[saiya-jin]

I don't get the folks who expect, exactly from this studio, to have perfect bug-less game on Day-1. I mean, how far detached from reality and clueless about games in general must you be? There are very few studios who can produce such quality prior to release (ie last Zelda), but I guess they are not under such pressure to release on many platforms in parallel just before christmas.

It will be an amazing game once the patches progresses, and if you are tolerant I am sure it already is. I would expect decent in 2 months, great in 6 months, awesome in 1-2 years (unofficial patches/modding including). Just like many other open world games.

Personally, I'll wait for those 2 months at least, also due to getting better/smoother performance out of my current PC rig. I have no doubt its a game I will enjoy tremendously, again and again, it fits my preferred style very much.

[willis936]

No. Unfinished games being released is a relatively new trend and only happens because companies try to maximize profit. There is no consumer advantage to it. Companies should be held accountable for their bad behavior, no two ways about it. Don’t sell your reputation by giving the middle finger to your customers.

[alkonaut]

> There is no consumer advantage to it.

Now you are assuming people having [next big game] in month N is as good as having it in month N+10. I think there is a large amount of gamers out there that would rather play a disappointing mess now, than a polished game later.

[willis936]

This doesn’t ring true at all. The games market is saturated. The reason to play the latest and greatest single player AAA game is because it is the latest and greatest. If the game is worse than a 5 year old competitor, then why even play it at all? Plenty of gamers have not played GTA V or The Witcher 3. Those are better experiences and cost much less.

[alkonaut]

> then why even play it at all?

Because it's been hyped. Because game sales is to a large extent about that pre-hype, not the gaming experience.

Publishers have (correctly) realized that the games themselves are following the same mechanics as in-game loot boxes.

You might also think that these poor/disappointing experiences would turn gamers off from buying the next game because they were burned the last time, but no that's not my experience either. The gamers disappointed about the release of AAA game 2018 from one studio, will happily buy the 2020 game on launch day from the same studio. And the studios know this.

[seba_dos1]

Got any data?

People would shout and cry, and then as the time passes they would forget about the delay and just play it once it's released. People don't lose interest over game that they want to play just because it got delayed.

[HatchedLake721]

People don’t expect anything “from this studio”. There are millions who don’t know or care who the studio is.

What they care is that the pricey AAA game they bought will be playable and enjoyable. Looks like it’s not.

[saiya-jin]

Then please explain to me why people who don't care who the studio is are eager to shell out 50 bucks or more on yet non-existing product that won't exist for months or years, instead of waiting for an actual review?

Ie would you pay for a Bosch refrigerator 10 months before its release and delivery just because they wrote about it someplace? A bit ridiculous idea, don't you think?

You know, like we do with everything else we buy these days? (At least I don't just blindly buy stuff on a whim, and I don't think I am the only one)

[hulitu]

> I don't get the folks who expect, exactly from this studio, to have perfect bug-less game on Day-1. I mean, how far detached from reality and clueless about games in general must you be?

50 years ago the quality of the code was much better. I expect some things from SW that I buy: 1. To run on normal HW (i.e. home PC or laptop dedicated mainly to web browsing and watching movies) or on the target HW 2. To have a usable interface ( Hello MS, Apple, Google - do you listen ?) 3. To be bug free or at least the main anoying bugs to be fixed. (Hello MS, Google - do you listen ?)(yes i paid for my Android phone)

>There are very few studios who can produce such quality prior to release (ie last Zelda), but I guess they are not under such pressure to release on many platforms in parallel just before christmas.

I'm impressed. So you are saying that a lot of "studios" produce crap and this is ok because other do it.

> It will be an amazing game once the patches progresses, and if you are tolerant I am sure it already is.

That's what they said about MS Windows too and look what it became of it.

> I would expect decent in 2 months, great in 6 months, awesome in 1-2 years (unofficial patches/modding including). Just like many other open world games.

See MS Windows.

