CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)(cdprojekt.com)
cdprojekt.com
CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)
https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/wp-content/uploads-en/2020/12/call-transcript_en.pdf
657 comments
Wasn't it obvious to anyone who play-tested on last-gen consoles that the game is nearly unplayable and so will receive horrendous reviews? Presumably CDPR employees are not afraid to convey such bad news to the management. So why did the management still decide to go ahead with the release this year?
After reading this transcript, I didn't find the answer to these questions.
"Underestimated the scale and complexity of the issues": it's not like they needed to estimate anything. This is not an MMO that behaves differently after the million users log in. This is not a PC that behaves differently on unpredictable end-user's systems. This is not a game where problems only occur under some rare combinations of factors.
"We ignored the signals about the need for additional time to refine the game": signals implies some indirect evidence that can be interpreted differently. It seems, however, that the management would have a pretty unambiguous information at their disposal.
After reading this transcript, I didn't find the answer to these questions.
"Underestimated the scale and complexity of the issues": it's not like they needed to estimate anything. This is not an MMO that behaves differently after the million users log in. This is not a PC that behaves differently on unpredictable end-user's systems. This is not a game where problems only occur under some rare combinations of factors.
"We ignored the signals about the need for additional time to refine the game": signals implies some indirect evidence that can be interpreted differently. It seems, however, that the management would have a pretty unambiguous information at their disposal.
I see CDPR being bashed a lot and I wanted to chip in: I bought the game on release day on GOG and am playing it on a Macbook Pro via Geforce Now.
It's running very well for me. I've had 0 crashes. Very few glitches, and if, then they were cosmetic i.e. didn't cause any gameplay problems†.
The visuals are absolutely amazing. Combat is very nice. The skill tree is interesting. Night city is beautifully immersive and the story is thrilling. I'm not much of a gamer, but I feel that I'll sink a large amount of time into this game. As of now, I can't stop thinking about the game when I'm away from it.
† Although I almost had a heart attack as one time a bad guy that I had taken down just got up and sat back down on the bench he was sitting on before. He was still "dead" but just chilling on the bench. Hidden zombie mode?
It's running very well for me. I've had 0 crashes. Very few glitches, and if, then they were cosmetic i.e. didn't cause any gameplay problems†.
The visuals are absolutely amazing. Combat is very nice. The skill tree is interesting. Night city is beautifully immersive and the story is thrilling. I'm not much of a gamer, but I feel that I'll sink a large amount of time into this game. As of now, I can't stop thinking about the game when I'm away from it.
† Although I almost had a heart attack as one time a bad guy that I had taken down just got up and sat back down on the bench he was sitting on before. He was still "dead" but just chilling on the bench. Hidden zombie mode?
Having played cyberpunk on PC it's mostly a fancy light show and not a lot of substance. You can't even customize anything past the creation screen, no car paint jobs no hair cuts and no body modification, no transmog system..
They tried to hide the console issues while reaffirming time and time again that current-gen console will be a first class citizen, that's an EA tactic not something that CDPR I thought I knew would do...
Moreover CDPR was given a $7 million grant to develop the artificial intelligence. This game has one of the worst open-world AI I have ever seen.
Cops spawn on you, the drivers and pedestrians AI is almost non existing. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from 2004 is miles ahead of this game.
They even announced that they are "very sorry" and that people can get a refund only that Sony won't refund if you played or even downloaded the game not to mention this game is very badly optimized on AMD systems the current gaming king.
They tried to hide the console issues while reaffirming time and time again that current-gen console will be a first class citizen, that's an EA tactic not something that CDPR I thought I knew would do...
Moreover CDPR was given a $7 million grant to develop the artificial intelligence. This game has one of the worst open-world AI I have ever seen.
Cops spawn on you, the drivers and pedestrians AI is almost non existing. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from 2004 is miles ahead of this game.
They even announced that they are "very sorry" and that people can get a refund only that Sony won't refund if you played or even downloaded the game not to mention this game is very badly optimized on AMD systems the current gaming king.
> we’ve actually shown console footage, but never on the last-gen consoles. The reason is that we were updating the game on last-gen consoles until the very last minute, and we thought we’d make it in time. [...] That was not intended; we were just fixing the game until the very last moment.
This is absurd. They didn't hide console footage because they were sure they'd miraculously turn around the entire game at the last second; they hid it because they didn't want people to see it so they could have massive launch day sales. If you're going to apologize just apologize. Don't pretend it was some innocent oversight.
