Stop drawing conclusions when CDPR openly states that things are placeholders and subject to change.

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As crazy as it sounds EA, Activision were once loved Devs.
On Ps1 they used to release the best games around, some loved classics where made by them.
The Dreamcast flopped in part becaude EA didn't released games on it.

They all started as passionate game makers, then they grew bigger, started to own 2 then 3 studios, with even more employees, they had to pay the rent, pay the salaries, so they started to make more "mainstream" games, to find more lucrative approach.
Does it ring a bell?

It's not being evil, it's business.
Is CDPR evil? No
Could they follow some shitty business tactics to keep their head out of the water? Absolutely.

They do, we all do.
Money is the nerve of war.
Remove your pink shades, "Gaming" isn't a passionate niche anymore, it has been molded in a massive business in the past 15years, it's almost as big as the movie industry

With their success CDPR went to a level that they can't step back from, have money coming from public domain (polish government) etc...
So of course they have a big pressure to be "bankable".

Does it means they went evil?
Nope
It means they have to make sure they'll mainstream and standardize their products in a way that will maximize their profit so their 2studios, employees, Gog and the money they've been lended can get back in their owner's pocket and maybe make a lil bit more just "in case"
They're maybe in Poland, but still, that's a shitload of money we're talking...

That's like people asking for artists to release physical media, it costs a lot if you want to make it good and not throw money out of the windows, so if you plan on living with it, you better find a way to make it lucrative, unless you're a crust punk living in your van (and even there, you still need money)

I think that CDPR went out of the "niche" market with Cyberpunk, which may make them do some decisions that could lead them to be in a EA/Activision position.

The bigger you become, the more money you need and sorry but you don't fill your bank account with RPG's once you're that big and independant :/
They need to find the right middle, hense why they talked sometimes about possible microtransaction, or why they opted for a multiplayer (the idea is cool, but that's a good way to keep milking your game, which isn't illogical if you see it from a businesd POV), it's not a passion anymore, it's a job.

When you're creating your indépendant job, they basicaly told you to "keep your heart at home, it's business, not a love affair".

Hense why they're not evil, but...

If they are a business with shareholders being the only group whose best interests they now have at heart then maybe they should drop the whole “created by gamers for gamers” motto. Be honest with the audience.

But they won’t because it doesn’t sell the product and throws shade on their practices. They gotta make a product that appeals to the widest possible audience ensuring the biggest sales possible. Shareholders don’t care whether the company they own makes a piece of art or a piece of crap, it doesn’t matter to them as long as it makes them heaps of cash.
 
If they are a business with shareholders being the only group whose best interests they now have at heart then maybe they should drop the whole “created by gamers for gamers” motto. Be honest with the audience.

But they won’t because it doesn’t sell the product and throws shade on their practices.

Isn`t the perfect balance doing both ? Shouldn`t making great games also make you money ?
 
Isn`t the perfect balance doing both ? Shouldn`t making great games also make you money ?

In theory it would, yes. But look at GTA Online, Bethesda games (especially Skyrim), stuff EA is churning out.

Compare this to the film industry, there is a bunch of great movies (Blade Runner etc.) that were financial flops yet the likes of Transformers and Marvel films keep getting made because they keep raking in billions. All because they are targeted at the lowest common denominator.

Or take for example HBO’s Rome TV Show and Game of Thrones: one is a great show full of great characters, amazing political intrigue, plot twists and turns with a big budget and great production value while the other has nudity, dragons, zombies, magic checking the boxes of all the possible demographic groups. The former despite being a superior show lasted for TWO seasons while the latter spanned 8 seasons with prequel shows in development.

Broaden your audience and enjoy huge profits, limit it and get ready for limited revenue. Logic at its purest.
 
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Shareholders don’t care whether the company they own makes a piece of art or a piece of crap, it doesn’t matter to them as long as it makes them heaps of cash.

This is not true at all. One, I'm a shareholder and I know many other shareholders of companies who are concerned with ethical investing. Yes, it's a thing.

Two, CDPR retains total control over their product. The largest voting block by far is CDPR old-timers and core personnel. They ensure CDPR stays on path. Not that it matters - returns over the last decade have been -very- nice, thank you.

Here is the CEO on the subject:

"[Our people] believe that, I hope they believe that, at CDProjekt they are able to create the greatest games in the world. No one will stop them because we, as business persons in the company, we are not valuing Business over Quality. So we never stop them from quality for any business reason."

"We have to calculate money, of course, but we are not the company which will ever, ever say, "because of fiscal, we have to." Never. We always look at the long term, we always look at the quality because we truly believe in it."


Adam Kiciński, President, CD Projekt Red S.A.

Making a good game is more important than making a popular or more-money game.

Your facts are incorrect and your perspective on CDPR and shareholders are also incorrect. They care, we care and everyone looks forward to a quality product. That's just good business.
 
Seriously. People are losing their marbles over something the company is saying at the beginning of the Video are placeholders. This just goes to show how much BS the gaming industry has exposed people to in the past, so that we are now seeing people jump to conclusions and be this viciously precautious about another potential bad investment / letdown.

