Slap on that Law Suit

 Cause we're talking Lawsuits. (Yes, I know it's not funny, god.)

One of the most lamentable consequences of gaming culture ballooning to the size that it has is the influx of attention that comes from the frigid corporate world. How many times has the size of an investment fund shoved it's way into the conversation and ruined a piece of art in its inception? (Heck, that's all Hollywood is known for nowadays. That and being in a doomed industry) We're always hearing stories about titles rushed to market in order to satisfy some itchy investor only to result is the failure of that product which results in a loss of the profit they wanted anyway, and most times none of it needed to be the case. In fact, this whole tail-eating system doesn't need to exist at all. If we just came together and worked this out, the entire game industry could sustain itself on the complacency of sports game fans. Just ship them the same game they've been buying for the past 10 years and bump up the microtransactions and we'd fund every AAA game for the year, no problem. But until my amazing solve-all becomes flesh, we have to deal with litigation.

And as it would just so happen, today's legal troubles are actually due to the very example that I just gave; in a rushed game that failed to live up to it's potential. I'm just not sure if I'm allowed to- I mean isn't it just bullying at this point if I- but it's really just a statement of the facts to- Yes, it's Cyberpunk 2077. Okay look, I don't want to write negative things about the game, I don't, but it just happens to be the case that this game's launch has been such a recurring comedy of errors that there really is nothing else to talk about regarding it. (And I want to talk about it because I still kind of crush on the game. Yes, I have poor taste and weak standards, but damn if that game don't look pretty.) So whilst I could squeeze out some paragraphs on the recently discovered abandoned train stations in the game, (I'm sure they'll factor in to a conversation at some point regardless) it's the class action heading CDPR's way that has my more immediate attention.

Yes, in a previous blog I mentioned that there were whispers of a lawsuit but given the general self-righteous vitriol heading CDPR's way most had room enough to doubt the validity of such claims. All we could see for evidence was a dry call to action signed with the name of a licensed lawyer who apparently is also an investor, easy enough to forge. Yet this time I guess we can believe what we see on the Internet, as things have progressed beyond the stage of idle threats and letters; except apparently not from the lawyer we were warned about but a complete different firm? Is life a Yakuza game, how does this plot thicken so much? Indeed, a new challenger has entered the fray and is seeking a suit on behalf of those who dared risk their income and finance operations in the development of Cyberpunk.

But how did we get here, and what gives these fools the idea that they can just turn around and sue over the state of Cyberpunk? Well that's just it, they're not suing because the game was just the tiniest bit unplayable on the vast majority of gamer's hardware, but because no one told these investors that it was beforehand. And now the indignation starts to make a little more sense, doesn't it? All of these investors were sitting there for months watching the world lose it's mind over Cyberpunk in expectation of a Grand Theft Auto-style success story, only for things to land and everything to unravel without a hint of warning. No time to prepare, just boom; they learnt about the issues along with the rest of us. (Seems that's just CD Projekt's style with this sort of situation, huh.) Now, because of rushed development, the Cyberpunk 2077 launch month only managed to secure- oh wait, 13 million copies. What were these people complaining about again?

That's right, despite the actual disdain that CDPR chose to show towards their consumers by charging a premium for access to a trainwreck, (at least on base consoles, the suped up versions are a tad more stable) folks still came out in droves to get spat on. Heck, I was incredibly excited for my copy until it became clear that I was in for a disappointment which allowed to pivot towards getting Yakuza Kiwami 1 & 2. (That salves the wound a mite) Now I can't say if my story is indicative of any great trend, who's to say how many sales that this little utter-disaster-a-launch cost the Cyberpunk name, only God and market analysts are that omniscient. But despite this not being an utter failure worthy of broken hearts across the nation, the fact remains that truths were kept from both the customers and the money men. And whilst we have no legal ground to stand on in such an argument, the money men do. Heck, their money helped carefully pen those laws, afterall...

To play devil's advocate for a second, though I know I'm literally putting myself in the loathsome shoes of those who see customers as human piggy banks, if I were in the investor's position: I would be rather livid. I mean, analysts can (and probably will) argue about the missed sales milestones until the end of days but beyond that we know it was state of Cyberpunk's launch which caused Sony to strip it from their PlayStation digital storefront a week before Christmas. That and, according to some anthropomorphising that the community has done, some bus throwing statements on behalf of CDPR upper management. And whilst many wait for Cyberpunk's return, I'll be honest; I can't really see this game coming back to PlayStation. Or at least not on the PlayStation 4. It'll probably hit as a PS5 exclusive in 6 months and that's it. Seems that CDPR's CEO thinks so too, because he's been fanning the flames on Twitter by liking all the "What about..." tweets that Cyberpunk apologists have been throwing at the corporate Sony account. Because that's productive. (And incredibly unprofessional, what is that man doing?)

Yet having said all of that, I currently sit in the shoes of a consumer and I'll be honest; I just want to play a good game, you know? I don't really care about all this "We could have made so much money but we only made this much money" or any of that discourse, I just want to play a game that was promised to me. Now, independent of the bugginess and broken console ports, it's pretty evident that game doesn't exist and CDPR oversold their product, but that doesn't mean I don't want them to fix it. Sure, it's a snowball's chance in hell that anything which actually happen to that end, but I think that snowball is working with better odds getting thrown by a CDPR who aren't getting sued rather than by one which will be. (You following me? Is the metaphor a little too muddy?) Like I've said before, I don't want CDPR removed from existence, I want them to deliver on their 7-year old promise.

But as these studios and publishers start building themselves to such unassailable heights that us mere plebeians become little more than transient cataracts, the cries of investors more often becomes the only voices they will hear. Personally, I'm getting sick of hearing about Apple V Epic, Crytek V Cloud Imperium, and all these cold faceless corporations going to bat against each other in the world of gaming. Game design is an art form and I'd rather it remain as such, leave all this nonsense for the Wall Street types and their posturing. That being said, for a Cyberpunk game which themes itself on life in an age of Corporate decadence,  there's something darkly ironic about all of this.