This is absurd. They didn't hide console footage because they were sure they'd miraculously turn around the entire game at the last second; they hid it because they didn't want people to see it so they could have massive launch day sales. If you're going to apologize just apologize. Don't pretend it was some innocent oversight.
I completed it twice -more out of boredom and getting my money's worth than actual enjoyment- and my biggest complaint is that the game is totally dumb and a complete waste of time to those more philosophically inclined. It feels like a throwback to the dumbest action games of the 90s: here's a main story and a bunch of quests that you'll be completing on railtracks.
Your choices don't really matter, the world is empty and soulless, the writing is lazy and you can't stop but keep thinking how superficial everything feels.
There is no emergent gameplay which is simply unacceptable, taking all the promises and descriptions of groundbreaking immersive gameplay into account.
Great for teenagers looking for mindless action kicks, bad for everyone else.
There is no emergent gameplay which is simply unacceptable, taking all the promises and descriptions of groundbreaking immersive gameplay into account.
Great for teenagers looking for mindless action kicks, bad for everyone else.
If you watch game footage, it's obvious it's half-baked. However, so many people violated the number one rule: no preorders. This is literally the only thing gamers can do to incentivise developers to not release buggy games. But here we are again.
The whole project feels terribly mismanaged. Even from the character editor it is obvious the game had to be scaled down in the last year to even ship. Considering the amount of crunch, it is heartbreaking it ended like this for every interested party.
I find it hard to believe that the launch of the new consoles did not have an effect on the launch date. CD Projekt could have taken the Rockstar approach, release the game on the last gen or PC and Stadia first, then polish and release on the second platform and then finish with the next gen. Releasing on seven or more platforms at the same time would not go well even before covid.
I find it hard to believe that the launch of the new consoles did not have an effect on the launch date. CD Projekt could have taken the Rockstar approach, release the game on the last gen or PC and Stadia first, then polish and release on the second platform and then finish with the next gen. Releasing on seven or more platforms at the same time would not go well even before covid.
I'm really enjoying the game on PC, it runs reasonably well on my GTX 1070. I'm staggered how many bugs there are though. I run into one about every five minutes. So far off the top of my head:
- NPCs floating in space
- NPCs walking through solid objects
- NPCs randomly spawning in view
- I have a gun that wont fire if I use a scope on it
- I have another gun whose model disappears in car chases
- Some objects have meshes that duplicate (cigarette floating in space while the character is also holding it)
- Randomly getting flagged by the cops for a crime when im literally just walking around with my weapon holstered
- Quest goals not registering/having to repeat certain actions
None of these are like a huge deal, sometimes it's even really funny, but dear god is it incredibly buggy.
- NPCs floating in space
- NPCs walking through solid objects
- NPCs randomly spawning in view
- I have a gun that wont fire if I use a scope on it
- I have another gun whose model disappears in car chases
- Some objects have meshes that duplicate (cigarette floating in space while the character is also holding it)
- Randomly getting flagged by the cops for a crime when im literally just walking around with my weapon holstered
- Quest goals not registering/having to repeat certain actions
None of these are like a huge deal, sometimes it's even really funny, but dear god is it incredibly buggy.
> After 3 delays, we as the Management Board were too focused on releasing the game. We underestimated the scale and complexity of the issues, we ignored the signals about the need for additional time to refine the game on the base last-gen consoles. It was the wrong approach and against our business philosophy.
Management at game dev company ignores all team feedback about timeline and quality, instead promises an arbitrary release date and pushes to crunch to meet deadlines. What a shocker ;)
Management at game dev company ignores all team feedback about timeline and quality, instead promises an arbitrary release date and pushes to crunch to meet deadlines. What a shocker ;)
As someone who works as a leader of a tech team building a financial engine, from my personal experience. When teams are doing overtime it means some bad management happened somewhere. Either someone under-estimated the scope and was never adjusted / communicated, or someone couldn't keep promise of not changing things as a result the developers and final product suffer.
Software projects are very difficult to estimate. Especially when you are building 'one of a kind' products. How do you give an estimate of something you've never built. You may know how efficient your team is at building a past product but you do not know about the upcoming problems you will face when building something new.
After working on a project for sometime you have a better idea and give better estimates however pinning 'deadlines' on a 'one of a kind' product never works out.
This is just another one of those cases. They should have just released the PC version first, and the other consoles could have come later. It would have been a better release for everyone and a better product.
Having engineers work overtime also is generally quite bad. Engineers are humans they get tired, when they're tired they make more mistakes. I guess it shows very clearly in this game all the 'mistakes' the developers made.