Stay cool people, this is the maker of The Witcher and Mike Pondsminth, a real gaming oldschool innovator and OG. Its not EA or Pethesda.

This game will be the bomb.
I don't doubt it will sell well and get heaps of good reviews.

I doubt that it will be an actual RPG. That's my primary worry. Every new build they show is less and less like a WRPG and more like Far Cry.
 
Here is the CEO on the subject:

"we are not valuing Business over Quality. So we never stop them from quality for any business reason."

"We have to calculate money, of course, but we are not the company which will ever, ever say, "because of fiscal, we have to." Never."

Those particular parts in bold are extremely ironic and I feel disingenuous given the reasoning behind The Witcher 3 visual changes which is more or less the following: without the consoles there would be no Witcher 3.

Your facts are incorrect and your perspective on CDPR and shareholders are also incorrect. They care, we care and everyone looks forward to a quality product. That's just good business.

I wouldn’t expect anything less than unyielding loyalty from you, Sard. I doubt anyone would question your allegiance. But I highly doubt you’re a major shareholder and have any real say when crucial decisions are made.
“Good business” is an oxymoron. Any business sooner or later this turns to maximizing profits by sacrificing quality. As another moderator said in a different thread - “you’ve gotta kill your darlings” which is very apropos in this case.

P.S. the title of the thread got me thinking - how can we make any conclusions if anything is subject to change? I really wonder if CDPR knows what kind of game they are making because changing it to something different 7 months away from release (probably even 6 before going gold) is not a good look let alone a good business model. If anything Anthem is a great indication of that.
 
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Those particular parts in bold are extremely ironic and I feel disingenuous given the reasoning behind The Witcher 3 visual changes which is more or less the following: without the consoles there would be no Witcher 3.
Some context required: The early demo they showed off was not in the later open world but an small level created just for the demo. It had severe limitations on # of possible actors and asset streaming was not required (cause not in open world yet). Yes, without consoles, the game would not have been created - not enough PC users with gaming systems to finance that. But even on PC, you need to make sure your game works on the majority of gaming rigs. If it only works on the best of the best, its guaranteed to fail. So even if the game had been possible to create without selling to consoles, i very much doubt it would have gotten the graphics shown in the early demo (given the specs of the majority of PC gamer rigs at the time).[/QUOTE]
 
Some context required: The early demo they showed off was not in the later open world but an small level created just for the demo. It had severe limitations on # of possible actors and asset streaming was not required (cause not in open world yet). Yes, without consoles, the game would not have been created - not enough PC users with gaming systems to finance that. But even on PC, you need to make sure your game works on the majority of gaming rigs. If it only works on the best of the best, its guaranteed to fail. So even if the game had been possible to create without selling to consoles, i very much doubt it would have gotten the graphics shown in the early demo (given the specs of the majority of PC gamer rigs at the time).

Even if that was the case which I honestly don’t buy because people seem to confuse 2013 build shown in the 2013 VGX trailer and 2014 build shown at E3 2014 (the devs themselves when explaining the visual changes don’t specify the build or renderer). Hell, the retail version of the game in 2015 contained many hidden UI elements in game files straight from the 2014 40 minute gameplay demo which in part made the 2014 HUD&UI mod possible. Besides that demo features like 90% of assets present in the final game.

But for the sake of argument let’s say you’re right and 2014 demo was a vertical slice (which it wasn’t because it was clearly made digestible for the consoles the specs of which CDPR didn’t know at the outset of Witcher 3 development , hence the second release date shift from February to May 2015) then why didn’t CDPR reps say so but instead kept trying to do damage control by saying the game’s visuals will not be compromised but the game will look even better on release? And why did all these confessions suddenly happen way down the line from release?

For a developer praised by the fan base for their transparency and honesty it seems bizzare to say the least.
 
I wouldn’t expect anything less than unyielding loyalty from you, Sard. I doubt anyone would question your allegiance. But I highly doubt you’re a major shareholder and have any real say when crucial decisions are made.
“Good business” is an oxymoron. Any business sooner or later this turns to maximizing profits by sacrificing quality.

No. You said all shareholders care about is money. Not all major shareholders. All shareholders. And that is not true. It is wrong. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/ethical-investing.asp

It is wrong specifically in the case of CDPR shareholders - and there are very few majority shareholders, by the way, if you did your research you would know this. https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/investors/shareholders/

See those names? They may look familiar. Because they are CDPR founders, CEO, directors...there isn't some invisible pressure from the masses to cheapen the quality or introduce unwanted features.

Also, as someone who has run 2 businesses now, one transport and one demo, both of which did nicely, thank you, I have yet to maximize profits by sacrificing quality. I am not alone in this. I am not a big business, but there are, again, plenty of us who have yet to give up our integrity for money.

