Everyone should be familiar with the release of Cyberpunk 2077 by now. It didn't go well. Probably even bad on the Playstation 4. CD Projekt Red stock has not recovered since then. The Polish developer's bosses received ugly threatening letters. Mike Pondsmith has not commented publicly. And the drama surrounding Cyberpunk 2077 has also influenced some developers in real life. One now reports on his experiences.
Gabe Amatangelo, the game director who lives in Poland and speaks native English, talks about his life around the release of Cyberpunk 2077. One of the first events is with his landlord. That's when Amatangelo realized that his personal life was being affected. The landlord came to him and asked when Cyberpunk 2077 would be fixed on the Playstation 4. We now know that this effectively never happened.
In another instance, Amatangelo grabbed a coffee from a barista with whom he usually speaks in Polish. However, after the game launched, this also changed. “She never spoke English to me, that was the first time,” said Amatangelo. “She said, 'CD Projekt. What happened?'”
At the time, according to Amatangelo, there was often a feeling of “despair” in the studio as CD Projekt Red's reputation was at a low ebb. What made it particularly difficult was the fact that developers were also influenced by it in their normal private lives. CD Projekt Red has now got Cyberpunk 2077 on track, but the former vision was probably never achieved. It remains to be hoped that lessons have been learned and the Poles' once good reputation will recover.
“We believe that we will avoid a premiere like that of Cyberpunk 2077 in the future,” says CD Projekt CEO Adam Badowski. The problem with damaged reputation is that you really have to deliver on the next projects before players take it at face value. It is also important to master the switch to Unreal Engine 5 that CD Projekt has made.
Quelle: Game Developer