How long did they spend making this game? And to rush it at the last minute to hit a 'deadline' and to have an outcome like this. Was it worth it?
Software projects are very difficult to estimate. Especially when you are building 'one of a kind' products. How do you give an estimate of something you've never built. You may know how efficient your team is at building a past product but you do not know about the upcoming problems you will face when building something new.
After working on a project for sometime you have a better idea and give better estimates however pinning 'deadlines' on a 'one of a kind' product never works out.
This is just another one of those cases. They should have just released the PC version first, and the other consoles could have come later. It would have been a better release for everyone and a better product.
Having engineers work overtime also is generally quite bad. Engineers are humans they get tired, when they're tired they make more mistakes. I guess it shows very clearly in this game all the 'mistakes' the developers made.
How long did they spend making this game? And to rush it at the last minute to hit a 'deadline' and to have an outcome like this. Was it worth it?
"we started with a score of 70, but now it’s 79. If you filter those who have played 10 hours or more, the score is 85 –so the more you play the more enjoyment you feel."
Lying with statistics 101. It's obviously impossible that people who didn't enjoy the game played less than 10 hours
Lying with statistics 101. It's obviously impossible that people who didn't enjoy the game played less than 10 hours
CD Project forced their employees to crunch to get a game out, missed deadlines, and shipped a game that is buggy on some definition of last-gen hardware. Assuming all that is true: how is this news? This essentially describes every ambitious, genre defining game for the last 35 years. As someone who tearfully tried to play Doom on a 286, I have some sympathy but the level of outrage is hard for me to understand.
In my experience playing the game on a PS4 Pro (does that qualify as a last-gen console? Not sure), I have experienced no game breaking bugs or performance issues that warrant the level of criticism here. Instead I have been blown away by the level of detail and beauty of the world they created and I personally am over the moon with the fact the game that I had been eagerly awaiting exceeds my expectations for it.
Congrats CD Projekt, take a vacation, give some bonuses, let people upgrade their 5 year old hardware and chill out.
In my experience playing the game on a PS4 Pro (does that qualify as a last-gen console? Not sure), I have experienced no game breaking bugs or performance issues that warrant the level of criticism here. Instead I have been blown away by the level of detail and beauty of the world they created and I personally am over the moon with the fact the game that I had been eagerly awaiting exceeds my expectations for it.
Congrats CD Projekt, take a vacation, give some bonuses, let people upgrade their 5 year old hardware and chill out.
I'm going to skip telling about all the bugs I have run into, so I'll just get down to what I think happened here.
Two primary things:
One) They targeted consoles when they shouldn't have. Cyberpunk is a game that should have been pc only first, and then later ported to consoles. They had a hammer (the engine) and saw nails (consoles), but in the game dev world the largest sets of complications come from trying to support different environments. The same can be said often in the normal software world, trying to be cross compatible when sometimes thats the wrong thing to do. When you do the math, targeting consoles, and especially if you go for last gen, the beancounter numbers show the ROI increase over just pc or just pc and latest gen are very high... and then instead of the development resources that should have gone into the AI, customization, bug-squashing, etc, go into console work.
Two) They focused too much on building the individual quests instead of the emergent opportunities which abound. It seems like they spent too much time on hand crafting quest levels, especially the ones that involved Silverhand. Many quests have their own complete loaded levels you can't get to from the main game world. By doing so, they probably wasted tons of tester and dev hours on those individual levels instead of the open game world bugs and features.
I suspect also that quite a few features just got ripped out and replaced with placeholders while the bugs get worked out more. There is no way the AI they touted so long ago is really in this state, for example, so I suspect if you give it half a year, lots of expected features will suddenly start showing up in updates and the game will end up in a much better state.
All in all, I enjoy the game world, and it has moments where it really shines. It also has madness inducing and show stopping bugs that most normal players just won't put up with... (~100+ proc kills/game freezes to finish main story line on linux/proton).
Why do beancounters always ruin everything they touch? What should have been one of the best games ever released was one of the best releases to ever money.
Two years from now it will be primo, I'm sure. The question is will there be enough backlash to change anything? Given the amount of money they made and are still making, I doubt it. Different industry, same bullshit as everywhere else.