> Personally, I'll wait for those 2 months at least, also due to getting better/smoother performance out of my current PC rig. I have no doubt its a game I will enjoy tremendously, again and again, it fits my preferred style very much.

Until one day when you had enough of its bugs, you smash the keyboard and the mouse in despair and you uninstall it.

[Melting_Harps]

> 50 years ago the quality of the code was much better.

That's hardly an apt comparison when you see they're focused on rich World creation with many layers of depth as opposed to the rather linear 'white square hits white dot' style games like pong.

They were clearly rushed/pressured by management to release after 8+ years of development and with so many people at home with nothing but free time to fill and 2 delays this year alone, its very obvious to see what happened. I'm guessing this was bound to occur. Especially when modern business models are based on creating a casino addiction model fixated on capturing eyeballs and creating discord online rather than delivering a solid working product from day one.

Personally, my biggest gripe with games/gaming is the lack of fulfillment you get for the time spent after having actually achieved things in real life. I now look it as wasted time not doing things that actually matter or improve my Life and those around me, whereas my teenage-self would have regarded such an addiction to wasting time as 'fun.' Had COVID not happened I definitely would not have picked up gaming again and would have been at an arcade if I had spare time and the inclination to play.

It's really the worst kind of time-sink now because I don't enjoy it and have mainly used it to distract me or to take a break from real-life. And I somehow got paid to play watchdogs legion, too...

[rob74]

It's probably less an expectation of a "perfect bug-less game" and more a game that has so many issues (on this platform) that it's unacceptable even by today's standards of releasing unfinished games. Also (EDIT) I wonder if it's maybe more about the risk of epileptic seizures (which are a legal liability) than the bugs - to quote from https://www.gameinformer.com/2020/12/07/cyberpunk-2077-epile... , "[...] V will be given a headset that is meant to onset the instance. The headset fits over both eyes and features a rapid onslaught of white and red blinking LEDs, much like the actual device neurologists use in real life to trigger a seizure when they need to trigger one for diagnosis purposes". That sounds like a really bad design decision if you ask me...

Then again, CD Projekt is a relatively small developer, and Sony would probably think twice before treating a game by say, EA, the same way, so I wouldn't completely rule out double standards...

[JohnJamesRambo]

Thinking like this is completely ridiculous, software should definitely work upon release, especially on consoles, which have known hardware. They even knew it did not work on PS4 and Xbox One and withheld that information from the public by reviewer manipulation. The nuclear option of being pulled by Sony should be a huge wake up call to CDPR that something has gone really wrong in their management.

[Kudos]

Have you not seen how it runs on a base model PS4? You have to be dreaming if you think the bar being set is "perfect" or "bug-less". The frame rates and visual quality are unacceptable when you consider what Rockstar pulled off with RDR2 on that platform.

When you consider no PS4 footage was made available before launch, it seems to me that CDPR were intentionally deceptive.

[throw_m239339]

> I don't get the folks who expect, exactly from this studio, to have perfect bug-less game on Day-1.

Sony doesn't care about that. It's irrelevant, Sony is just protecting themselves from a potential class action lawsuit.

CDPR on the other hand, it's like they are asking for it. All that fiasco was very short term thinking.

[zelos]

Don't CDPR do this kind of thing for every game they release? You think they'd have learnt by now.

I've been getting fed up recently with just how buggy PC games are and regretting not getting a console, but I guess the grass isn't always greener.

[giantDinosaur]

The Witcher 1 had some seriously major issues until roughly a year after launch. They are like Bethesda - consistently buggy launches. The difference is that CDPR tends to release gargantuan patches after about a year that fix most of the technical issues (and sometimes altering the actual content a lot as well, like the intro to TW2).

[rootlocus]

> I mean, how far detached from reality and clueless about games in general must you be?

Condescending attitude aside, I've played multiple games on launch day, and I even worked as a developer in a major gamedev studio. The sheer amount of bugs, glitches, poor implementations, and missing QoL features are inexcusable. Especially from a game that spent 7 years in development and was delayed 8 months.