Downloaded and saved. Should be an interesting listen.
Link is from the front page of their website:
https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/
I'll live update as I listen and add some personal comments.
- CEO says they want to gain the trust of gamers back because they know they've lost it. CEO puts on a "humble" facade that quickly disappears later in the call.
- 17 minutes in, as one of the developers is finishing up answering a question about what they will do to fix the game on last gen consoles, he tells the investor to not expect any graphical or game system type changes, as their only intent is to make the game playable from start to finish without crashing on last gen.
- Last gen console versions of the game weren't given to reviewers because the dev team was still working on those versions during the review period for the game. They were working on them "up until the last minute".
- They also state earlier in the call there was limited QA testing done on the game, it was all done "in house" and no experienced third party contractors were used. CDPR employees played iterative builds of the game in their homes due to the pandemic and that's how they tested the game. They say there wasn't much attention put on the last generation console versions of the game. (you know, the consoles the game was originally made for before the delays)
- 21 or so minutes in, the CEO says they plan to let the Cyberpunk team rest "until February". (good, the actual developers deserve a ton of rest after what their management team has done)
- Multiplayer is tentatively scheduled to release in 2022, but could be pushed to 2023. Depends on how long it takes the development team to actually finish the game (referring to the planned DLC's & expansions) as well as fix what was and is currently being sold to customers.
- Several investors seem to be very concerned about the game being refunded. One asked how the refund process works through Microsoft and Sony and if the investor will still keep his cut. (this person seems to have no regard for customer satisfaction and is only focused on keeping his cut of the money, even after a customer refunds the game.)
- No plans to lower the price of the last gen console versions, despite the depleted experience. The PC version has very clearly been their main focus. All console versions seem to be an afterthought.
- One investor asks if the development team needed more actual developers in order to finish the game on time. CDPR's answer was no, that the number of developers wouldn't have changed anything. The CEO took responsibility for their management team rushing the development of the game and not understanding the technical limitations the dev team was up against. (yo what happened to "Coming: When it's ready" ???)
- It's very apparent throughout this call the CDPR management team keeps referring back to the "next gen upgrade at no additional cost" for console owners, but they fail to explain to these investors that doesn't change anything if you don't have a next gen console. They are using that as a response to questions about the last gen console version of the game. Pretty scummy way to frame their answers in my opinion, and it's happened multiple times now.
- Stadia version will be updated once before their holiday break. After that there is no further update (bug fixing updates) planned for the Stadia version of the game, but this could change in Q1 of 2021. This was misheard by me while listening to the audio call. The comment was about sale numbers updates. Thanks to u/Deadceptor's extremely rude and condescending comment for pointing this mistake out. You can rest easy now, it's been fixed.
- An investor specifically asks about the NPC and AI behavior, citing the backlash it's received online by customers. CDPR's answer is that the AI and NPC behavior is part of the bugs, and the patches that come in January and February will address those issues/bugs. Nothing more in depth was said about the AI.
- One last time before ending the call, CDPR yet again touts the "next gen upgrade at no additional cost" and hopes gamers will keep the game instead of refunding it so that they can experience the next gen upgrade as soon as it's ready. But again, as I stated earlier, they fail to explain to these investors that if you don't have a next gen console, this next gen upgrade is useless to you.
That seems to be the highlights of the call. The rest of the time was filled with investors asking questions about sales numbers of different types, how "sticky" the game is to players (as in how addictive is it), and other types of "how much money we gunna make" questions.
I encourage you to listen to the call yourself instead of reading my paraphrasing mixed with personal comments and form your own opinion. But my opinion after listening to this is that this game was 100% rushed to take advantage of the wombo combo of console generation change + holiday season + global pandemic. This combo will likely never happen again, so it was a once in a lifetime chance at a massive payday. The CDPR management team says they didn't understand the technical limits the development team was facing, but I don't buy that at all.
~Bonus content
~: One investor possibly leaks Witcher 4 lol. He asks something along the lines of "I know you haven't officially announced it, but how is work on Witcher 4 doing and how many people are allocated to the team?" Don't take this as an actual leak, but CDPR was pretty tight lipped about answering that question, as in they didn't.
Edit: Removed a quote about the next gen console version, implying it was ready but held back because I misunderstood the context of the conversation on my first listen of the call. Thanks to
u/Paciorr for pointing the mistake out.
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