Ain't corporate corruption just grand?
You can say a lot about CD Projekt Red and the way that the screwed up Cyberpunk and in doing so did a major disservice not just to the game in question but to the genre, all the early reviewers they roped into selling their lies, and the plethora of musical artists which would have made this game a cross-platform epic; but they still can turn around and prove that they do understand Cyberpunk. At least as a concept. Because beneath all the pomp, fast cars, and spiky haircuts; Cyberpunk is about dystopia caused by greed, corruption and the stifling of the individual in favour of corporate supremacy; and CDPR sure know a thing or two about corporate supremacy, now don't they? Of course, I say this in response to the recent news that CDPR Executives have managed to net themselves huge bonuses in the wake of the Cyberpunk fiasco despite, you know, it being a total failure on all fronts except for sales. (I mean, it still was a total failure in sales potential, but the raw numbers still manage to thrash practically every other game on the market so who really cares) Showing very clearly to anyone who listens to CDPR's hogwash about 'We made a mistake' and 'we learnt our lessons' the absolute unspoken truth behind everting: 'We managed to get out pocket books full off of your expense and that's all that matters.'
Now if I'm to play Devil's Advocate, and that's my favourite game to play so I absolutely will, this is pretty par for the course and not against the grain if we're being really honest. Exec bonuses are scheduled in after hitting certain sales landmarks and if there's one thing we've learnt about the Cyberpunk performance train it's that despite the terrible reception, the refunds and getting pulled off of the Playstation store; (It's still off, by the way) the game managed to score a hefty payday for the company. This was, of course, due in part to the fact that the game managed to break-even before it was actually released through pre-orders, which is both crazy and sad. People are still falling for preorders, and I might have been one of them if I wasn't too poor to so much as consider pre-ordering. So all in all I suppose that makes Cyberpunk a success, no? And successes must be rewarded; hence the Exec bonuses. But it's just, how do you say; a really bad optic.
I don't need to tell you that the reviews, the mockery, the refunds, and the pulling from the Playstation store, wasn't just idle trips on the road to success; these are major issues and complications that are the direct result of the very execs who are lining their pockets right now. I know that usually I don't endorse the separation between employees and management when it comes to praise and criticism, reasoning that theirs is a symbiotic relationship so if one side becomes deserving than the other does too, but for this case in particular we've pretty much received confirmation that management was the sole issue behind the disasters of this launch. They kept upping the ante for promising what the studio would deliver despite the studio in question not having even nearly the scope to live up to it, and then rushed them to complete it in a ludicrous timescale whilst spinning around on their heels and flashing baby-doll eyes at the public. This is pretty much the same crap they conducted during development of 'The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt', but that game actually worked out so they didn't need to reflect on their wrongdoings and just went on the philosophy of "That's how we do things around here. Sorry if you're too baby to understand that!" (I'm being hyperbolic but that is pretty much the soul of their statement when addressed about their bad worker culture before.)
But do you want to know why accepting these bonuses is really bad? Public reception is a factor, but clearly the higher ups over in CDPR can't care about that because if they did it would have effected the way they carry themselves a lot more than it has over the months. No, they know they've burned all roads with the public and have retreated into a 'it doesn't matter because we still win' mentality. What this really shows is a poor sense of leadership in a time of genuine crisis for the company. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what the consequence of a bad game is; your next title will inevitably underperform because customers are nothing if not vindictive. (A trait I'm rather proud of for our side of the industry, to be honest) This could have been a moment of solidarity, to prove to the employees that management owns up to their mistakes and that which hurts them also hurts management. (Something that Nintendo famously did after the Wii-U fiasco) But they didn't, so they don't. Management clearly thinks themselves fully deserving for their performance and thus is lost another teachable moment, CDPR really isn't going to earn back their reputation, are they?
Maybe I'm the only one who really cares about all this nonsense, the only one who bemoans how years of goodwill has been trampled upon, but I can't help it after honestly looking up to CDPR and what they stood for. Making decisions for the player, prioritising ensuring the consumer is happy in the knowledge how that will benefit them in the long run through reciprocation, it was really revolutionary stuff in an industry as detached and 'us vs them' as this one. And whatsmore I guess it really did work out for them, because it was exactly that goodwill which won Cyberpunk 2077 a spot on the year's bestseller list despite failing to live up to pretty much every single promise it made. (And being broken. That bit too.) I wonder if any other studio will step up to fill that gap? Nah, they'll probably look at all this and rightly conclude it's not worth the backlash. Professional distance is best for everyone, unfortunately.
And at the centre of this is a game built up to be a messiah. One which, it's slowly becoming apparent, was never really worthy of it's fanfare. You may have seen that I've been keeping up with the updates, and thus I've seen the way that every 'fix' has been largely underwhelming or just straight non-functional. (Apart from the fixes to the console versions of the game. Those are actually making that side of the game playable, bit by bit.) Most annoyingly of which being the police fix, which I even said at the time seemed like a stupid idea without a complete reworking. Well guess what, the new 'fix' doesn't even work half the time and when it does the experience isn't all that different anyway. A crime is committed and the police spawn a few feet away from you; it's pathetically rudimentary for an industry that's been doing these sorts of systems for over a decade. (Saints Row, Watch_dogs, GTA)
This may just be a message, to anyone who's listening, that Cybperunk won't ever be the game you want it to be. The promises and pleading from the studio saying "Don't worry, we learnt our lesson!" and "We can fix it!" was always playing to the optimism in our hearts rather than the rational truth of the game itself, but it's coming about time to face facts: Cyberpunk 2077 was a failure of execution. Even in a future where all the bugs are fixed (which is becoming questionable now that the team have announced their plans to move onto making new content already) there will still be the formulaic and consequence-light story, the just-barely-not-interesting-enough protagonist, the gilded but shockingly uninteractive worldspace, just the absence of a complete heart beating beneath this game. Fragments of a heart exist, which is the most maddening part of it all, but eventually you just have to let go and accept the disappointment. As sad as that even is to have to say.
For me the most terrifying part of all this, and I've already seen the tremblings, is the perception that this game has marked the end of the Cyberpunk genre. Ballooning it to the stratosphere in relevance and then burning it up in the re-entry. That's an idea that is almost bookmarked by this latest action as if to say 'yeah, all that Cyberpunk represents is depthless posturing because beneath it all, there's naught but the cynical ticking of the corporate clock. Rigid and corrupt mechanical hands; the rulers of everything' (Which, in a backwards way, actually does represent the Cyberpunk ethos rather well) But damn you, I refuse to let Cyberpunk die as a genre because I still need my Deus Ex 3! No one better dare announce Cyberpunk a dead genre whilst my boi Adam Jensen is still missing-in-action, that man is an American hero! (Maybe for the next Deus Ex Adam can infiltrate and expose the conspiracy that is CDPR's public image; that'd be pretty cool...)
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