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They Knew It Was Wrong. CD Projekt Red Deceived Consumers Anyway.

Edgelord79

Gold Member
So who was deceiving who?

Was is cd project that deceived the customer?

Or was it the reviewers who deceived the customer?

Cuz in my book the reviews were all bullshit.
Oh we had the pc version the review bla bla bullshit. They had all the versions to review they just werent allowed to talk about the console version yet somehow they applied the same score accross all plattfroms.


No it wasnt cd project it was all these low live youtube shitters who cant have a real job in life and got a fucking yellow puke chair to masturbate on to bump up the scores.
It will all be fixed with the Day One patch...
The reviewers were reviewing the only version of the game they were allowed to play - the PC version.

Did most overlook the sheer number of bugs, etc? Maybe. But, you can't really blame them for not telling players the problems with the Xbox One and PS4 games, when they didn't have a chance to play it before everyone else.

That was all CDPR and they knew exactly what they were doing.
Bugs are still in the versions they played. There are major bugs across all platforms. These were largely ignored.

NDA probably said they had to say that they would be addressed in a Day One patch on order to downplay them.
 

Synless

Member
Why do I have this feeling this article is completely relieving "professional" game critics of any blame?

I really have a hard time believing this. I have a hard time believing not one of them reviewed the PS4/Xbone versions.

Something stinks.
I’ve been wondering this the whole time. One reviewer said it early on and got flak, then it was true and no one is questioning the many 9+ reviews.
 
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Jtibh

Banned
The reviewers were reviewing the only version of the game they were allowed to play - the PC version.

Did most overlook the sheer number of bugs, etc? Maybe. But, you can't really blame them for not telling players the problems with the Xbox One and PS4 games, when they didn't have a chance to play it before everyone else.

That was all CDPR and they knew exactly what they were doing.
They had the chance to play it for sure.

They were just not allowed to talk about it.
Many other channels already showed the ps4 and xbox versions ,they just werent reviewers.
 

Jtibh

Banned
It will all be fixed with the Day One patch...

Bugs are still in the versions they played. There are major bugs across all platforms. These were largely ignored.

NDA probably said they had to say that they would be addressed in a Day One patch on order to downplay them.
You cant patch a new cpu into the old consoles.

What you will reduce the resolution even further and cut more stuff back???

If it cant run decent and look decent clearly its not ment to work on ps4 and xbox.
 

MiguelItUp

Member
CDPR was one of the few AAA devs that people considered very consumer friendly. This whole situation just shows you that you can't, and shouldn't, fully trust any developer or publisher in the AAA realm.

Some produce better results than others at times, but I don't think anyone should ever be shocked by this kind of behavior. They all want your preorders and they all want your money. That will never change and it's business as usual.
 
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Edgelord79

Gold Member
You cant patch a new cpu into the old consoles.

What you will reduce the resolution even further and cut more stuff back???

If it cant run decent and look decent clearly its not ment to work on ps4 and xbox.
Clearly.

My point is the NDA most likely required them to say that to downplay the issues.
 
Yes they replaced the original video from 2007 with a 2013 extended cut, with new song. The 2007 version celebrated the acquisition of the license. Was just the woman opening her sword arms.
 

Jtibh

Banned
Clearly.

My point is the NDA most likely required them to say that to downplay the issues.
If i am a reviewer and my reputation is on the line and i am forced to lie through nda, and i take my job serious and do so by giving people the propper information but are not allowed too, i just flat out dont do a review or say i cant do a review for whatever reason.

But this is like politics. They dont give a shit to review a product for the consumer, no they review it for clicks and some merch.

Its fake its unethical and its just wrong .
 

Edgelord79

Gold Member
If i am a reviewer and my reputation is on the line and i am forced to lie through nda, and i take my job serious and do so by giving people the propper information but are not allowed too, i just flat out dont do a review or say i cant do a review for whatever reason.

But this is like politics. They dont give a shit to review a product for the consumer, no they review it for clicks and some merch.

Its fake its unethical and its just wrong .
Who are you arguing with? I agree with you.
 
They had the chance to play it for sure.

They were just not allowed to talk about it.
Many other channels already showed the ps4 and xbox versions ,they just werent reviewers.

Not true.. They did not send out console copies to reviewers. Anyone who had it got it some other way, such as employees stealing them somewhere along the retailer process or getting it from those people.
 

kyussman

Member
Feels like the success of The Witcher III kind of went to their heads a bit.....still,reality has hit them hard the last few days I guess,lol.
 
Should change thread title to: They Knew It Was Wrong CD Projekt Deceived Consumers Anyway

Let's not go blaming the developer on this; the decision to release the game in this state was 100% on upper management, and that's CD Projekt. Many internal quotes from Red devs seem to indicate they felt the game needed more time in the over (and it did).
 
