CD Projekt Ded
December 28, 2020 11:16 AM Subscribe
Not content with the bug-ridden release of Cyberpunk 2077 (previously) that resulted in Sony pulling the game from the PlayStation Store, CD Projekt Red decided to pull Taiwanese horror game Devotion (previously) from its own GOG store. Internally, staff are… unhappy. Bonus self-own by defensive fan.
But it'd be hard to say he's not a "fan of the genre," as implied by the person who responded to him.
posted by Riki tiki at 11:35 AM on December 28, 2020 [15 favorites]
posted by Riki tiki at 11:35 AM on December 28, 2020 [15 favorites]
No one said that he owns it...?
The tweet is funny because it implies that the reason William Gibson doesn't like Cyberpunk 2077 is that he doesn't like cyberpunk. You don't even have to agree with Gibson's opinion of the game to think it's funny.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:39 AM on December 28, 2020 [36 favorites]
The tweet is funny because it implies that the reason William Gibson doesn't like Cyberpunk 2077 is that he doesn't like cyberpunk. You don't even have to agree with Gibson's opinion of the game to think it's funny.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:39 AM on December 28, 2020 [36 favorites]
the title of the game is Cyberpunk, capital C, TM, all rights reserved-- it's a faithful-to-a-fault adaptation of this very specific early-90s pen-and-paper RPG called Cyberpunk. as opposed to the overall genre of cyberpunk.
(it goes real deep into esoteric parts of the RPG lore, it even has missions which are direct retellings of flavor text from the original paper book.)
many problems with the game but in that respect it is artistically successful.
posted by vogon_poet at 11:44 AM on December 28, 2020 [11 favorites]
(it goes real deep into esoteric parts of the RPG lore, it even has missions which are direct retellings of flavor text from the original paper book.)
many problems with the game but in that respect it is artistically successful.
posted by vogon_poet at 11:44 AM on December 28, 2020 [11 favorites]
it's a faithful-to-a-fault adaptation
I can't comment on the faithfulness but I can certainly attest to the faults.
posted by biffa at 12:00 PM on December 28, 2020 [14 favorites]
I can't comment on the faithfulness but I can certainly attest to the faults.
posted by biffa at 12:00 PM on December 28, 2020 [14 favorites]
Parody account @KazHiraiCEO had the funniest take (SLTwitter) on this.
Related to the first part of the OP: CD Projekt Red investors sue company over Cyberpunk 2077 debacle
Going back to Devotion: I have a friend who played the game on Steam and is a big fan of it, but wasn't happy when it was announced for GOG (I don't blame him; it has had its share of issues). Still, its disappointing that it is, once again, not legally available at all. There's been a push from some fans for the devs to put it on itch.io, and I certainly hope they do take that suggestion.
posted by May Kasahara at 12:06 PM on December 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
Related to the first part of the OP: CD Projekt Red investors sue company over Cyberpunk 2077 debacle
Going back to Devotion: I have a friend who played the game on Steam and is a big fan of it, but wasn't happy when it was announced for GOG (I don't blame him; it has had its share of issues). Still, its disappointing that it is, once again, not legally available at all. There's been a push from some fans for the devs to put it on itch.io, and I certainly hope they do take that suggestion.
posted by May Kasahara at 12:06 PM on December 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
It’s kind of funny to me that there have been a few posts about cyberpunk, but none were primarily about it being a fiesta of bugs. It says something about the site’s interests.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:14 PM on December 28, 2020
posted by Going To Maine at 12:14 PM on December 28, 2020
Also, another tweet about Devotion not being listed on GOG makes an interesting observation: the Western fear of Asian market dominance is a core aspect of the original cyberpunk aesthetic
posted by May Kasahara at 12:15 PM on December 28, 2020 [12 favorites]
posted by May Kasahara at 12:15 PM on December 28, 2020 [12 favorites]
I think it they hadn’t fucked up the console (especially ps4) release so badly it wouldn’t have been a real problem. The problems on PC are embarrassing but nowhere near out of the norm for a AAA release. Combine that with some way-too-high expectation setting and it really starts to pile on.
