Will Cyberjank 2077 Trigger the Next Gaming Culture Reset?
By: Bryce L. Jackson
The failure of Cyberpunk 2077’s launch once again exposes the inadequacies in game development. Another entry in the growing list of much-hyped games that quickly became maligned after release. Executive decisions to appease investors and meet fiscal year expectations cripple hard-working game developers into rushing the game out incomplete, unpolished, and worse yet, medically dangerous.
The Division, No Man’s Sky, Rainbow Six: Seige, Anthem, and Assasin’s Creed: Unity (wtf Ubisoft?), are just a few of the long list of many jank releases in recent years. Now Cyberpunk joins the pile of ineptitude. Worst yet, the farther we get from its release date, more and more evidence shows that this game was in no way ready for release. As of writing, Cyberpunk 2077 has now been delisted from the PlayStation Store and Sony is offering refunds after getting bombarded by unhappy gamers that bought the game on PS4. Microsoft is doing the same now, with less fanfare since they had a marketing agreement with CDPR. Another massive blow to a game that has been exposed as more of an unfinished mess than we could have ever imagined. CDPR supposedly had to walk back core features and game modes just to make the December release date viable and they still knowingly shipped out a broken game that, at its worst, won’t run optimally on the special edition XBOX One that helped market the game. In an unsurprising turn, the investors that were anxious to get the game released are now launching a class action suit against CDPR for deceptive marketing among other things.
This is another big indictment on the Games Industry that has exposed the ills they’ve made common practice. The controversy surrounding the game has now seeped into mainstream media. Such negative attention is bound to draw the attention of people that may have the power or influence to make drastic changes. Such was the case where Star War: Battlefront II (another failure to launch game) garnered attention for its pay-to-win mechanics and locking iconic characters behind unattainable hours of gameplay or hundreds of dollars in real money poured into loot boxes. That incident started a cascade of political officials from different countries including the United States to look more closely at the over monetization of games.
The industry would prefer to not have world governments interfere. They’ve avoided direct oversight before, which is how the ESRB was formed with Europe following suit with PEGI. Though video game rating boards lack punch in recent memory, they serve the purpose of rating and regulating the content of games. The industry can do it again, with unionization being a common proposal when game studios are exposed for poor work/life balance and crunch. However, unionizing game developers across borders presents the challenge of determining what is fair since everyone’s labor laws are different. Perhaps by region between the Americas, Europe, and Asia?
"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad," -Shigeru Miyamoto
The phrase “too big to fail” is now being attached to games that have garnered massive amounts of hype and end up falling flat. It’s not that these games are “too big to fail”. They're too overhyped in the lead-up to release, overestimate potential revenue to meet the fiscal quota, and fail to deliver. There have been warnings to fans for years about buying into the preorder hype. Putting real money down for games far from their planned release date because of fantastic cinematic trailers and “those preorder bonuses though…” Perhaps a poor release of this magnitude was the reality check the entire industry needed to see. This massive train wreck that no one can stop talking about maybe can reset our expectations on the games we love and the studios that made them. Hopefully, it’ll get some of the pressure on these overworked devs who have to kowtow to exec demands and whiny fans and be a start to changing the culture.
Or we’ll just meme this until the next botched release. Early money on Elden Ring.