Wow...

The game has been pulled from PSN.

This is so nuts. It at least a little bit feels like a fuck you from Sony to CDPR?

Oh, definitely. There have been plenty of other broken games that continued to be sold.

Honestly, I can't really blame Sony here. As much as I think they have a horrible refund policy (or lack of a refund policy), CDPR dumping the problem on platform holders was begging for an extreme reaction.

O. M. G.!!!

Mad props to Sony! Not only did CDPR throw Sony (and Microsoft) under the bus on refunds, but they (most likely; as Jeff postulated on the Bombcast) cleared certification on waivers; basically CDPR promised the game would be up to a certain level of quality by launch, which it failed miserably to do.

I'm so tired of paying to be a beta tester for unfinished games, or the launch broken, fix later mentality that has corrupted the entire AAA 3rd party publishing market.

"Oh, you want us to give people refunds? Well here's your fucking refund!"

This is, uh, kind of amazing news.

Oh yeah this is absolutely a "who do you think you are" from Sony for just randomly promising that they'll offer refunds to a very angry fan base.

My first thought? I’m glad they haven’t recorded The Hotspot yet haha.

Jason Schreier pointed out on Twitter, it’s past 2 AM in Warsaw right now. For sure feels like a fuck you from Sony.

Wow, this is so wild; it really speaks to the scale of just how big this has blown up. At least quite a lot more people are going to be able to get refunds now, still sucks for a whole lot of others.

Wild. This has to be a fuck you to cdpr.

Sony Sez

Talk shit get hit.

The only thing I want to hear about after this is managers being yeeted out the door for this entire mess.

This is 100% a big “fuck you” from Sony to CDPR. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a reputation go down the drain quite so fast as CDPR’s has. Crazy stuff.

Seems like a marketing opportunity for Microsoft.

"Cyberpunk 2077 - Xbox exclusive!"

haha

Well, yeah, but also maybe letting publishers get away with "we'll fix it later" is a shitty anti-consumer policy that the platform holders should never have normalized to begin with.

The key is to fix the issues with the day one patch, not let the game launch the game and fix it 2 months later.

Moral of the story: buggy games, predatory RMTs, outright bricking consoles? That is fine. Telling people to call the Sony support hotline? your ass gets delisted

Still, I kind of feel CDPR are coming out of this ahead. What is the percentage of consumers who will get a refund? Especially now that everyone is going to think this is PT and they need to try to preserve that going forward to the PS7 and they can sell their account later and blah blah blah. FOMO: it isn't just for refreshing websites and harassing walmart employees anymore.

And next fall when the Cyberpunk: Enhanced Edition comes out, CDPR can spin it as a new release for the purpose of getting a new metacritic score.

Not since Batman Arkham Knight has actions like this been taken for such a high profile release. Wow...

So....this means that the next patch for the game I won't get, right? If the game is delisted, then the updates won't get pushed out since it's technically not an official PS4 game...?

Definitely feels like this is Sony sending a fuck you to Sony. I get the vibe that lately Sony was seeming like the bad guys with people because of the refusal to offer refunds. So, kinda feels like they just went nuclear here.

You will still get updates. New people can’t buy it.

I really doubt that's what it means. They're delisting it from the store until further notice, but unless you request a refund you still own the game. Blocking patches for people who own it would not be in Sony's interest.

The only other times I can remember something like this happening was Arkham Knight PC and Afro Samurai 2(which was straight up cancelled and I think killed the studio, the game was there only release...or well, was there only release for as long as it existed). Real curious to see if Microsoft follows suit.

Not to mention, as someone that went through an attempt to get a refund (and got rejected over a week later with a very snide email) for a very mundane issue back in 2010, I can only imagine how pissed off Sony is at getting blown up with requests for a refund and then looking like the bad guy for rejecting them (early on at least). Having said that, Sony's whole refund policy DOES suck.

Still, the de-listing is still just crazy to me. I still can't believe that the game only came out EIGHT DAYS AGO!? I know 2020 is the year of time travel, but it feels like this saga has been going on for months at this point.

Whew.

As long as that's the case, I'm good.

Is anyone still out here claiming "the Cyberpunk launch isn't that bad"? Literally unprecedented move from Sony here.

Yeah, that's the only thing that comes to mind that even comes close. And the shitstorm that came with Arkham Knight's nightmare of a PC launch was pretty big. It's mostly forgotten now, because it seems like the game runs like a dream now as far as I know...but at the time, when it was happening...jeez, I remember how pissed so many people were.

@aires: 2 AM in Poland means the CDPR devs are still crunching at their desks.

Going home to sleep in your bed, see your family, have a normal, healthy life, and work a normal work day is "for closers" (See: Management and Executives).

Wild

Worth noting that in both of these cases, it was the developer/publisher that pulled the game - not the platform holder. This is a case of the platform holder saying "no, we're not hosting your game for the time being", which as far as I know is fucking unprecedented for such a high profile game. If this wasn't "hottest mess" material before, it sure as hell is now.

Absolutely the move to make if CDPR decided to tell consumers to just go to where they bought it to get refunds. Their idea that that’s the way to approach it, especially during a pandemic and in the middle of new console launches, is truly astounding. The game wasn’t pulled because of quality, but because CDPR again gave a non apology and said “not our problem”.