Personally, I played it on PC. There really weren’t enough bugs to bother me. For me the biggest problems were gaping holes in the narrative of the main storyline and a general failure to balance certain gameplay styles. Everything else worked brilliantly.
posted by Room 101 at 12:16 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
Personally, I played it on PC. There really weren’t enough bugs to bother me. For me the biggest problems were gaping holes in the narrative of the main storyline and a general failure to balance certain gameplay styles. Everything else worked brilliantly.
posted by Room 101 at 12:16 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
It /sounds/ like it runs more-or-less fine on PC, and the console launches were botched? I wouldn't be surprised if the game-playing crowd on MeFi trends towards PC gamers. Or, people like me, who know to wait a year before trying out giant open-world games, because they are ALWAYS riddled with bugs at release. (looking at you, bethesda. but also iirc all of the witcher games were bugpiles on release.)
posted by kaibutsu at 12:17 PM on December 28, 2020
posted by kaibutsu at 12:17 PM on December 28, 2020
I'm just going to let Is There Any Deal remind me of this game when it hits a $10 sale in a year or so.
It's funny how amazing many mediocre and broken games become with a 80% discount.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:21 PM on December 28, 2020 [9 favorites]
It's funny how amazing many mediocre and broken games become with a 80% discount.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:21 PM on December 28, 2020 [9 favorites]
Anyone working on a cyberpunk game should know, the corp always betrays you in the end
posted by StarkRoads at 1:07 PM on December 28, 2020 [18 favorites]
posted by StarkRoads at 1:07 PM on December 28, 2020 [18 favorites]
I heard that your nose keeps clipping outside of your Covid mask, or something like that.
posted by sjswitzer at 1:09 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by sjswitzer at 1:09 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
After all the transphobic bullshit CD Projekt Red has put out (on their twitter, in CP2020, in CP2020s marketing) you know, I'm having trouble feeling *anything* bad for them and am really disappointed in all my cis friends who are buying and playing it.
Seriously, tying gender to VOICE? Every time I am reminded of that I think of the time I accidentally let my microphone pick up my speakers and gave THREE people I deeply care about voice dysphoria that lasted *hours*. Fuck you CD Projekt Red. Do better.
posted by Canageek at 1:09 PM on December 28, 2020 [22 favorites]
Seriously, tying gender to VOICE? Every time I am reminded of that I think of the time I accidentally let my microphone pick up my speakers and gave THREE people I deeply care about voice dysphoria that lasted *hours*. Fuck you CD Projekt Red. Do better.
posted by Canageek at 1:09 PM on December 28, 2020 [22 favorites]
Anyone working on a cyberpunk game should know, the corp always betrays you in the end
The run’s not over till the Johnson screws you twice.
posted by notoriety public at 1:27 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
The run’s not over till the Johnson screws you twice.
posted by notoriety public at 1:27 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
Seemed like a lot of people were mad that the game was delayed, and demanded that it be released whether it was done or not. Then when it was released, the same people were outraged to discover that, in fact, the not-finished game they'd demanded was not finished. The whole thing had a 'how dare you give me what I asked for' feel to it that I found kind of puzzling.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 1:50 PM on December 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by Sing Or Swim at 1:50 PM on December 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
The game wouldn't have been delayed so much if the company had set realistic deadlines in the first place. When they finally released the game, it was because of business considerations, not because players have the power to make them release the game. And of course during all of these games they were willfully misleading potential customers and investors about how complete thmee game actually was.
I mean, yes, a lot of people were impatient to play this game. You want people to be impatient to play your game! People always get impatient for big AAA releases. But practically no one was demanding that they release the game unfinished.
It's really weird to blame that excitement and impatience for the failed launch. The company made all the choices here. They overpromised and ultimately failed to deliver, and that's on them.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 2:11 PM on December 28, 2020 [19 favorites]
I mean, yes, a lot of people were impatient to play this game. You want people to be impatient to play your game! People always get impatient for big AAA releases. But practically no one was demanding that they release the game unfinished.
