Cyberpunk delisted from Playstation store

@haz_kaj: Man, of course you're going all in on basically blaming Sony for this. OF COURSE you are. This is their management's own undoing...Sony definitely is playing damage control here at CDPR's expense but it isn't anything CDPR doesn't have coming to them.

Regardless, this game isn't Fallout 76 and CDPR isn't Bethesda. The sooner you come to grips with that fact, the more relaxed I think you'll be.

We can only hope the lesson the industry learns from this whole situation is that rushing a game out and fixing it later is not worth the consequences. I think if it was just the console versions getting review bombed, nothing would change. But all the major publishers watching CDPR basically reversing a significant amount of sales will have to cause some rethinking of release strategies. It's one thing get blasted on social media, it's another when sales that were already made aren't safe. Definitely holds publishers to a higher standard if they can't just coast on pre-order hype and not be held financially accountable for issues at launch.

Personally, the most disappointing thing for me in all of this is that I am really having a great time with the game, but I feel like I'm in a serious minority. Playing on a brand new PC, I have been having probably the best possible experience from a technical perspective, and I think the actual content of the game is pretty great. Probably not quite as good as the Witcher 3, but it's got some great quests and characters and I think the immersive sim lite gameplay is solid. I wish the console versions weren't such a mess and more people were able to appreciate the game underneath all the technical issues, because I do think it's pretty damn good.

I do wonder what this game's reputation will be like in hindsight. Will this be a Fallout New Vegas situation where it ends up being revered and hardly anyone ever mentions it's disastrous state at launch? Or will this game be forever tarnished by it's unacceptable condition on consoles at launch?

@theoracleofgame: It appears that someone has logged on.

Just to add on to Sweep's point about how much this sucks, this also extra sucks for the devs who are going to be under even more pressure to fix it as quickly as humanly possible, which will almost certainly mean even more inhumane working conditions.

Does this company survive? That's a question I have to ask. They're not Ubisoft or EA. They don't have multiple titles to fall back on. What happens now if things fall completely apart or more people on the PC side demand their money back?

I liked the Witcher series. I realize they messed up big time and they don't deserve sympathy, but I'd hate to see CDPR cease to exist as an independent company or cease to exist altogether.

Their parent company owns GOG, and the game made it's development budget back on pre-orders alone. Even if a chunk of those pre-orders end up being refunded, the game will still turn a profit over it's lifetime.

As for PC refunds, the game runs monumentally better on PC. I've had 1 crash in over 50 hours and nothing more than minor bugs. There is no grounds for any extreme refund scenarios on PC. Steam certainly won't make exceptions to its normal "less than 2 hours" refund policy.

CDPR's reputation will deservedly take a hit from all this, and they will feel it financially, but they aren't going under.

I'm not going to just automatically assume this is just Sony dunking on CDPR. It's entirely possible that this was a mutual solution, agreed upon by both companies. That's what happened with Afro Samurai 2, the only other time I can think of when Sony had to issue refunds. Refunds were issued and the game was pulled of the store by request from the publisher. It could just be part of Sony's policy.

What a shit situation, but the platform holders have to be forced to draw a line somewhere. This game should never have passed cert on consoles in the first place as well as other broken ass games in the past. It just took such a high profile game that sold millions for the status quo to get shaken up.

This might be an unpopular opinion but this won't change anything on how games are made. They sold 8 million copies in a week. They will fix it over time and people won't think about it until the next big fuck up.

This is one of those "big enough to make mainstream news" events.

Who knows how Sony handles payouts to developers on PSN. It could be in escrow and only paid out at certain increments, or agreed upon milestones. This is the most expensive Cyberpunk 2077 is going to be. Prices trend down. If this game isn't available until Jan 2021 they 're going to have a hard time selling it for $60 when it does hit the store again. A lot of people getting this for Christmas haven't bought the game yet or even taken the option to buy it digitally. I kind of want to take my Xbox offline even though I have a disc copy. What if Sony says everybody got a refund and you dont get paid from anybody on our 110 million plus consoles. People like to praise PC but I bet PC only makes up 1/3 or less of revenue for a game like this. Don't think there's 110 million PCs on the planet capable of running it.

