One More Post About Cyberpunk

Look, I'm sorry if this is becoming repetitious, but just today I read yet another article, this time in the New York Times, that would have you believe the new video game Cyberpunk 2077 is a buggy and unplayable mess.  Look - they quote someone saying "it's a buggy and unplayable mess."  Gotta be true, right?

Except that it isn't.  I don't know about the Xbox or PlayStation experience because I'm playing on PC, and I won't deny the occasional glitch or aberrant visual, but the game plays fine for me.  I'm now some 93 hours into the game, and have found it an exceptionally immersive and satisfying experience.  One of my best gaming experiences in years.  And even as I write this, I'm downloading a major patch by the developers to fix a lot of the reported problems.

I think the trouble is that after nearly a decade of development, expectations for this game were unrealistically high.  And I suspect that a lot of people complaining about their experience on "latest model" Xbox and PlayStations are actually playing on older versions of the consoles and don't want to admit it.  And I also imagine that a large part of the problem is that many gamers are adolescents, and a lot of the online complaining is the result of hormone-addled teenagers over-reacting to something not perfectly matching their expectations.  Everybody is jumping on the consensus "this game sucks" bandwagon, even as they're spending scores of hours playing it.  It's a problem in the business model for video games that the user experience is largely narrated by 15-year-olds. 

As further evidence of the game's unplayability, the Times points out that Sony has removed it from their on-line store, and the developer CD Projekt Red is offering refunds for unsatisfied buyers. The developer's stock value has plummeted following reaction to the game, and insiders talk about a lot of understandable tension among management.  But all of those things are reactions to the on-line hysteria, the internet feedback loop that the game is broken, not prima facie evidence of its problems.   

Take a deep breath.  The patch was needed and is now available and nothing in life is ever as good as the best that our imaginations can cook up, but the game is still highly functional, highly enjoyable, and highly rewarding.  Don't believe the hype otherwise.