It's really weird to blame that excitement and impatience for the failed launch. The company made all the choices here. They overpromised and ultimately failed to deliver, and that's on them.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 2:11 PM on December 28, 2020 [19 favorites]
I don't understand the point of digital pre-sales, from a consumer perspective. Having a reserved physical copy is understandable, but unless the pre-sales digital version is available a day before release or something... even then, you're giving the company a loan. It's like lining up to be paddled.
What's ironic to me about pre-sales like this is that most of the Steam games I play are early access games, that I usually enjoy in their current state so that I don't depend on the actual release recouping sunk costs. The Long Dark was great long before its release and I actually still haven't played the released single player version.
posted by fatbird at 2:21 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
What's ironic to me about pre-sales like this is that most of the Steam games I play are early access games, that I usually enjoy in their current state so that I don't depend on the actual release recouping sunk costs. The Long Dark was great long before its release and I actually still haven't played the released single player version.
posted by fatbird at 2:21 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
>It's really weird to blame that excitement and impatience for the failed launch. The company made all the choices here.
Yeah, of course they did. But there was also--from what I saw on, say, Reddit, ferinstance--a hue and cry for the developer to stop fooling around WORKING on the game and just release it already--as if they might be delaying it for some OTHER reason than that it wasn't done. I have no doubt it was badly managed; the flow chart for 'was this project in the video game industry badly managed' is extraordinarily simple--but it seemed like the public response was weird and dumb, too.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 2:53 PM on December 28, 2020
Yeah, of course they did. But there was also--from what I saw on, say, Reddit, ferinstance--a hue and cry for the developer to stop fooling around WORKING on the game and just release it already--as if they might be delaying it for some OTHER reason than that it wasn't done. I have no doubt it was badly managed; the flow chart for 'was this project in the video game industry badly managed' is extraordinarily simple--but it seemed like the public response was weird and dumb, too.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 2:53 PM on December 28, 2020
Seems like many game development companies are locked into a boom-bust cycle, where if they somehow stumble on a combination of design, competence, and luck they can make a good game; they next try to make something much more ambitious but also beyond their abilities. Lots of customers buy the game but are disappointed and people leave the company, then the studio folds or is renamed.
posted by meowzilla at 3:21 PM on December 28, 2020
posted by meowzilla at 3:21 PM on December 28, 2020
Chris Roberts of Star Citizen fame took this opportunity to announce that Squadron 42 (the game's single-player campaign) will not be ready any time soon and the lack of updates is somehow also CD Projekt Red's fault.
posted by justkevin at 3:31 PM on December 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by justkevin at 3:31 PM on December 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
It’s kind of funny to me that there have been a few posts about cyberpunk, but none were primarily about it being a fiesta of bugs. It says something about the site’s interests.
I've got a lot of joy out of the #cyberbug hashtag on twitter.
posted by rodlymight at 4:24 PM on December 28, 2020
I've got a lot of joy out of the #cyberbug hashtag on twitter.
posted by rodlymight at 4:24 PM on December 28, 2020
Sadly my attempt to popularize the term "cyberjank" by putting it in the headline of my review did not work...
I'll be interested to check this game out in 6 months or so when it's had its bugs ironed out and perhaps even some DLC released. I've got so many games piled up that it's kind of nice having one that I feel I really ought not to play right now.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:48 PM on December 28, 2020
I'll be interested to check this game out in 6 months or so when it's had its bugs ironed out and perhaps even some DLC released. I've got so many games piled up that it's kind of nice having one that I feel I really ought not to play right now.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:48 PM on December 28, 2020
The Devotion thing is particularly fucked up. If CD Projekt really didn't want to have Devotion on its storefront because of the controversy, you'd think it would never have greenlit its sale at all. It's not as if Devotion is some unknown indie game; the circumstances surrounding its initial delisting are widely known, and that plus the quality of Red Candle's previous game Detention have made Devotion a cause célèbre. People want to play it; people can't play it because of an unfortunate meme that doesn't have anything to do with the game but has nevertheless meant the game is seemingly forever banned from international storefronts for fear of raising the ire of the Chinese government. Imagine if a Chinese game included a cartoon of Trump in a diaper, and as a result the game was permanently pulled from all digital storefronts.
