CD Projekt Red Not Interested in Being Acquired; Believes They'll Be Bigger and Stronger in a Few Years - eviltoast
  • wrath_of_grunge@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    i think that’s a smart move on their part.

    the CP2077 launch was rocky, but most of their previous games haven’t had that level of hype. The Witcher 3 taking off like it did, gave them the confidence to go bigger. CP2077 is in a great place now, even if it didn’t start that way.

    • doctorcrimson@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Honestly, maybe they’re just playing hard to get in order to raise the offer?

      “Sure maybe we’re worth about that… but think about what we might be worth in a few years.”

    • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      I’m still sad about Gwent, though. The only reasonably priced CCG I’ve played, with beautiful artwork and fun decks.

      As soon as Marvel Snap dropped, it sucked out whatever remaining air the game had left and even the smaller streamers dropped out of sight.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    11 months ago

    They’re almost certainly right.

    Cyberpunk wasn’t received well, but they seem to have No Man’s Sky’d it into some sort of shape since.

    • Raab@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I still don’t understand the hate it got. I played it on release and loved it, now they just shaped it into a fantastic game.

      • TIMMAY@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It was entirely unfinished. I also purchased it at launch and played it from day one, and it was one of the most glitchy and broken gaming experiences of my life. The cop system was nonexistent, the vehicle call system never worked, the driving mechanics were worse than watch dogs’, people would t pose constantly, tons of missions glitched so that I could not complete them and had to root around in save files for a previous point to load or just abandon it, and I could go on for quite some time. It got a lot of hate because it was not a playable product and deserved a lot of hate. Now its fantastic and finally worth people’s time and money.

      • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It was astoundingly buggy, didn’t work at all on multiple platforms that they released it to, was over hyped (part their fault, part community fault), the game felt “flat” and lifeless due to it missing a lot of the small details and better ‘AI’ of the GTA series.

        It just wasn’t the game they promised at all. And the fact that they kept delaying it then saying “we want to make sure it’s ship-shape” gave people the impression that the game would be polished upon release, and it wasn’t even close to polished.

        It’s improved leaps and bounds since then, though. When I first bought it I ended up refunding it, but recently I bought it again and it’s so much better.

        • Raab@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          That’s subjective, but fair. I did not experience the bugs and the hype I gave the game it lived up to.

      • RachelRodent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        11 months ago

        the game was buggy but okay on pc. On last gen consoles though it was actually unplayable performance and bugs wise so much that ps store took it down and refunded the buyers. People who are still salty are just unreasonable though

      • Zibitee@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        You got amnesia or something? That game at release was a buggy, incomplete mess. Features originally promised and advertised were just missing. To this day, some of those features are still missing. Did you play through act 1 and somehow thought that a cutscene summarizing your growth with Jackie was the intended experience? The whole game reeked of rushed release. Hell, they still have an empty spot in the hills where the casino’s supposed to be.

        • Raab@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I did not experience the bugs that people on console were complaining about and I didn’t overhype the game like the community did. I expected what was released and did not encounter bugs. Not everyone had the same experience.

          • Zibitee@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Sure, if your expectation was for a shortened, shittier game due to a rushed development cycle, even compared to contemporaries at the time. Most people don’t expect a shotty product. I mean, I don’t even know how you can excuse the low effort police spawns around you. That’s not even hype… That’s clearly low effort, unexcused disappointment.

            • Raab@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Refer to where I said I didn’t experience that stuff. I love how defensive you are getting over something that is completely subjective. Kinda seems like you are part of the community that overhypes everything then disappoints yourself and blames others. Also see: The Witcher 3 release :)

              • Zibitee@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                How do you play through cyberpunk and never spawn the cops by doing a 180? It’s like you didn’t even play the game. But whatever. You’re the bottom 1% when it comes to expectations. Literally eating shit and can’t taste the waste. But blaming others? There’s no wrong in blaming CDPR for cb2077’s release. They fucked up and every metric agrees with that. You’d be a fool to argue otherwise.

                • Raab@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  200 hours in the game but that’s a nice attempt for ya. Once again, subjective, unrealistic expectations. Probably played it on PS3 and expected modern day performance.

      • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        I got lucky with the release too, only got a few t pose bugs, but the truth of the matter is that it just wasn’t quite ready. What was there was fun enough, but most people just couldn’t access it. Now, it’s a 9.8/10 game imo, so good on them.

      • Skkorm@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It was buggy when I first played it, which turned me off for the better part of a year.

        It’s been pretty good lately though.

  • 0xtero@beehaw.org
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    11 months ago

    It would be nice if the entire world didn’t consolidate into two mega corps. Good on CDR for having their own vision.
    CP2077 + Phantom Liberty are excellent. I just started a new playthrough. I wish it had released in this shape.

  • Computerchairgeneral@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    Good. Not every studio needs to be snatched up by a massive corporation. Embracer’s yearlong meltdown is a great example of how that can end badly.

    • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      Every company that gets bought by another corporation either cranks out a few good games and then dies, or cranks out an okay game and then dies. The eventual outcome is always death.