Should change thread title to: They Knew It Was Wrong CD Projekt Deceived Consumers Anyway

Let's not go blaming the developer on this; the decision to release the game in this state was 100% on upper management, and that's CD Projekt. Many internal quotes from Red devs seem to indicate they felt the game needed more time in the over (and it did).

As always people like to blame the lower guys, it is always management who makes the mess. It happened with dead space 3, many other games, and will happen again,. At least they recognized their mistake in one way. I am making a small game, it has been in development hell, but at least I do not want to release something that is not ready.
 

Miles708

Member
If i am a reviewer and my reputation is on the line and i am forced to lie through nda, and i take my job serious and do so by giving people the propper information but are not allowed too, i just flat out dont do a review or say i cant do a review for whatever reason.

But this is like politics. They dont give a shit to review a product for the consumer, no they review it for clicks and some merch.

Its fake its unethical and its just wrong .

What you do when every AAA game (the ones driving clicks and giving you a job) has an NDA to respect?
Would you really say "Yeah, I'll happily do without a job" just to appease some ungrateful assholes on the internet?

Mind you, I agree with you that reviewers should have stood up given the gravity of the situation, but also consider that:
  1. CDPR assured the day-one patch would have fixed almost everything for consumers
  2. Reviewers couldn't say anything about current-gen without breaking NDA
  3. NDAs are enforced all the time, even for minor spoilers or gameplay features.
They have their fair share of blame, but it's not right to shout "well, they should just renounce their jobs!" behind a keyboard, when the power on them is enforced from a party (CDPR) which made everything in their power, for years mind you, to conceal the real state of things.

CD Project Red management threw their devs, their customers, their partners, their project and the media under the bus. And that's it.
And they've done it for years, because a project doesn't become crap in the last 6 months of development.

They just thought they would somehow get away with it.
 
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Thief1987

Member
The sad part is how all of this was unnecessary.

Why were they so greedy they couldn't delay the game till next year and ship a working product to next gen consoles at least?

Now it's costing them a lot more in bad PR, refunds, and plummeting stocks. The execs need to be fired for this huge blunder.
Execs can't fire themselves) They are founders and biggest shareholders.
 

Karunamon

Member
these publications need to band together and stop with this nonsense of having the publishers control what reviewers can or cannot talk about. if all big websites refused nonsense NDAs like this, cd project and other publishers would HAVE to ease their NDAs.

It's a game of prisoner's dilemma - the one site that gets more greedy wins over every other site that shows backbone.

In other words, don't hold your breath.

Execs can't fire themselves) They are founders and biggest shareholders.

Don't they have a board of directors? The usual corporate structure has the C-levels accountable to the board.
 
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Jada

Banned
Feels like the success of The Witcher III kind of went to their heads a bit.....still,reality has hit them hard the last few days I guess,lol.
Witcher 3 plays like it came from a completely different company. The world building, characterization, freedom of choice, and even much maligned combat are all so far removed from the amateurish design of CP2077 that you really can’t help but wonder if something is afoot.

Just what the FUCK were they working on?

mjtf.png
 

Jtibh

Banned
What you do when every AAA game (the ones driving clicks and giving you a job) has an NDA to respect?
Would you really say "Yeah, I'll happily do without a job" just to appease some ungrateful assholes on the internet?

Mind you, I agree with you that reviewers should have stood up given the gravity of the situation, but also consider that:
  1. CDPR assured the day-one patch would have fixed almost everything for consumers
  2. Reviewers couldn't say anything about current-gen without breaking NDA
  3. NDAs are enforced all the time, even for minor spoilers or gameplay features.
They have their fair share of blame, but it's not right to shout "well, they should just renounce their jobs!" behind a keyboard, when the power on them is enforced from a party (CDPR) which made everything in their power, for years mind you, to conceal the real state of things.

CD Project Red management threw their devs, their customers, their partners, their project and the media under the bus. And that's it.
And they've done it for years, because a project doesn't become crap in the last 6 months of development.

They just thought they would somehow get away with it.
I agree with most but i stand by the fact that reviewers dont have the customers best interest.

It seems to me that this is becoming more and more the case . We had this year already tlou2 situation that was similar to this with its 10 out of 10 scores yet the ones who spoke out were black listed or had their content blocked or channel flagged.

So again this is becoming more and more like politics . I mean just look at this factchecking bullshit and censorship from social media if you were reporting about stuff that hurt their narritive.
 
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Velius

Banned
They knew it was wrong. They pre-ordered and bought it anyway.

You fucking retards have no one to blame but yourselves.

Buying a game day one 2015+ is for fuck nuggets

I'm glad CDPR took your money.

