Publisher CD Projekt recently aired a strategy update video aimed at investors, during which the team stated that it will be revealing games closer to their actual release dates from now on. This is likely due to the release of and reception to Cyberpunk 2077, which was first announced in May of 2012 but wound up being released in December 2020. This is a particularly long time to wait for a video game to release, although the wait did not seem as significant due to the massively popular The Witcher 3 being released in between.
Developers must walk a fine line regarding announcing a game and releasing it. Generally, titles are announced a year or two prior to their release, which gives marketing teams time to release trailers and build up excitement. The trade-off is that the clock officially begins ticking for the developers, who must now make sure the project is completed in time. Conversely, announcing a project several years in advance means that the development team has plenty of time, but expectations rise significantly as time goes on. In Cyberpunk’s case, the public knew about the game for eight years and couldn’t wait to play it, and unfortunately the game did not quite meet many of their expectations. This was exacerbated by the fact that developer CD Projekt Red’s previous title, The Witcher 3, received universal acclaim.
In CD Projekt's Strategy Update presentation, Senior Vice President of Business Development Michal Nowakowski explained that the publisher and developer learned a great deal from Cyberpunk’s marketing campaign. To change things going forward, CDPR may still tease projects early, but it will “wait until much closer to a game’s launch to start showing things like trailers, demos, or going in-depth about mechanics.” Nowakowsi added that CDPR has historically used roadmaps spanning five years in order to plot out campaigns for their titles but will now be transitioning to roadmaps encompassing one year at a time.
Another key takeaway from this segment of the Strategy Update was that showcases will now be conducted on all platforms at once. This is likely due to the large gaps in performance between the PC and console versions of Cyberpunk. In fact, the PlayStation 4 version of the game was so unpolished that it has now been over 100 days since it left the PlayStation Store with no sign of returning anytime soon. Showcasing gameplay footage and demos on all platforms at once will not only make it mandatory for future titles to perform well across all systems, but it will work wonders in assuring players that they won’t be running into a Cyberpunk situation ever again.
Although the Cyberpunk rollout was admittedly disastrous for CD Projekt in many ways, the company has maintained some goodwill in the gaming community. This is due both to the quality of The Witcher series and the company being quick to admit that they should have handled the release better. Although the refunds issued were not a replacement for the game that Cyberpunk 2077 was supposed to be, this lesson is not lost on CD Projekt. Its Strategy Update highlights the fact that they the company is aware of what happened, has reflected on why it happened, and has several changes in the works to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
Source: CD Projekt