I'd just replace "can't" with "could" (personally I would remove it at all but that's just my personal view)
Anyway, not "all" gamers, not even the vast majority. Luckily.
I suspect most people expected a ”scifi Witcher 2/3” (which they, by all intents, got, even with the flaws that came with the idea).
I based my initial enthusiasm on the franchise being one I had hoped for a cRPG adaptation for years, Mike himself being aboard and the way the game was initially described as having ”advanced RPG systems based on the PnP” (and boy, did that turn out to be a dud). But I grew more and more wary as time went by, since most of everyone else seemed to be wanting a shootergame with a heavyhanded story laced with a bit of C&C and a load of fuckable virtual girl-/boyfriends. I had a sneaking suspicion that the game would end up something like that in the end already in 2014/15, and (sadly to me) as it turns out, I was right.
I based my initial enthusiasm on the franchise being one I had hoped for a cRPG adaptation for years, Mike himself being aboard and the way the game was initially described as having ”advanced RPG systems based on the PnP” (and boy, did that turn out to be a dud). But I grew more and more wary as time went by, since most of everyone else seemed to be wanting a shootergame with a heavyhanded story laced with a bit of C&C and a load of fuckable virtual girl-/boyfriends. I had a sneaking suspicion that the game would end up something like that in the end already in 2014/15, and (sadly to me) as it turns out, I was right.
I don't think we got it, that's my personal problem with the game. It's subpar to w3 in every aspect they share and fails in every other aspect where it tries to do something different (except for level design, that is very good, I literally mean the architecture of "levels")
P.S. I expected sci fi W3, but I didn't want it. I wanted something better than that but kept my expectations low.
And a playable game on PS4.
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I know from a study that the "trust" we give someone can be compartmentalized into four sub-categories:
1. (Perceived) Competence: CDPR's perceived competence was great, just look at The Witcher 3 (and the two others, at least in my opinion).
2. Consistence: They consistently delivered great games and they kept getting better. Their promises (no paid dlc, only "real" expansions) were true... (until CP 2077)
3. Showing true interest in the thing you're doing: Well, they obviously always throw those people into marketing interviews, who really care, like Miles Tost or Pawel Sasko. Al these people genuinely seemed excited.
4. Transparent and Well-Coordinated Actions: The Keanu Reeves-reveals-release-date-moment was the high-point of this: It all seemed to come together perfectly. Only after the long silence and then postponing the release more than one time: At the latest then we could have started to lose trust.
But we didn't because the other three were too strong.
Now they've lost a lot of that trust. I'm sorry for that, I love their games and CP 2077 is a good game. But its marketing was just too deceitful... They should have been more open about what they can't do and release it as Early Access. But they wanted to be a big player and big players don't do Early Access.
1. (Perceived) Competence: CDPR's perceived competence was great, just look at The Witcher 3 (and the two others, at least in my opinion).
2. Consistence: They consistently delivered great games and they kept getting better. Their promises (no paid dlc, only "real" expansions) were true... (until CP 2077)
3. Showing true interest in the thing you're doing: Well, they obviously always throw those people into marketing interviews, who really care, like Miles Tost or Pawel Sasko. Al these people genuinely seemed excited.
4. Transparent and Well-Coordinated Actions: The Keanu Reeves-reveals-release-date-moment was the high-point of this: It all seemed to come together perfectly. Only after the long silence and then postponing the release more than one time: At the latest then we could have started to lose trust.
But we didn't because the other three were too strong.
Now they've lost a lot of that trust. I'm sorry for that, I love their games and CP 2077 is a good game. But its marketing was just too deceitful... They should have been more open about what they can't do and release it as Early Access. But they wanted to be a big player and big players don't do Early Access.
Seeing how the most ferocious disappointment comes from people who wanted Cyberpunk to resemble GTA and Skyrim, I'd say it's because they had faith in CDPR being the one who'd give them the type of game they've been aching for (for 7 - 9 years). They saw superficial similarities in Cyberpunk and got the idea that spiritual successor to those two games is on the horizon.
Well, you got all but the quality you expected/hoped for.
The whole design is so uncannily similiar to Witcher 3, that it is hard not to see it, even if one thinks the whole of it isn’t as good.
Maybe because CDPR are good in making games and have very passionate devs?
"WHY SO MUCH FAITH WAS PUT INTO CYBERPUNK 2077 BY GAMERS?"
Think probably because development took so long, so people were expecting a lot. Especially after seeing the awesome demo back in 2013. The fact that the Witcher 3 was also so highly positive perceived by the grand majority of the player base, also gave a lot of faith.
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Guess that's a factor. Yet I read hundreds of messages where suggested mean to achieve whatever customer felt important to reach their goal for supposed better experience, was counter productive for reaching said goal.
I think that there were two camps of dissapointed gamers:
-In one camp there was the GTA+sandbox, which as discussed one can partially blame CDPR marketing although some stuff was clarified by them but lost in hype.
