CD Projekt Red Emergency Board Call Recording Online Summary:
-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 (you know, the consoles the game was originally made for before the delays)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".
-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.
-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.
-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.