So for Red Candle to announce, hey, we finally found a way to release the game to the rest of the world again thanks to GOG, and then for GOG to announce HOURS LATER that actually no they're not putting Devotion on the storefront because of "messages from gamers" feels not only like an act of cowardice on CD Projekt's part, but of absolute incompetence. How did you not see this coming?
posted by chrominance at 4:58 PM on December 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
So for Red Candle to announce, hey, we finally found a way to release the game to the rest of the world again thanks to GOG, and then for GOG to announce HOURS LATER that actually no they're not putting Devotion on the storefront because of "messages from gamers" feels not only like an act of cowardice on CD Projekt's part, but of absolute incompetence. How did you not see this coming?
posted by chrominance at 4:58 PM on December 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
I’ve been playing Cyberpunk 2077 for the past two weeks on my PC and having a generally good time. A few bugs here and there, but nothing major.
It is my understanding that this 2020 game probably shouldn’t have been released on 7 year old consoles, but Sony and Microsoft insisted on it being released for the old consoles and not just the new 2020 ones, as well as CDPR management trying to shove it out the door before the fiscal year end because $$$$.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:48 AM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
It is my understanding that this 2020 game probably shouldn’t have been released on 7 year old consoles, but Sony and Microsoft insisted on it being released for the old consoles and not just the new 2020 ones, as well as CDPR management trying to shove it out the door before the fiscal year end because $$$$.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:48 AM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
After putting about 60+ hours into the game so far, I have to say it's a new favorite and one that I'm already making plans to play through again with a different character and play-style. Just happy to be one of the lucky ones that have experienced minimal bugs.
posted by WhyamIhereagain at 8:16 AM on December 29, 2020
posted by WhyamIhereagain at 8:16 AM on December 29, 2020
Cyberpunk 2077 works really well on the Stadia too if you have enough bandwidth for the high speed screen scrapes. And happen to be one of the four people who purchased a Stadia.
posted by ensign_ricky at 8:39 AM on December 29, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by ensign_ricky at 8:39 AM on December 29, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm quite a few hours into it, and for now I'm slightly disappointed the the RPG and open world elements they promised really aren't all that. But as a story-driven shooter it's excellent despite the bugs. The city is a joy to explore, the characters I've encountered so far are interesting and believable, and the story is compelling. It's just not quite what they promised.
posted by Harald74 at 9:22 AM on December 29, 2020
posted by Harald74 at 9:22 AM on December 29, 2020
BTW, I get the criticism of the treatment of trans characters etc in the game, but I'm a slightly amazed that they included the option at all, being based in Poland which is really not going quietly into the 21st century with regards to LGBTQ+ rights (link shows them ranked lowest in EU).
I suspect they did it because they could just say "hey, edgy future game world" if they were confronted by this in the home market. It's not like they asked some uncomfortable questions about current events or anything.
posted by Harald74 at 9:30 AM on December 29, 2020
I suspect they did it because they could just say "hey, edgy future game world" if they were confronted by this in the home market. It's not like they asked some uncomfortable questions about current events or anything.
posted by Harald74 at 9:30 AM on December 29, 2020
It is my understanding that this 2020 game probably shouldn’t have been released on 7 year old consoles, but Sony and Microsoft insisted on it being released for the old consoles and not just the new 2020 ones
That doesn't half sound like deflection from the CDPR board and leadership who most definitely made the decision to press the ship button on a broken game and cash in on a once in a lifetime opportunity. It does not take instruction from platform holders to be made aware that Christmas is an enormous sales season, and that covid has made video games incredibly profitable.
Also, they have form here. Some of us remember the Witcher 3 launch.