-The Witcher 3 outstanding success both with critics and gamers. I feel that CP2077 its quite similar to TW3 except that TW3 game direction was better in the sense that made better use of the overworld and the "quest assignment system", theres lot of people dissapointed with how fixers handle jobs...while it makes lot of sense in 21st century-seriously,not even Mafia meet face to face for an assasination-, but a grab job from an announcement-go talk-do job-get back with some dialog would have added some flavour (and hours of gameplay)
-In one camp there was the GTA+sandbox, which as discussed one can partially blame CDPR marketing although some stuff was clarified by them but lost in hype.
-The Witcher 3 outstanding success both with critics and gamers. I feel that CP2077 its quite similar to TW3 except that TW3 game direction was better in the sense that made better use of the overworld and the "quest assignment system", theres lot of people dissapointed with how fixers handle jobs...while it makes lot of sense in 21st century-seriously,not even Mafia meet face to face for an assasination-, but a grab job from an announcement-go talk-do job-get back with some dialog would have added some flavour (and hours of gameplay)
Absolutely. But I care more for the quality than the design. A game with an old and abused design can be good, even excellent. A problematic game is problematic no matter how good or innovative it's design is.
Cp77 is neither excellent in what it does nor well designed.
No, it really isn’t.
Somewhere down the line something went wrong and the milk was burned to the kettle inspite some good ideas.
it won't be controversial to say, that development of game started some time ater release of B&W. Yesteraday, during Sasko's stream, one of devs shared his sketeches of level designs and first one was with date 27.11.17. (Dorsett mission).
Game is way better than Witcher 3 storywise and many other aspects. Difference between Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 is that Witcher 3 growth was pretty slow, so reputation was built for long period of time, many people played it when it was more polished than during release. Cyberpunk started with large number of players during release, and as game being first game of new IP, it was kinda obvious that many people won't be happy, especially when marketing attracted people who are not potential fanbase of this universum.
What is really interesting for me who was behind idea or even didn't think that game on old generation of consoles won't be problem when Witcher 3 had also city and you could see how empty it was on consoles compared to PC...Cyberpunk open-world is based around city with Badlands being some addition, opposite to W3, where Novigrad was addition to Velen.
Speculating, but judging from who gets most angry about Cyberpunk on the internet, I'm guessing a lot of people saw cars and thought "I've been waiting for GTA 6 for a decade this is it".
There were also some very odd instances of people hyping themselves up about things that didn't naturally seem appealing. E.g. Braindances were shown in a video and I have to say my first thought was "these look absolutely terrible like playing a video editor" but people went orgasmic. Same thing happened with wall running, and for a period after wall running was cancelled discussions online were full of talk of "betrayal" and how you can't have a good game without wall running.
That was not helped by micromarketing every minor facet of the game with its own video, which encouraged people to latch on to tiny aspects and expect them to be a gigantic part of gameplay, which they weren't.
The hype became its own self-reinforcing bubble with expectations that it would be every person's favourite game tailored to their personal expectations. And that got fuelled by clickbait made up video game "journalism" and YouTube videos of the "Cyberpunk could have a living on Mars minigame we've reached out to CDPR for comment" variety.
Plus the pandemic so people got super excited because there was nothing else to do in a year that didn't have that many real tentpole releases.
AND the name. If your title is the name of a whole genre, you have an issue, because people really will expect everything they personally like about that genre. Witness the repeated rage posts we saw everywhere on release and periodically thereafter denouncing 2077 as not cyberpunk because it didn't have tacky 80s synth music.
I don't think CDP are blameless in that the marketing was broad. But the way people responded to it got well beyond anyone's control. And what they were actually making was an intelligent story based game with some small aspects of open world that required a degree of brain engagement from players. But it got sold to a lot of people who skip all dialogue and just want to murder pedestrians. (And to people who literally expected a life simulator of a type that has never been produced before.)
PS And obviously it was broken really rather badly on consoles on release, and not running at all well on PC, either.
There were also some very odd instances of people hyping themselves up about things that didn't naturally seem appealing. E.g. Braindances were shown in a video and I have to say my first thought was "these look absolutely terrible like playing a video editor" but people went orgasmic. Same thing happened with wall running, and for a period after wall running was cancelled discussions online were full of talk of "betrayal" and how you can't have a good game without wall running.
That was not helped by micromarketing every minor facet of the game with its own video, which encouraged people to latch on to tiny aspects and expect them to be a gigantic part of gameplay, which they weren't.
The hype became its own self-reinforcing bubble with expectations that it would be every person's favourite game tailored to their personal expectations. And that got fuelled by clickbait made up video game "journalism" and YouTube videos of the "Cyberpunk could have a living on Mars minigame we've reached out to CDPR for comment" variety.
Plus the pandemic so people got super excited because there was nothing else to do in a year that didn't have that many real tentpole releases.
AND the name. If your title is the name of a whole genre, you have an issue, because people really will expect everything they personally like about that genre. Witness the repeated rage posts we saw everywhere on release and periodically thereafter denouncing 2077 as not cyberpunk because it didn't have tacky 80s synth music.
I don't think CDP are blameless in that the marketing was broad. But the way people responded to it got well beyond anyone's control. And what they were actually making was an intelligent story based game with some small aspects of open world that required a degree of brain engagement from players. But it got sold to a lot of people who skip all dialogue and just want to murder pedestrians. (And to people who literally expected a life simulator of a type that has never been produced before.)