Two primary things:
One) They targeted consoles when they shouldn't have. Cyberpunk is a game that should have been pc only first, and then later ported to consoles. They had a hammer (the engine) and saw nails (consoles), but in the game dev world the largest sets of complications come from trying to support different environments. The same can be said often in the normal software world, trying to be cross compatible when sometimes thats the wrong thing to do. When you do the math, targeting consoles, and especially if you go for last gen, the beancounter numbers show the ROI increase over just pc or just pc and latest gen are very high... and then instead of the development resources that should have gone into the AI, customization, bug-squashing, etc, go into console work.
Two) They focused too much on building the individual quests instead of the emergent opportunities which abound. It seems like they spent too much time on hand crafting quest levels, especially the ones that involved Silverhand. Many quests have their own complete loaded levels you can't get to from the main game world. By doing so, they probably wasted tons of tester and dev hours on those individual levels instead of the open game world bugs and features.
I suspect also that quite a few features just got ripped out and replaced with placeholders while the bugs get worked out more. There is no way the AI they touted so long ago is really in this state, for example, so I suspect if you give it half a year, lots of expected features will suddenly start showing up in updates and the game will end up in a much better state.
All in all, I enjoy the game world, and it has moments where it really shines. It also has madness inducing and show stopping bugs that most normal players just won't put up with... (~100+ proc kills/game freezes to finish main story line on linux/proton).
Why do beancounters always ruin everything they touch? What should have been one of the best games ever released was one of the best releases to ever money.
Two years from now it will be primo, I'm sure. The question is will there be enough backlash to change anything? Given the amount of money they made and are still making, I doubt it. Different industry, same bullshit as everywhere else.
> Hi, this is Michał Nowakowski – the second question; would having more developers help deliver the game on old-gens? In terms of delivering the game at a certain point, it’s really not about the number of people; it’s not like throwing in – in the last month – 200 or so people would actually help. So, the answer is no; this is not related to the fact that we could have thrown 300 or 500 more people into the fray and things would have happened differently.
This is interesting info for someone like me that doesn't work in this field. It's something that I can understand intuitively, but it's nice to see that confirmed.
This is interesting info for someone like me that doesn't work in this field. It's something that I can understand intuitively, but it's nice to see that confirmed.
It looks like there are major issues besides the bugs on the last gen consoles and a lot of promised features/content were not delivered:
> no practical difference between life paths chosen
> AI system broken/unfinished
> length of the game + no replayabity factor
> linear playthrough
It has been suggested that the game was rewritten to accommodate the Keanu character.
From what I've gathered this game is a solid 7/10. It's interesting to see so many nine and ten out of ten reviews from the "professional" reveiewers and the reviews from the players. This is a trend that has been going on for some time now.
> no practical difference between life paths chosen
> AI system broken/unfinished
> length of the game + no replayabity factor
> linear playthrough
It has been suggested that the game was rewritten to accommodate the Keanu character.
From what I've gathered this game is a solid 7/10. It's interesting to see so many nine and ten out of ten reviews from the "professional" reveiewers and the reviews from the players. This is a trend that has been going on for some time now.
In the last couple of months friends have asked me "are you gonna get Cyberpunk?", and some seem taken aback by my answer when I say I'm gonna get it next year. Usually when I explain my reasoning (which I apply to almost all new game releases), people seem to understand:
a) There is no way of knowing if the game is gonna be good until real copies land in the hands of people who play games to have fun, instead of reviewers who are too worried about giving an honest review with the fear that they won't get future review copies or get sued.
b) Games generally get steep discounts a year or so after release. This is not universal, but if you avoid buying into the hype then you'll save yourself a considerable amount of money.
The only way to hold these companies accountable is to vote with your wallet, and so I always encourage people to reconsider pre-orders.
I'll be eagerly waiting to see if the game gets the love it deserves over the next year and if it turns out to be a flop, it'll just join long line of over-hyped AAA release flops.
a) There is no way of knowing if the game is gonna be good until real copies land in the hands of people who play games to have fun, instead of reviewers who are too worried about giving an honest review with the fear that they won't get future review copies or get sued.
b) Games generally get steep discounts a year or so after release. This is not universal, but if you avoid buying into the hype then you'll save yourself a considerable amount of money.
The only way to hold these companies accountable is to vote with your wallet, and so I always encourage people to reconsider pre-orders.
I'll be eagerly waiting to see if the game gets the love it deserves over the next year and if it turns out to be a flop, it'll just join long line of over-hyped AAA release flops.
Why is everyone just talking about last-gen consoles? My partner has been playing on the PS5 and it still crashes at least every hour. Sure, not every 10 min but nothing to gloss over either. This doesn’t even mention the texture glitches, clipping, unachievable quest glitches, animation bugs, etc
For those wondering what all the fuss is about, CD Projekt Red is the company that released a popular game called "Cyberpunk 2077" with critical deficits on PS4 and Xbox One platforms.