I'm at least glad we've moved on from blaming QA.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 9:42 AM on December 29, 2020 [3 favorites]
That doesn't half sound like deflection from the CDPR board and leadership who most definitely made the decision to press the ship button on a broken game and cash in on a once in a lifetime opportunity. It does not take instruction from platform holders to be made aware that Christmas is an enormous sales season, and that covid has made video games incredibly profitable.
Also, they have form here. Some of us remember the Witcher 3 launch.
I'm at least glad we've moved on from blaming QA.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 9:42 AM on December 29, 2020 [3 favorites]
Been waiting for this to show up on MetaFilter so I'd have an excuse to ask, Why were the expectations for this game so sky-high? I follow video game news / chatter quite a bit (mostly from the PC side) and didn't see anything to make me think this wasn't just another big AAA game, but then suddenly this year everyone was talking like it was the most highly-anticipated game of the decade. Why was everyone so much more excited for this than, say, Watchdogs?
posted by straight at 9:58 AM on December 29, 2020
posted by straight at 9:58 AM on December 29, 2020
I don't understand the point of digital pre-sales, from a consumer perspective.
There is none, they're an expression of feelings.
posted by hat_eater at 10:19 AM on December 29, 2020
There is none, they're an expression of feelings.
posted by hat_eater at 10:19 AM on December 29, 2020
Witcher 3 has a 90+ metacritic, watch_dags_2 has 80-something. This is CDPRs first game in 5 years. Ubi probably ship >5 games a year. Ubi has been having a bit of a me too moment. Poles were probably proud of their cultural champion (huzz a coin at yer witcher). I could probably spit-ball reasons for years.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 10:33 AM on December 29, 2020
posted by inpHilltr8r at 10:33 AM on December 29, 2020
straight: CDPR's predecessor game was Witcher 3, seen by many as the game of its generation. Like Cyberpunk it was a big, well populated open world, so the company was seen as having proven capability to deliver something good.
posted by biffa at 11:24 AM on December 29, 2020
posted by biffa at 11:24 AM on December 29, 2020
I played Witcher 3, Witcher 3 was a favorite of mine. Cyberpunk 2077, you are no Witcher 3.
posted by Pendragon at 2:28 PM on December 29, 2020
posted by Pendragon at 2:28 PM on December 29, 2020
It is my understanding that this 2020 game probably shouldn’t have been released on 7 year old consoles, but Sony and Microsoft insisted on it being released for the old consoles and not just the new 2020 ones
I'm sorry, but this smacks of PC elitism ("You need the absolute newest, fastest, most RGB LED dazzling hardware to deserve to play this game."). Do you have a link to anything that verifies that? Because what I've read is that it had more to do with the game developer focusing on PC and new console generation development, while ignoring the then current and only extremely recently previous one; and the game developer admitted it: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/cd-projekt-red-admits-it-didnt-spend-enough-time-on-cyberpunk-2077-for-ps4-xbox-one/1100-6485540/.
The XboX Series X/S and PS5 are recently released, expensive, and hard to come by. This game entered production in 2016 and was totally aimed at consoles only 3 years old at the time. There are far more Xbox One and PS4 consoles out there -- FAR MORE than Xbox Series and PS5 consoles. The PC version certainly was the focus and the new consoles with their new hardware could keep up, but even there, the expectation was for a PC owner to meet the technical specs of this game (I know my PC can't handle it).
I have an Xbox One X so I have a mid-gen refresh. It crashes, sure, but it's playable enough for me to play through it once. There is nothing there that needs new hardware except inefficient, sloppy code.
posted by linux at 4:35 PM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm sorry, but this smacks of PC elitism ("You need the absolute newest, fastest, most RGB LED dazzling hardware to deserve to play this game."). Do you have a link to anything that verifies that? Because what I've read is that it had more to do with the game developer focusing on PC and new console generation development, while ignoring the then current and only extremely recently previous one; and the game developer admitted it: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/cd-projekt-red-admits-it-didnt-spend-enough-time-on-cyberpunk-2077-for-ps4-xbox-one/1100-6485540/.