PS And obviously it was broken really rather badly on consoles on release, and not running at all well on PC, either.
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In some way I think CDPR really wanted exactly that. You can see it in all the game's systems. It's just too much stuff. Is it GTA? Is it a looter shooter? Is it an interactive branching story? It tries too much and fails. Sometimes you have to give people something even they didn't know they want. Look at Dark Souls. The CDPR devs were Souls Fans when Witcher 2 was in development. (That's why the fighting system in W2 is so hard.) And I also think, many people didn't know, they wanted a game like Witcher 3, but the popularity of Dark Fantasy like Game of Thrones made them try and convinced them with an unexpectedly great narrative.
The narrative in CP 2077 is not even bad. It's pretty good. But all the filler content is just too much noise, created in hopes of everybody finding something they like; or to be "every person's favourite game".
PPS The other issue is that if you set a game of this type in a single, giant city, and allow 100% free exploration you can't hide the seams that make these games work because there are always NPCs around and there will always be buildings around.
Witcher 3: most of the world is forest or empty space with a few random monsters around, every cave is made from identical assets, and in Novigrad you can open barely any door and the NPCs are just animated plant life. But because you move between these environments it is less in-your-face all the time. Skyrim: cities have a population of five people and are the size of a quaint abandoned village. In both cases, also, it's presumably less computationally difficult for machines to handle because not quite so much is happening at once.
But build a game where you almost never leave the city with thousands of non-functional NPCs and it's in the player's face. "Oh my god why can't I open 10,000 doors", "oh my god why can't I have a conversation with this random pedestrian", etc.
In a sense, by trying to make the world hyper realistic you expose to people who aren't prepared to suspend disbelief the inherent problem of video games: that it isn't.
Witcher 3: most of the world is forest or empty space with a few random monsters around, every cave is made from identical assets, and in Novigrad you can open barely any door and the NPCs are just animated plant life. But because you move between these environments it is less in-your-face all the time. Skyrim: cities have a population of five people and are the size of a quaint abandoned village. In both cases, also, it's presumably less computationally difficult for machines to handle because not quite so much is happening at once.
But build a game where you almost never leave the city with thousands of non-functional NPCs and it's in the player's face. "Oh my god why can't I open 10,000 doors", "oh my god why can't I have a conversation with this random pedestrian", etc.
In a sense, by trying to make the world hyper realistic you expose to people who aren't prepared to suspend disbelief the inherent problem of video games: that it isn't.
If people are enthusiastic about something how come they don't understand the genre? Synthwave for example, where the hell that even comes from? Original idea was about synthetic music and even artists themselves being limited AI's and their avatars also being products, quite handy to have from labels point of view, limited AI or whatever property won't ask any royalties and business giant could manufacture whatever trend and / meet demand for whatever by just copying and adjusting. Counter culture would was Punk and Industrial metal IIRC per John Shirley (only actual Punk in original cyberpunks).
EDIT: Okay, movie Blade Runner and Vangelis soundtrack. Yeah, that's not the cyberpunk. Vangelis soundtrack for movie was like vailing of dying earth and anything that wasn't artificial. If anyone really, (I mean really?) want to experience 30 - 90 hours in game listening to that, there's Spotify for that. I'm pretty damn glad that CDPR didn't went that route and instead we get something more that belongs in genre and relevant story too. Us Cracks in game are entertainment industry creation, now that is actually genre relevant content.
Saying CP 2077 ain't cyberpunk is saying like Dali isn't surrealist, because of some random reason. Why the heck would video games, if people really take them seriously as form of expression, should be evaluated by some moving point standard when other forms of expression aren't?
I haven't followed gaming industry for more than a decade so I can't really say much about CP 2077 marketing, yet this is nothing like say Mass Effect 3. I remember "Take Back the Earth!" and then we got those magical endings LOL.
Game wasn't without it's issues but it was playable. I finished my first playthrough in December 30th 2020. It was 99,9% playthrough of all content, at that day I saw ~20% of players had achievement completing the main story. I was and still am on Xbox One X. Issues critical for completing the game were fixed very fast.
I have kept asking this but for some reason people don't want to answer, if game was so broken on Xbox, how there was this ~20% completion on Dec 30th? Achievement stat doesn't exclude any version of Xbox.
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Just on this point, I can't answer on Xbox as I'm on PC and had a very smooth experience, and I can't answer for launch as I played at 1.23, but not all of the clips that did the rounds at launch can have been cherry picked and there is a minimum standard that you would expect on release that Cyberpunk seems to have fallen below, at least on console.
Being able to complete a game despite falling through the ground with Christmas trees randomly appearing in the air and characters t posing for prolonged periods of time is not really an indication that a game is working acceptably or is what most would call "playable". It looked like a seriously bad experience.
Accounts of PlayStations reliably crashing after running the game less than an hour were also common.
I really, really like Cyberpunk: it's one of my favourite games. But I don't think glossing over launch issues as if nothing happened is ever going to give a true picture of quite why so many people got so angry.