Completely unrelated note-- be sure to pre-order Diablo 4. This time Blizzard won't fuck you honest
 
Of course they did.

How is this anything new? How could they possibly be working on a game for 7 years and be surprised that it ran like shit? Oh and the PC only review embargo was just a coincidence?

This is why people saying "good on them" for taking refunds just baffle me. They deliberately deceived their customers and now that there is a big backlash, they will take back some of the broken product that they pushed out the door (we'll see how those even work, I have an email in to them and they said they would get back with the details as to how to return it.)

CDPR has pretty much shit all over all the good will that they built with Witcher 3. They can eat a pile of dicks.

Precisely. I'll add that even when the CDPR's CEO issue the hollow apology a few days ago, he makes it sounds like they didn't know that the game doesn't run well on the PS4 and XB One by saying, "We should have paid more attention to make it run better on the PS4 and XBone." As if they didn't know that CP 2077 didn't run well after 8 years of development until the gamers spent $500 million pre-ordering the game, and found out that it doesn't run well on those systems. And if CDPR didn't know this, why go out of their way to not allow early reviews to show their own footages, and why didn't they send out the PS4 and XB1 codes a few weeks before release to give the reviewers a chance to play through the game? And finally, the nail in the coffin was when the CEO said that CP2077 "runs surprising well on the base consoles" months before the release date, which was an outright lie.
 

Aidah

Member
Yeah, that was the beginning of the plan. The rest of the plan is to continue building and fixing the game, throw a couple of freebies in there in addition to the free next-gen upgrade, and by the time their next game comes out they're already back to being darlings, all while getting their 8 million pre-orders in addition to millions of post launch sales.
 
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Miles708

Member
I agree with most but i stand by the fact that reviewers dont have the customers best interest.

It seems to me that this is becoming more and more the case . We had this year already tlou2 situation that was similar to this with its 10 out of 10 scores yet the ones who spoke out were black listed or had their content blocked or channel flagged.

So again this is becoming more and more like politics . I mean just look at this factchecking bullshit and censorship from social media if you were reporting about stuff that hurt their narritive.

I agree with you here, but I'm inclined to think that these are 2 different (albeit correlated) problems.
Politization is a problem starting from the community, NDAs is a problem starting from publishers.

But yes, they're correlated and real.
 

TheKratos

Member
I don't blame reviewers. I give the game (pc version) a 10/10 as well. Sure there are bugs, nothing game breaking though. Still a fantastic fucking only Witcher provided this level of immersion.
 

Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
I really have a hard time believing this. I have a hard time believing not one of them reviewed the PS4/Xbone versions.
Even if they didn’t they should have put a disclaimer in the review that CDPR sent them only PC review code and given how the game looks one should wait a few days to see how it performs on base consoles.

If they also received console codes you do not need to wait for a review, post a quick message on the website that from preliminary testing base consoles struggle and buyer’s discretion is advised. The whole situation damns CDPR and game journalists, who are preferring to be silent in the hopes nobody will notice.
 
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aries_71

Junior Member
The entire review industry should be put into question. Not even a $4k gaming pc avoids this game being a bugfest. I don’t understand the 100s nor the 91 metacritic score of the first 48h. It reeks of massive manipulation.
 

Moonjt9

Member
The reviewers are just as culpable as CDPR here. They knew everything and said nothing.

IGN putting out a 4/10 review yesterday was just a slap in the face. They all deserve to be raked over the coals for this situation, not just CDPR.
 

Mahavastu

Member
Even if they didn’t they should have put a disclaimer in the review that CDPR sent them only PC review code and given how the game looks one should wait a few days to see how it performs on base consoles.
pretty much all day 1 reviews I watched did that, and they also all talked about bugs.

If they also received console codes you do not need to wait for a review...
They didn't. The codes for consoles were send out on the 9th, the same day the other embargos were lifted. From some digital stores you were able to load the game as normal customer the same time if you set your device to New Zealand.
Or with other words, it was impossible to also review the consoles in the early, day1 reviews, which bring most views.

Videos with the horrible state of the consoles appeared just a few hours after the console codes were send and game downloads were possible.
 
guys, the game turned out to be a joke. 7 years and this is what we get, it's good when running nice, but not groundbreaking in anyway. Total disappointment when the dust has settled, that's not even talking about the crappy current get console versions, which is shameful
 

EDMIX

Member
They played the PS4/XB1 version but signed a NDA to now talk or show them.
On Twitter a lot of reviewers hinted at these issues but when asked directly they moved the subject.

What reviewers did is atrocious.

And I will say more tons of GAFers continue defending CDPR even after all these facts... it is sad.

