• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

PlayStation Jim Ryan says removing Cyberpunk 2077 ‘was a tough decision, but we had to act’

Bo_Hazem

Banned

Speaking to Axios in a newly published interview, the president and CEO said that PlayStation felt it could not sell a game that could “result in a bad experience” for players.

“This was a tough decision for us to make, but ultimately, we had to act in the interests of the PlayStation Community, and not knowingly sell a game that might result in a bad experience for them,” Ryan said.

Ryan offered no details about what it will take for the game to return.

You are our savior from crap games.

BTO24RhGqh.gif


Ryan offered no details about what it will take for the game to return.

tenor.gif
 
Last edited:

Ladioss

Member
Playstation had to act because Cyberpunk was making a fool of the brand. PS4 fat was the worst version of the game, not the kind of messaging you can afford when you are about to release your new hardware.
 
Last edited:

ZehDon

Member
Yeah because this game is promoted to the industry exactly as Cyberpunk: a potential goty with revolutionary gameplay mechanics.
The promotion of the game is irrelevant: if Sony is going to curate their platform to "protect the PlayStation community", then it needs to do so consistently, and not just to punish the developers who expose Sony's terrible TSA and refund policies.
 
I mean, Jim, had CDPR not told people to bug you for refunds the odds of you guys removing it from sale were 0 lol. If they cared about player experience, shit like Life of Black Tiger and Firefighters the Simulation never would have been allowed on the store.
Neither of those games had the hype,anticipation or the demand of Cyberpunk 2077.
 
Here is my question, why are people still upset about this? Did they refund PS customers, yes or no? When did CP2077 Launch? Dec 10th? 7 days later, they had a solution. What's the problem?



I knew the jig was up when CDPR sent canned/approved review footage with no 8gen console review codes.
 
Last edited:

RoyBatty

Banned

Speaking to Axios in a newly published interview, the president and CEO said that PlayStation felt it could not sell a game that could “result in a bad experience” for players.

“This was a tough decision for us to make, but ultimately, we had to act in the interests of the PlayStation Community, and not knowingly sell a game that might result in a bad experience for them,” Ryan said.

Ryan offered no details about what it will take for the game to return.
7Csb.gif
 
I've found Harmny's new account guys

Game is a piece of shit and the only redemption for it will be found through PS+
Please no. Then people will be wanting PS plus refunds. Though I suppose if you pretty up a piece of shit with ribbons and flowers people will want to play it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MrS

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
But you know, Life of Tiger, totally great game to sell. Lol

No-name indies are the same as mega-hyped AAAA titles? No, they are not. Expectations both technically and sales-wise are miles apart.

Oh, and I don't recall a rep of whoever made that game actually suggest unhappy people ask for refunds!

I mean objectively, its a real dick move to pull. Essentially what they set up was a system where -without asking- they basically got the distributors to subsidize a try-before-you-buy scheme on their behalf. A situation that only arose due to them knowingly supplying a disappointingly performing and bug-ridden product after hyping it literally for years!

Do you think brick-and-mortar retailers were happy about this? Especially smaller ones who'd potentially have to negotiate with payment processers in order to get the transaction fees returned? From a business standpoint its actually scandalous, in effect they created a mess and then dumped it on retailers to clean it up so as to salvage their public image somewhat.
 
Last edited:
Oh shut up Jim. Cyberpunk was a mess on consoles but cmon….there have been loads of games released in a mess And nothing was done. i Bet if CDPR hadn’t been asses and told people to ask you for refunds then you’d have been more than happy to keep cyberpunk on the store so you could keep taking money off people. nah you just didn’t want to give people back their money. If you care so much about giving players a good experience then do your job making sure games don’t run like shit before allowing them to be listed in YOUR store. you can refuse them, right? Or would that not be good financially? There was no way you wouldve turned down cyberpunk from the ps store cause it was the biggest hyped game in a long time so there was no way you were gonna turn up your nose to all that money! You ran the numbers and realised it wasn’t gonna be worth it financially to keep selling the game if people kept asking for refunds. you looked out for PlayStation not PlayStation customers.
 
Last edited:
what CDPR did to PS4 owners was very cruel
Yeah absolutely cruel! I hope they recover from that traumatic experience and find happiness again. /s

im not defending cdpr but anyone who pre ordered the game on console deserve all they got. The warning signs were there when cdpr wasnt showing off the game on console or talking about it. You’d have thought something would’ve clicked when all they were showing was pc footage but naaaaah let’s just buy it blindly and if anything goes wrong then at least we can piss and moan on the internet.
 
Last edited:

LRKD

Member
Here is my question, why are people still upset about this? Did they refund PS customers, yes or no? When did CP2077 Launch? Dec 10th? 7 days later, they had a solution. What's the problem?