The XboX Series X/S and PS5 are recently released, expensive, and hard to come by. This game entered production in 2016 and was totally aimed at consoles only 3 years old at the time. There are far more Xbox One and PS4 consoles out there -- FAR MORE than Xbox Series and PS5 consoles. The PC version certainly was the focus and the new consoles with their new hardware could keep up, but even there, the expectation was for a PC owner to meet the technical specs of this game (I know my PC can't handle it).
I have an Xbox One X so I have a mid-gen refresh. It crashes, sure, but it's playable enough for me to play through it once. There is nothing there that needs new hardware except inefficient, sloppy code.
posted by linux at 4:35 PM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
Furthermore, just like Witcher 3, I expect this game to run very well on the Xbox One and PS4, once they spend the time to work on it. 7-year-old consoles are still plenty powerful.
posted by linux at 4:41 PM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by linux at 4:41 PM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
It'll be a great game when it's finished. I look forward to playing it in a year or so.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 4:54 PM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by inpHilltr8r at 4:54 PM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
People want to play it; people can't play it because of an unfortunate meme that doesn't have anything to do with the game but has nevertheless meant the game is seemingly forever banned from international storefronts for fear of raising the ire of the Chinese government.
From what I understand this isn't strictly speaking true - there's a reading of the events of Devotion as an anti-PRC horror story. The subtext seems to initially escape a lot of fans, but the discovery of the Winnie the Pooh reference seemed to suggest that subtext was intentional.
posted by Merus at 5:40 PM on December 29, 2020
From what I understand this isn't strictly speaking true - there's a reading of the events of Devotion as an anti-PRC horror story. The subtext seems to initially escape a lot of fans, but the discovery of the Winnie the Pooh reference seemed to suggest that subtext was intentional.
posted by Merus at 5:40 PM on December 29, 2020
I've bought three old games from GOG, that wouldn't run anymore on my Win 10 machines. Was pretty happy with them...
Now, not so much. But I still have one more I need to buy! Argh. Why do so many people have to be so shitty...?
posted by Windopaene at 7:19 PM on December 29, 2020
Now, not so much. But I still have one more I need to buy! Argh. Why do so many people have to be so shitty...?
posted by Windopaene at 7:19 PM on December 29, 2020
I'm sorry, but this smacks of PC elitism ("You need the absolute newest, fastest, most RGB LED dazzling hardware to deserve to play this game.").
I don’t think you’re sorry at all for snarking at me, and I wasn’t saying anything of the sort. My own PC is only just barely in the “recommended” range. My processor is a 2013 i5, but I did upgrade my graphics card this past spring. It’s not high end anything.
It’s not elitism to acknowledge that the old generation of consoles were comparable to mid range PCs from seven years ago, and perhaps they’re outdated now. They just released new consoles to replace them?
I don’t get very good frame rates, and my old, outdated processor is the weak link. Tech gets old.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:04 AM on December 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
I don’t think you’re sorry at all for snarking at me, and I wasn’t saying anything of the sort. My own PC is only just barely in the “recommended” range. My processor is a 2013 i5, but I did upgrade my graphics card this past spring. It’s not high end anything.
It’s not elitism to acknowledge that the old generation of consoles were comparable to mid range PCs from seven years ago, and perhaps they’re outdated now. They just released new consoles to replace them?
I don’t get very good frame rates, and my old, outdated processor is the weak link. Tech gets old.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:04 AM on December 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
From what I understand this isn't strictly speaking true - there's a reading of the events of Devotion as an anti-PRC horror story. The subtext seems to initially escape a lot of fans, but the discovery of the Winnie the Pooh reference seemed to suggest that subtext was intentional.
The only description I can find of this subtext so far is a Quora post from someone who is an aggressive supporter of Xi Jinping, and it's really not convincing. The claim is that certain names in the game are coded references to the mainland government and citizens.
It really seems like the paranoid thinking typical of a totalitarian censor -- once they've decided on guilt they will find all kinds of coded messages and patterns that the authors didn't even know about.