I've had the misfortune of interacting with some of the engineers at CD Projekt Red in the course of my job in the past. There is a serious competence issue. It's not surprising in the slightest bit that they have this many problems with their release. On top of that, those engineers were arrogant AF when I talked to them.
Wish at least one game studio/publisher would come out and say "We are just like any other software company. We work 40 hour weeks and have a healthy work/life balance. We don't have crunch time".
As the industry grows ever larger, that has to be a good way of attracting talent.
As the industry grows ever larger, that has to be a good way of attracting talent.
I play PC with a pretty good rig (RTX 2080S and i7-9700) and performance has been fine. I do struggle to hit 1440p60 at high settings in certain scenes (driving in populated areas etc.) but the game has been pretty bug-free for me at least. I had some bad crashes on D1 but after the 1.04 patch I had no problems at all besides a single isolated animation bug where a single character's glass would hover six inches to the side of her hand. Maybe this is just me?
I've been loving the game. I completed it and am starting my second playthrough. Honestly, my only complaint is that it's too _short_, and I think CDPR took comments about the Witcher 3's long length a little too much to heart. I would not have complained for a second if it was double the length or more.
I've been loving the game. I completed it and am starting my second playthrough. Honestly, my only complaint is that it's too _short_, and I think CDPR took comments about the Witcher 3's long length a little too much to heart. I would not have complained for a second if it was double the length or more.
I played it Day 1 and it runs reasonably well on my RTX 2080, nothing spectacular tho. I've had like 3 crashes in the 20 hours I've put in yet. I enjoy the game a lot, even with the bugs but what really let me down were the life paths.
I started a corpo character, got some fancy tech and a lot of cash 5 minutes in, then I ride a cool flying car around, I felt good and liked my choice. 10 minutes later I'm in a bar and 2 people come up to me that I have a meaningless dialogue with, they steal the tech and cash and from that point on I'm just a regular street kid?
It made no sense to me, I played on for an hour and then restarted as a street kid.
I started a corpo character, got some fancy tech and a lot of cash 5 minutes in, then I ride a cool flying car around, I felt good and liked my choice. 10 minutes later I'm in a bar and 2 people come up to me that I have a meaningless dialogue with, they steal the tech and cash and from that point on I'm just a regular street kid?
It made no sense to me, I played on for an hour and then restarted as a street kid.
[deleted]
Are there any videos of this "unplayable performance"?
All the PS4 videos I could find barely stuttered and seemed well above the threshold of playable
All the PS4 videos I could find barely stuttered and seemed well above the threshold of playable
Incumbent consoles hardware refresh cycle is so horribly long due to lack of competition, that it holds the whole industry back and damages progress.
I tried the game on Linux (Wine + vkd3d-proton). Thanks to CDPR for at least giving the game to Wine and Mesa developers in advance, even though they could make a native Linux release already due to all the Stadia work.
I tried the game on Linux (Wine + vkd3d-proton). Thanks to CDPR for at least giving the game to Wine and Mesa developers in advance, even though they could make a native Linux release already due to all the Stadia work.
No Mans Sky devs turned failure into a big win in a year or so after release. Miracles do happen, I hope CDPR can pull it off too.
I am running a last gen system (PC) and the game runs fine even with everything on max (except for ray-tracing which I don't think look that good but hits performance a lot).
I don't think CDPR should have released for old consoles, it's going to misrepresent the game no matter what, and just take extra effort.
I don't think CDPR should have released for old consoles, it's going to misrepresent the game no matter what, and just take extra effort.
They barely answers any questions. If the leadership team is not tracking the metrics they'd need to answer questions like "roughly how have last-gen console sales compared to expectations" or "are you seeing lots of refund requests", it's really no wonder they're in this situation.
I have experienced exactly one bug, namely every tree within view-distance being visible through walls at all times. It is possibly the single most immersion breaking bug I have experienced in a video game and every time I see it I cringe.
And, yet, twelve hours and counting.
And, yet, twelve hours and counting.
"CDPR leaders would hand out tokens every month to staffers who went above and beyond, and those tokens were supposed to be transferrable into bonuses if the game met “certain criteria, like critical acclaim and a timely release,” according to the report." [1]
Get paid in "crunch mode experience points" handed out by middle managers, who can apparently change the terms of this so-called bonus any time they want? Awful.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/11/22170655/cyberpunk-2077-...