There are a couple major problems I see here. In short, 1 they claim it's about not letting bad games on the platform, while many bad games are all over it. 2 they acted fast and had a solution, only to stop talks of players wanting refunds. IF they didn't act fast Sony fanboys would've realized they're the only ones without proper refunds systems for their digital store.

Now they have good press pretending to be the heroes, and quickly stopped PS fans from getting the refund system literally every store should have, you've been played like a damn fiddle. Sony wins, and PS payers loose twice.
 

OuterLimits

Member
Man, where was this Sony during the Bethesda Skyrim PS3 debacle. I definitely had a bad experience with that abomination. Difference was Bethesda wasn't advising people to get a refund from Sony, so they didn't give a shit that a big AAA game was a dumpster fire on their platform
 

FranXico

Member
The promotion of the game is irrelevant: if Sony is going to curate their platform to "protect the PlayStation community", then it needs to do so consistently, and not just to punish the developers who expose Sony's terrible TSA and refund policies.
What a ridiculous take.
CDPR didn't "expose" the shitty refund policy, anyone can read the terms and conclude that for themselves.
What CDPR did was promise refunds without checking with them, which would have been common sense.

None of this excuses Sony's refund policy or CDPR releasing botched console ports.
 
Last edited:

ZehDon

Member
What a ridiculous take.
CDPR didn't "expose" the shitty refund policy, anyone can read the terms and conclude that for themselves.
What CDPR did was promise refunds without checking with them, which would have been common sense.

None of this excuses Sony's refund policy or CDPR releasing botched console ports.
CDPR absolutely exposed Sony's terrible refund policy to many more people than who knew it was terrible before hand. Use whatever words you need to in order to describe that: exposed is the closest fit in my lexicon.

Interpret the scenario however you want. What I see, is that every other platform and store - GOG (CDPR), Steam, Xbox - every single one had precisely zero issues with implementing refunds... except Sony, who are also the only platform to pull the game, and being that they've never pulled poorly functioning games from their store before, this appears to be a special case - I read this as Sony is trying to punish them for exposing their terrible refund policy. How often was Sony's refund policy brought up prior to Cyberpunk? So, your mileage may vary here, and that's fine, but my view is hardly a "ridiculous take".
 

FranXico

Member
How often was Sony's refund policy brought up prior to Cyberpunk? So, your mileage may vary here, and that's fine, but my view is hardly a "ridiculous take".
The PSN refund policy has always been repeatedly discussed ever since Steam implemented automated refunds.
Maybe "ridiculous" was a poor choice of words. "Sensationalist" fits your stance more.

Their refund policy does state explicitly that if a game is pulled from the store due to being unplayable, refunds are offered to anyone who bought it. They didn't make an exception for CP2077, although it was the first overhyped AAA mess where they took action.
 
Last edited:

Cyborg

Member
Great move to remove it considering what a shit company it has become due to its management. All the lies and misleading messages!
Its heartbreaking for the all hardworking developers at the company but form a business perspective I totally understand
 

ZehDon

Member
...They didn't make an exception for CP2077, although it was the first overhyped AAA mess where they took action.
Which brings us back to punishment. AAA, AA, A, hyped, over-hyped, under-hyped - none of this should actually matter to Sony's curation if they were actively employing it. I mean, what's the certification process for if not weeding this stuff out before it releases?

So, let's take a look, and give Sony the benefit of the doubt. What was the last game prior to Cyberpunk 2077 pulled? Giving Sony the benefit of the doubt, let's pretend Sony doesn't certify every title released on PSN - they do, and developers have to pay a fee for Sony to do it - but let's pretend they can only focus on the AAA games released each year. Ok - were any of the botched AAA GaaS games that were unplayable for several days after launch due to bad networking and unstable servers pulled? Not a single one. Ok, but that's networking issues, right? Maybe that's different from crashes. So, surely Fallout 76 was pulled when it was crashing consoles for weeks? Not at all. Maybe Anthem was pulled back when it was literally bricking consoles? Nope. Sony gladly sold them both and took their cut. Flash forward to CP2077, and CDPR tells people to ask Sony for a refund. All of a sudden: poof - game's gone. CP2077 actually works mostly fine on PS5, and its not too bad PS4 Pro either, but Sony went ahead and pulled it from the entire PSN network and won't let it back.

Stepping away from the look-back, I have to ask: what's the differing factor here? Clearly its not crashing or bricking consoles. As far as I can see, the only major different is CDPR encouraging folks to interact with PlayStation's refund policy whereas Bioware and Bethesda didn't. With that in mind, Sony's response doesn't come across as "protecting the PlayStation community" to me, it comes across as punishing CDPR.

What was the last game before CP2077 that Sony actually pulled? I actually can't find one. If you can shed a little light, please do.
 
