think things are supposed to go exactly?

NASA did not know the Space Shuttle Challenger would necessarily explode. Even though there were multiple engineers who tried to convince their managers to abort the launch the day before it blew up. See, the engineers knew it would be colder the next morning than the minimum temperature at which they had tested the o-rings on the solid rocket boosters. But the managers said, "That doesn't prove it will fail," which is technically correct. So they took a risk. And it exploded. But even to this day, the manager whose decision it was, defends his decision because, he says, the history of space flight is one big calculated risk after another, but sometimes you lose and then major changes happen to prevent it ever happening again.

Just like I'm sure CDPR will implement new quality controls and practices to help avoid a bad launch again.

But I don't think this was a case of deception.

 

[Trackah123]

I'm just saying they would have had to extremely egregiously and knowingly engage in deliberate, coordinated acts of deception, and I just haven't seen any evidence or signs of something like that. What I've seen is a company that tried really hard to make a self-imposed launch deadline, with mounting internal and external pressures to meet it.

This is what i mean and mentioned earlier, money and deadlines are what usually destroys the development process.

Developers aren't to blame, usually the people higher up, or in your words (the ones that put internal and external pressures on a company) are to blame. I'm sure when they started developing this game, it was with good will and intentions so to speak, but when the release date was getting closer and the all the stressing pressures were incoming, that's where it went wrong.

And yes, i agree that there should be some kind of legal regulation in the software industry. To protect both the industry and costumers in better ways. Not like the wild west indeed.

 

[Oddballe8]

ok now instead of fixing game and adding more content, CDPR will spend time and money fighting law suits and maybe even lay off some working force

Yup. They'll be sending all their most competent programmers and digital artists to the court to fight off these charges, I'm sure!

/s

You, like so unbelievably many others in this world, seem to think that a company is made up of only five people and they all do all the tasks that need to be done in that company.

Need bugs fixed? Well, surely we can't add new content then because it must be the same guys who do bug fixes as the ones who do new 3d models and textures.
Have a lawsuit? Well, surely all development on the game will stop because the same people who do the programming and textures and stuff are also their full-time lawyers...

Seriously... AT MOST, this will mean that a bit less money will be funneled back into the game... but most of that money has already been put away for investor payouts and investment into the next game.

So... yeah... not gonna effect any fixes to the game and additional content.

 

[Gillian_Seed]

They made their bed. Now they have to lie in it.

I'm not at all surprised with the law suit and even though it's the exact opposite of where I wanted to be concerning this game before it was released, I'm thankful for it to the extent that it may serve as some kind of warning to games developers in the future which hopefully will result in the gaming industry being looked at in a more serious light from a financial consequence perspective. Pre-Ordering a game is investing in the company that is making the game and even though I only invested 60.00 and expected the game I was sold instead of turning profits based on my experience, I was still mislead about my investment and this has become common practice in the games industry.

 

[Tree_Fox]

I'm not at all surprised with the law suit and even though it's the exact opposite of where I wanted to be concerning this game before it was released, I'm thankful for it to the extent that it may serve as some kind of warning to games developers in the future which hopefully will result in the gaming industry being looked at in a more serious light from a financial consequence perspective. Pre-Ordering a game is investing in the company that is making the game and even though I only invested 60.00 and expected the game I was sold instead of turning profits based on my experience, I was still mislead about my investment and this has become common practice in the games industry.

It’s not that they lied to us. That is of no consequence. They lied to their investors. That’s a big no-no.

 

[Gillian_Seed]

It’s not that they lied to us. That is of no consequence. They lied to their investors. That’s a big no-no.

 

[Bigtomhanks]

It’s not that they lied to us. That is of no consequence. They lied to their investors. That’s a big no-no.

What? They lied to everybody lol. We were scammed into buying a game that delivered on nothing advertised over 8 years.

 

[Tree_Fox]

View attachment 11123549

What? They lied to everybody lol. We were scammed into buying a game that delivered on nothing advertised over 8 years.

You both missed what I’m saying. Yes, they lied to everyone. Yes it’s outrageous that they mislead us and had us buy a product that hardly met even the most basic of their promises.

However, the investors don’t care about that. The investors were lied to about the state of the game. That’s where the lawsuit is coming from. If the investors were told “yeah it’s not quite what we sold it as, but here’s what is going on...” this lawsuit wouldn’t be here.

We’d get some PR salve to smooth rustled feathers, a few freebie dlcs, and then everything would go on. It’s not the fans these companies care about.