plan6

@tothenines: In my experience, the suffering is long term and the owners/decision makers get very upset with the harsh reality that their decisions have consequences that are completely out of their control. These are often people high on their own supply and say things like “You need to explain break it down for the judge.”(one of my attorneys had to leave the room when a client said this) Or explain that policies that directly violate a local law are “industry standard” and can’t be changed. I’ve seen these people when the hammer is about to drop and the truly staggering amount of effort it takes to get them to the promised land.

Of course, this is all speculation. But I can’t be sold on the hype about business owners with clear vision right after they fuck up this badly.

@tothenines: As someone who has provided legal services to banks for well over a decade, this entire thing is emblematic of short term thinking by management and the belief they can “get through it”. I’ve been the clean up crew for some staggeringly dumb shit in my day, where I’ve had to explain to clients they fucked themselves 2 years ago and now the bill is coming due. And let me tell you, those are fun discussions that you get to have over and over as new, higher management becomes aware of the mess and steps in to “fix things”.

I will be surprised if they don’t face a lawsuit with some real teeth over the media embargo and stark difference in version quality. This isn’t some funny little graphics change from an E3 trailer, but a clear effort by the company to conceal the nature of the console releases. That whole thing is made by someone who is thinking about the next few months and not the next 3 years. Because, from my experience, lawsuits over deceptive business practices don’t go away in a single financial quarter, no matter how much managers and investors ask for their attorneys to “wrap it up.”

And that is just one of the many problems they have created for themselves.

Edit: To be clear, I’m not claiming that a lawsuit would be successful or anything. Only that it seems like it would be able to survive a motion to dismiss(the first challenge for any lawsuit) and end up being heard on the merits(if it wasn’t settled).

I don’t think they are evil or even set out to do this. This is just the final stage of bad management not limiting the scope or visual quality of their game, while also offering it on older systems. And running up against a harsh deadline as people move to the next generation and might cancel their pre-order. This isnt malice, it is hubris. Not that intent matters that much in the end. This hubris ends up hurting developers, critics and people in retail all having to deal with the fall out.

Yes they are beholden to the short term thinking of their own internal management and 8 million in preorders. I really want to see the numbers for PS4, where Sony has the express policy of not refunding if you have downloaded the software. Which people could start downloading on December 8th. Shockingly, the embargo on the current gen systems was after that date.

Everyone should remember this when some developer has some anti-DRM policy or whatever. Because that company might just be setting you up as a mark down the line.

There have to be so many people at CDPR leaning back in their chair, arms crossed, saying “What did I fucking tell you?” right now.

And I love CDPR offering refunds without talking to Sony and Microsoft first. I bet that lead to some real choice phone calls.

I don't know what is funnier, that NMS is a "mediocre" game or that CDPR would cancel the versions of the game that likely sold the most in both pre-orders and at launch. Things-that-would-totally-happen.com

The Witcher 3 was when I realized some project manager was deeply invested in me holding every book, note and notice in my inventory. Like refused to let me read a book without holding it it forever. And this was likely the same dude that also wanted me to have to option to put out every candle single in the entire world.

When I saw the cyberpunk inventory, it was confirmation that person is still doing their thing.

Yeah, people seem to have deleted their Witcher 3 launch from their memory. I’m replaying the game right now and the inventory is still terrible. And to this day there are bugged quests(DLC mostly) than cannot be fixed without restarting.

People should take that refund money and play The Pathless, a game of limited scope with tight, enjoyable gameplay. The perfect chaser to a buggy, disappointment.

The reason the game is so messed up is due to a complete failure of management by CDPR. This is an ever larger fuck up than when Hello Games failed to mitigate expectations for No Mans Sky. But they were a tiny ass studio with limited PR and media training, so it was easy to understand with them. CDPR is the opposite. They were happy to ride this hype wave of over promising right until it blew up in their face.

Also, the boss hands out tokens to good employees system for bonuses is some dystopian shit that could have been a plot line in the game they were making. I’ve worked for some rough law firms with shitty entitled attorneys and they don’t even come close to the shit I read about in video game development. And I won’t be surprised to find out that we haven’t even cracked the surface of the workplace dysfunction at CDPR.

Love some hiding the performance of the base console versions and then offering refunds after overwhelming blow back. Refunds totally something that companies do if they have no liability concerns.