Lastly, without consoles there wouldn't be a Cyberpunk either. Also without PCs. These -are- the audience. They aren't building for the Commodore 64 hold outs. How would you even build these dream projects if you cut out the majority of gamers? In pursuit of what agenda exactly? PC purity?

CDPR doesn't just want one group of people to play their games. If that means tech has to be adjusted, no problem. It did anyway, unless you only want the 2080 TI crowd to run the game.

You want to go after CDPR for design decisions you don't like, great. But you are pushing an agenda where they lied, deceived and "sold out" for bigger bucks - or shortly will.

Because anyone who does well must be some kind of sell out, right? Nonsense.
 
No. You said all shareholders care about is money. Not all major shareholders. All shareholders.

Man, now you’re just clinging to words.

What I said was:
Shareholders don’t care whether the company they own makes a piece of art or a piece of crap, it doesn’t matter to them as long as it makes them heaps of cash.

Shareholders, not all shareholders, as in shareholders in general. I think it’s pretty obvious that I meant major shareholders as they are the ones who determine the course of action and make important decisions. With all due respect but shareholders with very few shares just don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. In case of CDPR those 4 guys with 33% of shares between the 4 of them essentially rule the company and make all the decisions while owners of the rest 66% of shares in free float don’t really hold any authority.

I have no clue what the Commodore 64 crowd has anything to do with the topic but you inadvertently proved my point that if the product needs to be changed in order to appeal to the broader audience it will be.

[...]

Edited. -Drac
 
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I have no clue what the Commodore 64 crowd has anything to do with the topic but you inadvertently proved my point that if the product needs to be changed in order to appeal to the broader audience it will be.

If your point was that it becomes bigger, better, more ambitious because they also plan to sell it on the console market than yes, your point has been proven. Otherwise I'm not particularly sure what you were arguing.

Investment need to be proportionally relevant to return on investment. A PC+console market return is easily double what it would be for just one of them. Which means the investment can also be double what it would be for just one.
 
Not being allowed to talk about what is showed/told is basically meaning that you cannot talk about the game.

Clarification:

Anyone is welcome to discuss the game. Anyone is welcome to discuss the features that have been officially announced. Anyone is welcome to speculate on unannounced features or what hints and teases could mean.

People are not permitted to assume that such speculations are correct. People are not permitted to claim something is official if it's not, nor re-post fake news from around the web. People are not permitted to post about leaked/hacked information about the game.

Valid topics that start getting into off-limits discussions (like real-world politics, for example,) will be moderated and ultimately closed (if things keep crossing the line). No topics that start getting personal, belligerent, or offensive are going to be permitted -- no matter what the topic is.


If you're not sure about something, send me a PM. No problem asking questions and getting answers!
 
This is not true at all. One, I'm a shareholder and I know many other shareholders of companies who are concerned with ethical investing. Yes, it's a thing.

Two, CDPR retains total control over their product. The largest voting block by far is CDPR old-timers and core personnel. They ensure CDPR stays on path. Not that it matters - returns over the last decade have been -very- nice, thank you.

Here is the CEO on the subject:

"[Our people] believe that, I hope they believe that, at CDProjekt they are able to create the greatest games in the world. No one will stop them because we, as business persons in the company, we are not valuing Business over Quality. So we never stop them from quality for any business reason."

"We have to calculate money, of course, but we are not the company which will ever, ever say, "because of fiscal, we have to." Never. We always look at the long term, we always look at the quality because we truly believe in it."


Adam Kiciński, President, CD Projekt Red S.A.

Making a good game is more important than making a popular or more-money game.

Your facts are incorrect and your perspective on CDPR and shareholders are also incorrect. They care, we care and everyone looks forward to a quality product. That's just good business.

Sorry to necro but god this did not age well at all. So much for "caring about quality" more like "caring about that holiday money" and "lying to PS4 and Xbox owners"
 
I can understand that we have extremes on both ends, both hater and apologists. But the fact remains that up untill the release, CDPR was silent on the state of the game - made so many promises and touted that this game would be the next milestone in RPGs. And never did they once, mention that they will release a bare-bones base version of the game, then patch it to this vision over a year or 2. No, they sold it as that it would be that from launch (bar the expected bugs etc.)

So no, people aren't overreacting in my opinion. And you have to remember, "trust them, it's CDPR after all" doesn't cut it - in fact, makes it worse. We expected better from them, thus this screw up hits harder. The fact that they did everything they have been so vehemently against (bad business practices, releasing half-arsed products etc.). Which brings into question CDP's values. How can we trust them to still bring quality through patching, on a promise, when they broke a promise of quality which they held as most sacred (and the supposed backbone of the company)?
 
Game made a lot of money and millions of people legitimately like it. If CDPR will manage to fix key problems, bugs and add more content, Cyberpunk might stil be a huge success. With potential of DLC expansions turning this game into a masterpiece. Side note, but TW3 also recieved biggest praises AFTER the DLC's.

Why there is so much hate and drama ?
I don't want to sound like a fan too much, becouse I am also dissappointed with a lot of things.

10/10 game or it's crap - type of logic.
 
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