Last edited:

assurdum

Banned
Which brings us back to punishment. AAA, AA, A, hyped, over-hyped, under-hyped - none of this should actually matter to Sony's curation if they were actively employing it. I mean, what's the certification process for if not weeding this stuff out before it releases?

So, let's take a look, and give Sony the benefit of the doubt. What was the last game prior to Cyberpunk 2077 pulled? Giving Sony the benefit of the doubt, let's pretend Sony doesn't certify every title released on PSN - they do, and developers have to pay a fee for Sony to do it - but let's pretend they can only focus on the AAA games released each year. Ok - were any of the botched AAA GaaS games that were unplayable for several days after launch due to bad networking and unstable servers pulled? Not a single one. Ok, but that's networking issues, right? Maybe that's different from crashes. So, surely Fallout 76 was pulled when it was crashing consoles for weeks? Not at all. Maybe Anthem was pulled back when it was literally bricking consoles? Nope. Sony gladly sold them both and took their cut. Flash forward to CP2077, and CDPR tells people to ask Sony for a refund. All of a sudden: poof - game's gone. CP2077 actually works mostly fine on PS5, and its not too bad PS4 Pro either, but Sony went ahead and pulled it from the entire PSN network and won't let it back.

Stepping away from the look-back, I have to ask: what's the differing factor here? Clearly its not crashing or bricking consoles. As far as I can see, the only major different is CDPR encouraging folks to interact with PlayStation's refund policy whereas Bioware and Bethesda didn't. With that in mind, Sony's response doesn't come across as "protecting the PlayStation community" to me, it comes across as punishing CDPR.

What was the last game before CP2077 that Sony actually pulled? I actually can't find one. If you can shed a little light, please do.
Simple response: sony doesn't give refund and because this game has a potential wide audience it prefers to eliminate it from the PSN before people would start to ask refund which will never have in any case.
PSN customers policy are shit? Yes, it's a shame and all we know it. But still millions of people use it, and in some way they tried to defend the customer interests as their owns.
 
Last edited:

hemo memo

Gold Member
The PSN refund policy has always been repeatedly discussed ever since Steam implemented automated refunds.
Maybe "ridiculous" was a poor choice of words. "Sensationalist" fits your stance more.

Their refund policy does state explicitly that if a game is pulled from the store due to being unplayable, refunds are offered to anyone who bought it. They didn't make an exception for CP2077, although it was the first overhyped AAA mess where they took action.
“If you have started to download or stream the purchased content you will not be eligible for a refund unless the content is faulty

faulty
/ˈfɔːlti,ˈfɒlti/
adjective
not working or made correctly; having defects.
"a faulty brake"
 

SkylineRKR

Member
Refund system or not, its the right call to remove a broken product either way. Yes there is still trash to find on the digital stores, but nothing even remotely comparable to the expectations and potential of Cyberpunk. This game was set out to capture al GOTY awards and become one of the best games of the entire generation.

And in the end, how many did actually refund their copy? CDPR also promoted the option to do so, but I still know and read about lots of people who kept the game. The game reportedly sold over 10 million digital copies and raked in 600 million bucks. Not counting physical.
 

hemo memo

Gold Member
Refund system or not, its the right call to remove a broken product either way. Yes there is still trash to find on the digital stores, but nothing even remotely comparable to the expectations and potential of Cyberpunk. This game was set out to capture al GOTY awards and become one of the best games of the entire generation.

And in the end, how many did actually refund their copy? CDPR also promoted the option to do so, but I still know and read about lots of people who kept the game. The game reportedly sold over 10 million digital copies and raked in 600 million bucks. Not counting physical.
Because some people have very low standards or don’t want to go through the trouble of refund or don’t know how to ask for a refund.
 

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

Update: In a statement to Polygon, Sony confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 will return to the PlayStation Store. It also cautioned users against playing the game on a base PlayStation 4 until CD Projekt Red fixes some more issues.

“SIE can confirm that Cyberpunk 2077 will be re-listed on PlayStation Store starting June 21, 2021,” a Sony spokesperson said in an email. “Users will continue to experience performance issues with the PS4 edition while CD Projekt Red continues to improve stability across all platforms. SIE recommends playing the title on PS4 Pro or PS5 for the best experience.”
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned

Update: In a statement to Polygon, Sony confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 will return to the PlayStation Store. It also cautioned users against playing the game on a base PlayStation 4 until CD Projekt Red fixes some more issues.

“SIE can confirm that Cyberpunk 2077 will be re-listed on PlayStation Store starting June 21, 2021,” a Sony spokesperson said in an email. “Users will continue to experience performance issues with the PS4 edition while CD Projekt Red continues to improve stability across all platforms. SIE recommends playing the title on PS4 Pro or PS5 for the best experience.”

Not gonna throw a penny for those sleazy ones.
 
Top Bottom