| shikamaru317 said: Suffice it to say that I know somebody who knows some of the members of the board. They are nice guys, I'd say Marcin, one of the 2 co-CEO's, is one of the nicest, most down to earth gaming CEO's in the business. Mistakes were made by the them for sure, starting with going public and then with letting their original pro-consumer image slip in favor of keeping their investors happy. Make no mistake, the investors are the root cause of CD Projekt's issues, every mistake the board made was done in a vane attempt to satisfy investors who had ridiculously high expectations for Cyberpunk, they were doomed from the start. They announced the game too early to satisfy investors, decided to support current gen hardware in order to satisfy investors who would not have been ok with a next-gen only small install base release, even though they knew that PS4/XB1 already held back Witcher 3 and would cause even more issues on Cyberpunk. Crunch was done to satisfy investors who wanted the game out early and were tired of the delays, as well as to satisfy gamers who were hungry for the game after multiple delays and an announce that was way too early. Lots of mistakes were made, they dug their own grave. It's just about the biggest shame in the whole gaming industry at the moment, from the best studio (imo) to mid-tier at best. But I do believe that the board can turn the ship around if they examine their own mistakes, do some soul searching, and go back to their roots as the most consumer friendly game developer. The worst thing that could happen imo is if the investors wrest control of CD Projekt from the board, replacing the current game developers who are on the board with a bunch of number cruncher suits who care about maximum profit at minimum budget. Then we will basically have just another EA; mictrotransactions, you betcha; games as a service, you better believe it; physical goodies in the game case, those cut into profit margin too much, got to go; singleplayer RPG's, rest in peace. |
I'm sorry, but all that proofs is that they're not fit to be CEOs. CEOs are not meant to be yes men. Sadly the investors would be in the right to replace the board. Would you expect to keep your job if you messed up this bad? Shifting blame to the investors is just showing more incompetence, who is in charge of the company?
Someone needs to step down and be replaced with someone who can make the hard decisions and doesn't care about being the popular guy or trying to keep everyone happy until the ship sinks.
Maybe they can turn it around, they haven't showed it so far. Saying yes too fast to refunds created more mess. Promising patches too fast just angered their dev team more. Stop saying yes and stop promising things you might not be able to deliver. That's the first step.
Good luck to them. It's a hard lesson, you can't please everyone in business.
