Shortly after the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 the backlash began, fans and journalists began exposing bugs, the nightmare development, the possibility of class-action lawsuits spearheaded by investors for misleading them, and more. Needless to say, the studio is being attacked from all directions… the devs are currently at work on huge patches to fix the problems that remain on the title, they have released a road map outlining a rough timeline, although, no exact dates have been confirmed, leaving everyone to speculate over when these updates and free DLC will arrive.
Lawsuits are another obstacles the studio is facing, with one that was already from New York-based Rosen Law Firm, which claims the studio misled investors over the state Cyberpunk 2077, was in on PS4 and Xbox One. Now it would seem there is another American law firm, which has been filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California, attempting a class-action lawsuit against the developer.
More recently the CEO Marcin Iwiński made a video apology on behalf of the studio for the launch, making promises to fix the game. This apology, while not received well by fans or journalists, was more than any other developer would probably do.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel, recent figures posted on Super Data Research would seem to indicate that Cyberpunk is the greatest selling digital launch ever, the title according to the numbers has beaten out titans like World of Warcraft and Fortnite, though, outselling WOW was already known. Even after the developer issued mass refunds and had the title removed from the PlayStation Store.
“A successful marketing campaign and the reputation of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt provided the hype necessary for the CD Projekt Red title to break records despite issues including performance problems on consoles, widespread glitches and the indefinite removal of the game from the PlayStation Store. An extremely high share of digital sales (80%) were on PC, likely due to the delisting on PlayStation and overall state of the console versions. Regardless of the short-term financial success, the critical backlash means the developer will now have to invest significant resources fixing the game in order to rehabilitate its image before the launch of its next title.”
Cyberpunk had a vigorous marketing campaign with billboards, trailers even in-depth looks via Night City Wire, that featured interviews with the developers and sneak peeks at the game.
Cyberpunk 2077 sold 13 million copies in its first two weeks of retail availability. The company also noted that figure was good enough to ensure that the game had already recouped its development costs. This figure included the numerous refunds the developer had made. Some consumers have received refunds and still have retained access to the game some for even the collector’s edition.
CD Projekt RED has a lot of work ahead of them, but with a lot of hard work from the development team, more updates to the game, and a little breathing room from the backlash – the developer could restore the lost goodwill and turn Cyberpunk into more than just the greatest digital selling launch game. Perhaps it could even become a new franchise that fans come to adore as much as Skyrim or Fallout.
Follow FOV Magazine on Twitter for more updates on the gaming medium as a whole!