Agreed. I like many elements of the game, but its below even average. Its not the best shooter, not the best rpg, driving sucks, the AI is braindead like below even GTAIII standards and this is even before I start getting into the massive issues.

It would be like me telling someone Days Gone is game of the year or Fallout 4 is game of the year etc. I own many games with issues, that are average, that lack many solid features that SHOULD be in the title, but I don't try to argue that its a 10/10 and shove all criticism under the rug. Bullshit.

Someone can PERSONALLY like a game, yet properly reveal obvious issues with a title. Going forward I don't believe any fucking reviewer that tried to give this a 9 or a 10 on any fucking platform the issues in this game go beyond crashes and bugs, fundamentally many elements of the game are below average. Someone seriously cannot tell me cops just emerging out of thin air and getting stuck in fucking walls is a normal idea or NPCs being completely brain-dead literally being completely oblivious to reality, to the point where how slow the artificial intelligences has now become a fucking meme surrounding this game.

So this ridiculous excuse that because it's an RPG were supposed to disregard basically everything is becoming a bit stupid. If you didn't want to fucking get dragged for having dumbass cops in this game, maybe don't make a open world game about humans..... Apparently in 2077, cops no longer drive cars (yet do in cutscenes and scripted shit), won't chase you even remotely, just continue to spawn randomly like magic, but hey cops actually PHYSICALLY going after you in real time is a GTA concept, that doesn't happen all at in reality. We should have never expected cops to chase in the future with cars in a game about the future.......with cars. /s
 

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
Of course they did.

How is this anything new? How could they possibly be working on a game for 7 years and be surprised that it ran like shit? Oh and the PC only review embargo was just a coincidence?

This is why people saying "good on them" for taking refunds just baffle me. They deliberately deceived their customers and now that there is a big backlash, they will take back some of the broken product that they pushed out the door (we'll see how those even work, I have an email in to them and they said they would get back with the details as to how to return it.)

CDPR has pretty much shit all over all the good will that they built with Witcher 3. They can eat a pile of dicks.
You are just being pissy. Works great for me on a Series X. Buck up and buy a Series X and quit whining. You eat a pile of dirty tampons and go back to Resetera!
 

EDMIX

Member
So just downloaded and installed the 1.05 patch (I'm on PS4 Pro) and I'm indeed stuck in the menu after turning on HDR. I will try it with all the graphical settings first to see how it plays and to see if I see any N64 looking shit go on (on top of frame drops) .

I'll just exit the whole game and see if it keeps my settings or something.
 
As always people like to blame the lower guys, it is always management who makes the mess. It happened with dead space 3, many other games, and will happen again,. At least they recognized their mistake in one way. I am making a small game, it has been in development hell, but at least I do not want to release something that is not ready.

Yeah, the stuff with 343i earlier this year made me take a step back and look at the tiers of how a lot of these studios work more closely. That studio's more a clear case of the top creative management side (Chris Lee (who left), Bonnie Ross (who's still there)), and maybe the person/people directly above them (Matt Booty) just dropping the ball and not keeping things steady as they should've. It's not an issue of lack of talent though, clearly, going by what they're able to do when they have someone like Joseph Staten heading the creative side of things once more. I hope a similar transformation happens with Sonic Team.

Upper executive and business management just sucks ass, they seem to get in the way more often than not. Best of luck with your game btw; I take it you're independent, so at least you won't have to worry about out-of-touch bigshots forcing your hand before it's ready.
 
of course they knew the game was not ready.

The fact that they tried to throw Sony under the bus by telling people to get refunds without asking Sony beforehand tells you how shady their management is.
 
Yeah, the stuff with 343i earlier this year made me take a step back and look at the tiers of how a lot of these studios work more closely. That studio's more a clear case of the top creative management side (Chris Lee (who left), Bonnie Ross (who's still there)), and maybe the person/people directly above them (Matt Booty) just dropping the ball and not keeping things steady as they should've. It's not an issue of lack of talent though, clearly, going by what they're able to do when they have someone like Joseph Staten heading the creative side of things once more. I hope a similar transformation happens with Sonic Team.

Upper executive and business management just sucks ass, they seem to get in the way more often than not. Best of luck with your game btw; I take it you're independent, so at least you won't have to worry about out-of-touch bigshots forcing your hand before it's ready.

Thanks, I do expect things to go bad for a lot of companies in the near future, also expect a lot of employees exposing this type of practice. I am independent, more like a hobby which hope someday will free me from any corporate job. I do not want to be owned by anyone, will my games fail to make money(most likely), but at least I will be proud of it.
 

Jada

Banned
Just cancel all console versions. Concentrate on pc, problem solved.
It’s a shrinking market, and now that Sony and Microsoft have released consoles that can easily compete with any PC on the market, no company can afford to ignore consoles.
 
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