Microsoft and Sony have been killing it from the goodwill side of things. While Nintendo is over there 'celebrating' with their defective joycons and just overall bumbling. I'm super done with Nintendo and between these two companies doing right by me while they empty my bank account feels pretty good.

Jeff touched on this briefly on the bombcast; when people dismiss concerns of crashing or bugs because they haven't personally experienced them, that's not helpful. Those bugs aren't going to appear for everyone and obviously mileage will vary depending on your rig, something which is infinitely inconsistent when it comes to PC builds. The fact of the matter is a lot of people have had a bad experience with the game regardless of platform. If you're experiencing relatively good performance then that's genuinely good for you, but it's not an accurate representation of the majority of players, so it's not realistic to criticise reviews or make refund policy assumptions based on that.

No idea where sales are now or what it will look like after all the refunds go through, but PC had quite quite a few more pre-orders.

@frytup:The entire graphics card industry has been salivating for that game so no surprise there but i think that's a greater percentage of available hardware versus consoles. I think lifetime sales will even out that pie chart even more. Where is the graphic that shows the number of PCs capable of running it versus consoles that can run it (softball joke so don't make it)?

Also worth mentioning that everyone's expectancies and tolerances are different. My brother bought this game on the base Xbox One and I can tell you that it is horrific to see, truly a nightmare, like watching a 240p DS game blown up to 1080p and still running at 10fps, and he's fine with it. He is playing it on a decade-old TV with the worst input lag I have ever personally experienced, to the point where it makes me severely motionsick, and he's totally okay with it. Some people just don't care. it's hard to see a post on the internet about how it was totally fine, and to know exactly what that person has seen and what their expectations are.

Yup, this is certainly a case where PC's ability to adjust graphical quality to fit the hardware comes in handy.

@the_nubster: It's truly another case of Digital Foundry telling you that you aren't having fun. I kind of think that they are the ultimate trolls. I enjoyed their pre next-gen console insight and hearing them breakdown what these consoles could do was great. At this point they do more harm than good and i'm definitely am unsubscribing. Negative Nancy here to tell you that sidequest mission was actually at 1078.9p and you should feel like it's a hate crime. DF to me is like that meme video from the journalist that couldn't figure out how to play Doom and was just bad at the game.

I definitely wonder what went on in the background here. Was this a case of Sony unilaterally pulling the plug alongside offering refunds, or did CPR agree with the move beforehand? Like imagine if this was EA instead. There's no way they would agree to delist a game no matter how bad. Would Sony pull the rug out from under the maker of FIFA and Madden and risk losing EA's support? Or would they give in to a major partner? Makes you think that Sony really, really needs to update their refund policy, or stop issuing cert waivers. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Just to clarify, I'm not saying that CPR isn't the party mainly at fault here. Obviously Sony is only reacting because of the broken game before them, but the fact that Microsoft and Valve didn't have to react because they have policies already in place to resolve these types of issues speaks volumes to how important it is to offer these types of policies, not only for the consumer, but for the business as well.

Is this satire? Because I can't take it seriously otherwise.

Digital Foundry is in no way responsible for how people interpret their objective findings in a game's performance and image quality. They are not telling you how to feel about how the game looks or performs, that's just you projecting your feelings on the information they're providing. In many instances they are providing a valuable service in that they have helped devs point out specific performance issues or graphical issues that have ended up getting resolved. They have had active dialogue with developers such as The Coalition in describing frame pacing issues after a Series X/S update was released and was subsequently fixed.

Just like how reviewers should not be responsible for how people use tiny variances in review scores in their console war pissing matches, neither should DF be responsible for how those same people use DF footage for their inane arguments.

Hey there ya'll, let's (1) keep this thread on topic and (2) be respectful and not insult one another.

:)

@raven10: Sony wants you to embrace their all digital PS5. If they don't do something like this then people will be reluctant to buy anything digitally going forward. CD Projekt tried to pull a fast one and we need the middle man to have our backs. They are doing that here. I'm most interested in the timeline and price for the game when it comes back. They can't say "and now DLC is free," because they already promised DLC for free. PS5 version were free as well. I think we are going to get alot of comes free with Witcher 3 + all DLC on Playstation when we see it again. That may get me to buy it there if i secure a PS5 or Series X any time soon.

