Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 has no peace even on the legal front, where however, if nothing else, its causes have obtained a considerable simplification in terms of organization, even if we do not know if this could result in some advantage on one side or the other of the dispute. : the four class-action cases that have been opened against CD Projekt RED and its game have in fact become one, bigger and more extensive but probably easier to manage.The court has basically carried out a work of consolidation and simplification on the cases in progress, merging the four class actions into a single overall case that is necessarily larger and more multifaceted but still easier to manage for both the accusers and the accused, as well as for the court offices .
Cyberpunk 2077 continues to face the effects of the disastrous launch also on the legal front It should be noted that it was, in all four cases, a class act ion organized by the shareholders of CD Projekt RED and not by the users: the lawsuits all concern the "economic damage" that these investors would have received from the fall of the stock on the stock exchange following the chaos of the difficult launch crossed by Cyberpunk 2077, which facilitated their merger in a single cause, all four being substantially overlapping.
CD Projekt RED has already reported that it will defend itself "strongly" from the cases in question, so we are waiting to see the events unfold in court . Despite all the problems at launch, Cyberpunk 2077 still managed to sell 13.7 million copies only for 2020, waiting to know the updated data. In the meantime, however, it has not yet returned to PlayStation Store after its removal following the chaos generated by the refund request.
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Do The ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Lawsuits Have A Solid Case?
Cyberpunk 2077
CDPRCD Projekt Red is facing down at least four different lawsuits in the wake of the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, a rather bizarre affair that combined a very broken game with an astonishing amount of sales all the same. 13.7 million in its first few weeks alone.
Two of the class action lawsuits are from CDPR’s own shareholders. Their central claim? That CDPR made false or misleading statements, or failed to disclose the fact that Cyberpunk 2077 “was virtually unplayable on the current-generation Xbox or PlayStation systems due to an enormous number of bugs.”
The idea is that players, investors, critics, everyone was mislead or purposefully misdirected away from the state of the game on those consoles, which caused huge issues at release, with players asking for refunds and the issues contributing to Sony removing Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store, where it remains banished nearly six months after release. Despite the big sales, the controversy has tanked CDPR stock, which is why investors are riled up.
There are two main factors at play here.
The first is that CDPR only provided PC review codes to outlets ahead of the release of Cyberpunk 2077, and requests for console codes were met with a range of responses from the idea that they were simply not available, to later, an explanation that they were trying to patch that version of the game up until the last minute, and they thought it would be fixed by launch.
Cyberpunk 2077
CDPRI suppose you could view that as part of the case here. CDPR only put forth the best version of the game (PC, usually running on high-end hardware) for early reviews, and it performed well enough to charm many outlets into giving it high scores, something CDPR was quick to brag about at launch. But then release happened, and everyone actually got to play the console versions.
They were, in fact, borderline unplayable, riddled with bugs and performing so poorly many players were prompted to ask for refunds. And here lies the most important thing to note with all this, the fact that the only information we had about the performance of the game on last gen consoles was this statement from an investor call by CDPR’s Adam Kiciński. Here’s he’s talking about base console performance versus the “Pro” (PS4 Pro and Xbox One X) versions:
“Of course, a bit lower than on Pros, but surprisingly good, I would say for such a huge world. So, bit lower, but very good. That's the answer.”
That is what I would call the definition of a misleading statement, as either Kiciński was playing some base console version of the game that simply never existed, he has a very, very low bar for the definition of “very good” or he was just…lying. Regardless, this statement spawned headlines like “Cyberpunk 2077 runs “surprisingly well” on current-gen consoles according to CD Projekt’s CEO” which is all the information that consumers had before the game launched, combined with the other fact that the press was not given console codes to review to say anything different.
I’m no lawyer, but that doesn’t look great and at least that aspect of it seems pretty cut and dry. I don’t know how CDPR can defend those pre-launch statements now, seeing the game that we got at launch, and yet even in their follow-up apology videos, they were saying things like they simply didn’t see the bugs that players saw in testing, which again, is extremely hard to believe.
It will likely take a while for these cases to work their way through the system, and who knows what the end result will be. In the meantime, Cyberpunk 2077 continues the process of repairing itself, and should finally be adding new content over the summer.
I’ve asked CDPR for comment on the upcoming lawsuits and will update when I hear back.
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