      Bullfrog, Raven, Westwood Studios, Bioware, Origin, Maxis, Viceral Games, all of them.

      • Trudge [Comrade]@lemmygrad.ml
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        11 months ago

        There are some exceptions like Naughty Dog (is there another one?) that kept their quality after getting acquired. But I agree in general with your thesis.

    • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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      11 months ago

      Layoffs are only a bad sign for workers. For the owners and investors, it’s the standard strategy for growth.

      • demonsword@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Layoffs are only a bad sign for workers. For the owners and investors parasites, it’s the standard strategy for growth.

        • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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          10 months ago

          My goal is to state facts, not farm the circle jerk for Internet points. But you do you.

  • jackpot@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    they need to fire their whole ai department and theyll be flying lmfao

  • TIMMAY@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Please correct me if I *have the wrong impression here but how much does a sentiment like this matter if some big bethesda shaped behemoth makes the moves to acquire? Wouldnt business sense dictate that you sell if the offer is juicy enough?

    • dexa_scantron@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Maybe the owners care more about running a sustainable company that makes good games than they do about getting a bunch of money.

      • TIMMAY@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Well thats what im wondering about. If you own (or are in the decision-making loop of) a company and you have the sentiment that you care more about your autonomy and products, how much will that matter if you are presented with a very large offer from one of the giants in the industry?

          • TIMMAY@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            A decision like this is likely enormously complicated and does not happen in a vacuum. I dont personally think it stretches the imagination to see how there could be real-world pressures that could easily override a nebulous desire to “keep making good games”. For example, what if selling is by far the best decision for the wellbeing of the employees and their families? What if the would-be-competitor seemed like they could outcompete them if they didnt sell? Im not trying to make assertions, Im asking if anyone has more specific information about this topic in general and specifically in the video game industry as a whole or CDPR specifically. edit: *would-be-buyer

    • LouNeko@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      The videogame world is weird. Say you are a small buisness in a miner town making cast and hardened steel parts for mining equipment. If a big manufacturer comes around and offers to buy you out, your alternative to saying “yes” is them, opening up their own buisness and driving your sales into the ground with cheaper offers. But if Bethesda says to CD Project RED “Either you accept the acquisition or we are going to make better games.” CDPR can just say “Haha, good luck.”

      • TIMMAY@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Thats good! I assumed there would be a lot of various pressures in a situation like that, like resisting a starbucks takeover as a small cafe or something. It could also end up being the best choice for their employees too if the offer is generous, so I could imagine that being an issue as well

      • Solumbran@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Pushing a shitty launcher, selling abandoned games, selling incomplete games, putting DRMs on multiplayer, selling a lot of low quality games, not expanding their overworked team despite the profits they make, etc. It got much worse with the success of the Witcher3 and has kept on going down.

        I think there’s even a browser extension that is used to mark shitty games on gog, that have missing features or DRMs. Funny for a platform that has the motto of selling hand-picked, DRM-free games.

          • BrowseMan@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            Subnautica is DRM free on steam? Nice! I wanted to give it to try to my father, but he doesn’t want a steam account.

              • Solumbran@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                That’s a title. Gosh people really are GoG fanboys.

                GoG always claimed that they hand-pick only quality games, that they personally negotiate with game companies, etc.

                If a game treats gog customers as second class citizens, it means that GoG allows it. The existence of this link on the gog website also means that GoG is aware of it and doesn’t give a shit.

                And that was just one example.

            • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              The comments are claiming that game publishers are giving versions without controller support, etc. included.

              This isn’t a GOG issue, try reading comprehension next time.

              • Solumbran@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                Wow, instead of being a jackass try checking your ego.

                Did you read the 277 pages of the link? And the Google docs summarising everything?

                This is a comprehension issue indeed, your little ego prevented you from even looking more than 5 seconds at what I linked and understanding what it was.

        • people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org
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          11 months ago

          Pushing a shitty launcher,

          Fuck them. That’s horrible.

          selling abandoned games,

          Why is this a problem? It’s literally a good that those games aren’t being lost to oblivion

          selling incomplete games,

          As in unfinished? That’s the devs’ fault.

          putting DRMs on multiplayer,

          Without that there will be a humongous rise in cheating in online games

          selling a lot of low quality games

          Literally not an issue. They are a marketplace and frequented by indie devs, they can sell as many shitty games as they like. In fact I would like them to be more of a platform like itch.io

          not expanding their overworked team despite the profits they make

          You have no idea what you’re talking about, their org structure and project setup is not public and there is no way to know how “overworked” any team is as an outsider. You don’t even know what teams they have.

          • Solumbran@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            The problem is not abandoned games, but selling them.

            The devs can only publish on GoG if GoG lets them.

            Multiplayer games existed long before DRMs and it worked. There are many solutions against cheating.

            Quality is an issue when GoG advertises hand-picked, high quality games.

            If the team is not overworked then it is not working, which is worse. I’d rather assume a lack of means than a lack of work, it’s the charity principle.