@colourful_hippie: I'm not clever enough to do satire. DF is interesting and has merit but much like the rest of youtube it's a niche that doesn't need niching. There videos are nice for 20 minutes of technical jargon just so i know my widgets from my whatzits, but we didnt need them in the previous (however many) generations and now their services are essential? I don't think so. People regurgitate talking points about crunch or better graphics or who wore it best (i mean ran it best). Crunch happens in every industry and when you show up late at the grocery store and just need a minute.. you are forcing crunch. It's the nature of employment. But get a few pics of developers sleeping under their desk and it's anarchy. I slept at the library while going to school. My professor should have done something. My mo should write a letter.

@finaldasa: I wasn't directing anything negative at him unless you are referring to the satire implication. Regardless I cleaned up the last part of my comment and yes you are right. This is off topic.

I hope this pushes Sony to adopt a proper refund policy and that this will wake up the platform holders into implementing a tighter certification process. Clearly the trust that the day 1 patch scrapes the product past the "acceptable" finish line is no longer sustainable.

@senorsucks2suck: the argument of “working conditions are bad for everyone, so suck it up” is not the highly convincing argument you think it is.

@frytup: Not going to take the bait which is a thing from the new Monster Hunter movie. But i think the internet has agreed that we aren't watching that right now. Mods probably won't ban you since you're on the 'right' side of the argument.

To rope DF back into this conversation that is not off topic. I think their recent videos about the Cyberpunk base console versions were a valuable service to the overall discourse in just how awful those versions ended up being. Yes you can find a load of tweets with pics and gifs of some broken ass shit but DF laid out a very convincing video on just how incapable the hardware were in rendering this game. So bad in fact that it's baffling that it was released at all. At least their video helped offer customers the proper language to better argue how fucked their own respective versions ended up being.

The evidence on display in those recent widely viewed Cyberpunk DF videos absolutely added to the burden on both CDPR and Sony to acknowledge how bad this problem was becoming and to find a real solution with refunds.

@frytup: There is no wandering. Thesis is: DF "reporting" is the genesis of all this. This is an edge case where their efforts mattered. I'd say it's alot of water wet and this game could be better. DF it's pacman.. give it a rest.

@imhungry: I've certainly been very down on Cyberpunk in the forums lately, which is not how I wanted to be. I loved The Witcher 3 and was looking forward to Cyberpunk for a while. And let me tell you, as someone who is playing the game on a PC with a very recent PC, as high as the specs can get -- the technical issues are still overwhelming. If someone can put up with them, cool, but I think the recent narrative of "well it's fine on PC" is a bit disingenuous.

To Sweep's point, I feel horrible for the developers who had to crunch on this thing only for this shitstorm of publicity.

However, I feel zero sympathy for the upper management who made these decisions to begin with, nor the legions of hyper-online fans who harassed everyone who gave this game less than a 9. Because of those people, I have quite a fair bit of schadenfreude due to Sony recently pulling out the game. Heck, you still have people in these comments saying DF is some bad meme for stating objective facts about the base console's performance. Sorry if I come off like a dick about this game, but the fans around this thing are exhausting.

@theoracleofgame: DF is the altruistic good guy in all this. This is their moment. Can't wait to see Jon on Ellen. Breaks my heart too.

@theoracleofgame: I totally get where you're coming from, it's really a hyper-focused blast of the worst parts of online games discourse. I just replied to you because I found it amusing that at the time of my post the last comment (at the end of page 1) was exactly the person you were wondering about.

I'm pretty sure a vast majority of the buyers have never watched a single Digital Foundry video nore care. Then again, they are also not the ones critisizing the game publically. Anyway, people were already raking the game over the coals before the video and DF just confirmed what everyone knew. Not sure what my point is. CDPR will be fine but I hope they take a good long look at their management style, because its not working and has never worked. They have gotten away with it until now but this time the projekt was too big and messy to solve with brute force / crunch.

@imhungry: Ha, totally understandable, and yes, that's amusing.

It was just this moment of clarity, between your reply and Sweep's note that there are some people reveling in this... I realized I'm that guy right now, and I'm enjoying this turn of events a bit too much.

