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Rebellion is in the air at Polish video game publisher CD Projekt SA after the company’s highly anticipated, and thrice-delayed, latest title was released to scathing reviews about glitches.
Frustrated and angry staff fired questions at the board during an internal video meeting Thursday that opened with management apologizing for Cyberpunk 2077’s disastrous launch, according to two people who were present. It was a fitting atmosphere for a company whose slogan, plastered on posters all around its Warsaw office, is “We are rebels.”
Developers asked blunt questions about the company’s reputation, the game’s unrealistic deadlines and the relentless overtime in the months and years leading up to the game’s Dec. 10 release.
The meeting took place before Sony Corp.’s shocking announcement that it was pulling Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store and will offer full refunds to any customer who requests one. During the staff meeting, CD Projekt’s directors said they had come to an arrangement with Sony but didn’t offer specifics. In a Twitter post on Friday, the company said that “following our discussion with PlayStation, a decision was made to temporarily suspend digital distribution” of the game. [...]
During Cyberpunk 2077’s development, staff endured multiple periods of extensive overtime including mandatory six-day weeks to finish the game, Bloomberg has reported. When asked about this crunch time in the Q&A, the directors said they had plans to improve production practices in the future but didn’t elaborate, according to one person who was there.
One employee asked the board why it had said in January that the game was “complete and playable” when that wasn’t true, to which the board answered that it would take responsibility. Another developer asked whether CD Projekt’s directors felt it was hypocritical to make a game about corporate exploitation while expecting that their employees work overtime. The response was vague and noncommital. [...]
