TGO Daily | December 16, 2020 | Cyberpunk Refund Debacle
I promise you that I did not want to talk about Cyberpunk yet again. I do my best to give a varied news show that covers lots of different things, because the world of video games is large, and I want to show it to you!
But it’s impossible to avoid. I either cover it, or you miss out on the biggest discussion happening in gaming right now. I don’t think this is much of a problem when it’s good news, like when everyone is talking about how much fun something like Among Us or Animal Crossing is. But when it’s just sucky things happening, I hate to harp on it.
Nonetheless, here we are. Let’s talk about it. Back tomorrow!
Adrian
In The News
Cyberpunk 2077
It’s impossible to ignore. Cyberpunk has been dominating the headlines, and not for good reasons.
On Monday, they put out this tweet:
If you don’t want to read it, there are two important takeaways from it. The first is them apologizing for not showing footage of gameplay on last-gen consoles — something a lot of people have been justifiably upset about. There are many reports that the game is borderline unplayable on the Xbox One / PS4, and reviewers not being able to show that before release was a very deceptive move. (Also, the CEO previously called these ports “surprisingly good”…)
The other important bit is at the end, where they offer refunds for the game, and encourage people to go to Microsoft and Sony to request them, or from the retail store of purchase. “Should this not be possible, please contact us at helpmerefund@cdprojektred.com and we will do our best to help you.”
When a statement like that is made, it seems to indicate that a special arrangement has been made with the companies — it has become apparent that this is not the case. So many people were having issues with refunds, it was even brought up at a recent emergency investor call, where the company called the situation a big misconception of expectations. To complicate it even more, in the call they said that the company is “not encouraging gamers to return the game.”
It’s a complicated mess. I’m sure the developers are doing their best to rectify the situation, but for what may be the one of the best selling launches of all time, this is a PR nightmare.
Sources: Kotaku, Eurogamer
Spelunky 2
We got a few things from the developers of Spelunky 2 today.
Four-player online co-op is now available for PC players, after already being available on PS4 since launch. It’s still technically in a public beta, so you have to jump through some hoops to make it work — check the blog post for directions.
They have a number of online features that are planned for the future as well. Cross-play between the platforms will be made some time in the first half of 2021. They’ll also eventually add a competitive arena mode where you can fight each other.
The game is also heading to the Nintendo Switch! More on that in the next story:
Nintendo Indie World Showcase
There’s a bunch of indie games heading to the Nintendo Switch! All were announced in a 15 minute livestream today.
As mentioned, Spelunky 2 will be there next summer, alongside the original game.
Among Us is on the platform as well, available now for $5! Great idea for them, hopefully it bring even more exposure to the game.
Otherwise, here’s a list of games they announced with no specific release dates (via Kotaku):
EA Play to Game Pass PC
If you didn’t know, the PC version of the Xbox Game Pass was set to receive EA’s subscription service today, EA Play. It’s already been available on the console version for a while.
Well, in a last minute decision, the addition has now been pushed to 2021. It’s not a huge deal, there’s still tons of games available on the Game Pass. They must have hit a major unexpected roadblock though, for them to announce this on the exact day it was supposed to go live.
Fortnite adds performance mode
In case you or someone you know was having trouble running Fortnite on your computer, you should know that it has added a performance mode to the game. It cuts back on a lot of graphical intensity, so the game doesn’t look great, but it will hopefully stabilize your framerate enough to get it working.
You can also now opt out of downloading high-res textures, shaving off 14GB to a minimum install size of 17GB. Not bad!
Say Hello!
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