This is all about the promise CDPR made to Sony and MS about fixing everything to clear certification. The game was pressed with about a gajillion bugs in it and they tried their best to fix it all by the set date, but COVID and all that basically threw a giant monkey-wrench in their plans. So they very carefully don't show any last-gen console footage and by self-admission don't make it a priority. And they couldn't fix it all. And if it was just stuff like balance or missing animations or something that would be OK. But this game is so poorly optimized on PS4 that it's really hard to enjoy. I really wanted to enjoy this game, and I think if I had a PS5 I could have, or will perhaps.

Then they tell a ton of pissed off base PS4 users to go get a refund from Sony who gets absolutely hammered by refund requests. This just sucks for everybody like another user said - Nobody wins here. I think we all wanted to see this game succeed, somebody should have had the guts to shelf the last-gen versions until Feb (or until fixed).

Genuine feels for the guys who worked on this game. There's great stuff in there and it's unfortunate that it's overshadowed by all the technical problems.

It was pulled because Sony doesn't have a refund program and also their stance on nudity on games apparently.

I think people are over estimating Sony here. They would have gladly kept selling this game if it wasn’t becoming such a high profile case and if their own refund system wasn’t so non existent. Please remember that it was Sony that let the game get through cert in the first place and Sony that happily took peoples money knowing it did not meet their standards - which by delisting the game now they just admitted to. This isn’t a grandiose fuck you as much as it’s a “oh fuck” from Sony realizing that this time the game is too high profile to ignore.

I really think CDPR forced Sony's hand here.

CDPR directed anyone wanting a refund to basically "storm the gates" of platform holders with those requests. One could argue they may have even been looking to take the heat off themselves by putting the heavy lifting onto those platform holders and change the narrative to "very sorry, we want you to have your refund but looks like naughty Sony won't let you have it".

Would it have helped matters if Sony had a decent refund system/process in place? Possibly. However, the reality is they had a flood of refund requests and the only way to stem the tide and give refunds to those who want them is to go the nuclear option and delist the game.

Agreed. I'm feeling extra bad for all those developers at CDPR who now probably have to crunch through the holidays to get the game patched to a state worth selling again.

We've seen many games launch in poor technical condition MCC, BF4, Unity and Ark etc, yet never learn from them, even reviewing well in most cases.

Hopefully with Sony taking such drastic action we might see some at least hesitate before releasing their game in such a poor state, but I don't think any of this would have happened without the statement from CDPR, it put Sony in a legal bind and pushed every angry customer at Sony believing they could get a refund.

I imagine someone projected how many potential refunds they would have to make and how much additional fees they'd have to pay for those rufunds and decided to delist. Its probably a bonus that they'd get to screw over CDPR after the move CDPR made sticking them with the refunds.

@yapapanda: A developer/publisher doesn't receive money for digital items for at least 30 days often longer even, CDPR simply won't receive the money for any refunded game, and CDPR will have no say/involvement in the process Sony will be footing the admin cost.

Makes sense if CDPR wanted to do good by their efforts to facilitate refunds. If Sony wouldn't offer refunds bc it's not delisted from the store, then delist the fucker and give the ppl refunds if they want.

Good on them I guess? But what a mess, huh.

Probably not saying anything new, but this has to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, right? Platforms need to take their QC seriously and if systems within a generation can’t run a game without it crashing to the menu several times, coming apart at the seams in the process, then the game should not be available on those platforms until there’s real testing done by an independent contractor. Hiring your own QA is just an excuse to hide shit that you know wouldn’t let you make the cut for release.

Wow, this is impressive.

I played last night and had the following bugs:

- My current tracked mission kept resetting form the side mission I was on to a main story mission

- During a long mission with multiple dialogue sections one of the characters kept looping an earlier line over the top of their speech

- A boss character suddenly appeared in the middle of a stealth mission and aggro'd on me

What is being lost during this discussion though is the fact that the game is just not very good, despite the bugs.

This is crazy huge news. But also yeah this is an F you from Sony to CDPR after CDPR was trying to get 1st parties involved with digital refunds. I'm curious as to what Microsoft does with the XBOB One versions.

And that’s why you always leave a note!

What is the chance this is permanent, I was waiting for the PS5 update but should I get the PS4 disk if its going to be pulled from Amazon as well.

It's very unlikely it's permanent since CDPR is committed to still making updates. Unless something truly catastrophic happens, it will probably be back on the store within a few months.