I imagine Jeff is feeling pretty fucking vindicated right now.

Two questions that pop into my head here:

1) Under what conditions will Sony re-list the game, or will CDPR escalate and say "Well, screw you, we never wanted to be in the Sony ecosystem anyway" and pull all their games?

2) What does Microsoft do?

Also as a tangent/side note -- it is SO WEIRD seeing "A Red Ventures Company" in the website footer.

Oh wow, since i've been PC only for years now and put the game in the "I'll check it out in a couple of years" section long ago, I didn't realize that with the next gen versions still far of, anyone with a digital only version of the PS5 can't get the game at all right now. Whoa.

jeez, the nuclear option, thats unexpected.

Shots fired!

Sony isn't doing this solely as a fuck you, they're doing this because they don't have a refund program.

So they don't have the limitations like Steam has in place. So in order to make things right and honor CDPR's pledge to honor refunds, they almost have to delist the game. Otherwise, anyone could hop on, buy the game, play 40 hours, and refund it.

This is both a fuck you to CDPR and a cover their own ass for operating an online store and still, in 2020, not offering any normal way to refund a purchase.

@sweep: Was pretty crazy seeing the amount of people trying to say that he wouldn't like it because he didn't like the Witcher. A cyberpunk fps action rpg open world is practically serving it up on a platter to Jeff. Or it should be anyway, if done right.

This was posted on CDPR’s website;

” Current report no. 66/2020

Subject: Temporary suspension of the availability of Cyberpunk 2077 on PlayStation Store Legal basis: Art. 17 section 1 of the Market Abuse Regulation inside information

The Management Board of CD PROJEKT S.A. with a registered office in Warsaw (hereinafter referred to as “the Company”) hereby publicly discloses the decision of Sony Interactive Entertainment (hereinafter referred to as “SIE”) to remove Cyberpunk 2077 from PlayStation Store until further notice. The decision was undertaken following our discussion with SIE regarding a full refund for all gamers who had purchased Cyberpunk 2077 via PlayStation Store and want a refund at this time. All copies of the game previously purchased digitally on PlayStation Store remain available for use by their respective buyers. Gamers can still buy physical versions of the game in retail and mail order stores. All copies, whether digital or physical, will continue to receive support and updates from the Company.

The Management Board of the Company has decided to publicly disclose this information in the form of a current report due to its potential influence on investment-related decisions.” - https://www.cdprojekt.com/pl/wp-content/uploads-pl/2020/12/rb_66-2020-czasowe-wstrzymanie-dostepnosci-gry-cyberpunk-2077-w-playstation-store.pdf

Sorry, I’m on mobile and can’t make links go woosh.

@sweep: He might, but I think he was talking about the actual content of the game there.

I disagree with his take on Cyberpunk as a video game, but it would be insanity to deny it's a technical mess and CDPR has made a serious of bad decisions on how to manage the situation they've put themselves in.

You can refund digital purchases on Xbox already, they had their process in place already. Sony didn't so they had to slap this together.

I love that they had to disclose that they were booted from the Sony store to Investors and spun it as “assuring all gamers could get a refund.”

Y'know what, I think there's a lot of people really enjoying the drama surrounding this; there's people who bought into the hype who will defend this game to the death and on the other side of the aisle there's plenty of people who, for one reason or another, were upset about the way the studio handled itself and were bitter about the apparent success of a game which didn't hold with their principles surrounding ethical workplace practices of gender politics - I'm sure a lot of those people are revelling in CDPR's fall from grace right now, as though this is some kind of vindicating cosmic justice or karma.

But the truth is, this sucks. This is shit for everyone involved. It's shit for the developers who crunched for months to get the game done, it's shit for the players who were excited for a new game, and it's shit for everyone else here too - there's not that many developers out there than can afford to take risks on such huge, expansive, big budget productions like this, and one of the few Devs that was willing to take a crack at a new IP has just taken a huge hit, both financially and in terms of their reputation. That only serves to discourage others from taking similar risks.

It just sucks.

They pull this but not fallout 76 which was not only worse but had monetization? Must be the abuse their sbitty Customer service got about refunds.

Game is still playable and works mostly fine and will be patched continuously on mid gen upgrades and next gen.

Its a bit excessive. Hopefully ms doesn't follow suit. It might be beneficial for CDPR to rollout updates and at least give people the option to play it on next gen systems.

@finaldasa:

Sony DO NOT like giving refunds. If this was nintendo. They'd outright REFUSE to give refunds. And pull it from store immediately. Both Sony and Nintendo Sony belive in digital refunds. Sony have been forced to give refunds in recent years for certain stuff.

They pull this but not fallout 76 which was not only worse but had monetization? Must be the abuse their sbitty Customer service got about refunds.

Pretty sure Fallout 76 wasnt crashing PS4s left and right. But I get that people are going to defend CDPR management releasing this hot mess after working their staff to death.

@frytup:

Seriously. Ms should not follow suit. They can deal with their own refund program and manage it properly unlike Sony. Let people buy the game and enjoy it on at least 2 xbox platforms.