I think I may be wrong about this as I have not had an opportunity to play the game due to the censorship. I know it's common for Chinese speakers to encode political messages by way of puns, so it's possible, but I haven't seen anyone explain how the plot of the game itself is allegorical. It just seems like a horror story.
posted by vogon_poet at 9:48 AM on December 30, 2020
The only description I can find of this subtext so far is a Quora post from someone who is an aggressive supporter of Xi Jinping, and it's really not convincing. The claim is that certain names in the game are coded references to the mainland government and citizens.
It really seems like the paranoid thinking typical of a totalitarian censor -- once they've decided on guilt they will find all kinds of coded messages and patterns that the authors didn't even know about.
I think I may be wrong about this as I have not had an opportunity to play the game due to the censorship. I know it's common for Chinese speakers to encode political messages by way of puns, so it's possible, but I haven't seen anyone explain how the plot of the game itself is allegorical. It just seems like a horror story.
posted by vogon_poet at 9:48 AM on December 30, 2020
Let's see if I can analyze CD Projekt Red's strategy here.
They had a game that initially appealed to a broad population, including a large number of people who thought the LGBTQ+ possibilities were pretty interesting. That latter population tends to be a bit forgiving of faults.
CD Projekt Red decided to alienate the LGBTQ+ and allies with a series of ham handed and often nakedly offensive anti-LGBTQ+ ads and tweets.
This appears to have been largely to assure the fanbase of cishet white dudebros that the game wasn't too liberal.
So the LGBTQ+ people got less enthused, and soon the majority of people who were really eager for Cyberpunk were right leaning cishet white dudebros, a population not noted for being easy going or forgiving of faults.
The game is released in a rush and has massive, horrible, problems. And the cishet white dudebros are, frankly rather understandably, pissed and not forgiving of faults so we get a shitstorm and lots of people demanding refunds.
Appealing to a broader player base, perhaps including those LGBTQ+ and allies, would likely have resulted in more measured disappointment and a larger number of people willing to wait a bit and see what the future patches do.
TL;DR: CD Projekt Red alienated the players most likely to be forgiving and embraced the ones who were the pickiest and least likely to be forgiving, now they're doing the surprised pikachu face that the players they embraced are turning against them viciously.
posted by sotonohito at 4:23 PM on December 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
They had a game that initially appealed to a broad population, including a large number of people who thought the LGBTQ+ possibilities were pretty interesting. That latter population tends to be a bit forgiving of faults.
CD Projekt Red decided to alienate the LGBTQ+ and allies with a series of ham handed and often nakedly offensive anti-LGBTQ+ ads and tweets.
This appears to have been largely to assure the fanbase of cishet white dudebros that the game wasn't too liberal.
So the LGBTQ+ people got less enthused, and soon the majority of people who were really eager for Cyberpunk were right leaning cishet white dudebros, a population not noted for being easy going or forgiving of faults.
The game is released in a rush and has massive, horrible, problems. And the cishet white dudebros are, frankly rather understandably, pissed and not forgiving of faults so we get a shitstorm and lots of people demanding refunds.
Appealing to a broader player base, perhaps including those LGBTQ+ and allies, would likely have resulted in more measured disappointment and a larger number of people willing to wait a bit and see what the future patches do.
TL;DR: CD Projekt Red alienated the players most likely to be forgiving and embraced the ones who were the pickiest and least likely to be forgiving, now they're doing the surprised pikachu face that the players they embraced are turning against them viciously.
posted by sotonohito at 4:23 PM on December 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
Apart from everything else, this game will for years be Exhibit 1 in game design courses when dangers of protracted production cycle are discussed. They were chasing a moving target and decided to release in the worst possible moment.
posted by hat_eater at 12:03 PM on December 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by hat_eater at 12:03 PM on December 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
Bummed out that these tools own GOG. Have gotten a bunch of old games from them. Glad I've gotten all of them I've wanted already...
posted by Windopaene at 7:23 PM on December 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Windopaene at 7:23 PM on December 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
« Older The Big Bang | What the Hole Is Going On? Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Splunge at 11:22 AM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]