Cyberpunk 2077: Is the Negativity a Blessing in Disguise?

The ill-fated December 2020 launch of Cyberpunk 2077 will be the subject of case studies for years to come. It was a tragic mix of unrealistic expectations, a skewed and weaponized influencer ecosystem, and a sudden narrative shift that left players angry and divided.

If you weren’t paying any attention and picked up this game a year later, however, you probably finished the game feeling pretty satisfied about your purchase.

In this post, we’ll explore how CD Projekt Red hyped their next major title while subsequently letting expectations balloon beyond their control. In addition, we’ll briefly explore the mechanics of the “outrage” economy and why such a massive flop might be the next best thing the developers could have hoped for.

The Dangers of a Well-oiled Marketing Machine

Before a single player ever stepped onto the streets of Night City, CD Projekt Red had already built a world that their engineering team would find almost impossible to actually deliver. It was an implicit challenge to GTA V, even if one was set in modern day America and the other was set in a dystopian future.

The hype included:

• A living, breathing world where NPCs had their own daily routines and behavior
• A life path (corpo, nomad, street kid) that would fundamentally change how the entire story unfolded
• Deep build customization where your character’s choices, cyberware, and stats greatly altered playstyle
• Promising next-gen visuals on every platform (Though the PS4 and Xbox One were already “old” by this time)

CD Projekt Red had already earned a reputation for delivering on its promises with The Witcher 3, so some fans really believed the hype. This was, after all, a scrappy Polish developer that gave us The Witcher; it wasn’t just some greedy mega corp like EA or Activision. There was some legitimate reason to think these promises would be kept.

The Scandals Begin

1. The Keanu Shift

Bringing Keanu Reeves onto the stage at E3 seemed like a smart move. Keanu’s most famous role was in the Matrix, and this association could only be a good thing, right? As it turns out, the story was rewritten to center around his character Johnny Silverhand.

Was this because the developers had run out of money? With the success of The Witcher 3, I think this is unlikely. Was the promise of a free-roaming sandbox RPG too much to pull off? Was it going to take too much time to realize? Regardless of the root cause or motivations behind this shift, Cyberpunk eventually became a much tighter, linear game. This was the first promise that didn’t survive the development process.

2. Mismanaged Expectations

As I mentioned above, CD Projekt Red had promised state of the art, high-fidelity graphics across platforms. So what happened? It seems like the launch window became rushed, and there just wasn’t any way to fix the broken Xbox and PlayStation versions before launch. So what happened? These broken versions were hidden from reviewers while pre-release footage from the PC version was used in promotions instead.

So when console gamers played Cyberpunk 2077, they were met with frequent crashes, severe drops in framerates, and strange issues with textures. The problems were so bad that Sony removed the game from the PlayStation Store and offered refunds.

Beyond the coverup involving Cyberpunk’s technical performance, the promises of a completely dynamic open world also seemed to be unrealized. The living, breathing world that had been dangled in front of players for the last few years didn’t seem to exist. NPCs didn’t seem much different from other open world RPGs. Police seemed to spawn close to players instead of appearing out of view and responding to an incident. Perhaps the most damning thing was that the “life path” feature didn’t seem to matter that much. Picking your role did indeed change the first few hours of the game and the dialogue options you were presented with, but it didn’t re-shape the entire story as players had been led to expect.

Although there were many things that the game did deliver on (such as side quests, the core dialogue, shooting mechanics, and Night City’s overall vibe), the problem players had was with the gap between what was promised versus what was actually delivered. Technical problems aside, Cyberpunk 2077 was a good game, but not the genre-defining masterpiece it promised to be.

The Outrage Economy Was Always Going to Win

Strong emotions engage. Bad news sells better than good news. This is one thing that I think most people understand, but it’s worth pointing out that some degree of hate for Cyberpunk 2077 was probably inevitable. A scathing takedown or hot take gets shared, debated, and “engaged with” far more than a nuanced game review. Anyone who spends any time on the internet knows this.

So when a game with this much hype launches, the potential for backlash grows right alongside the hype itself. The more any thing or any person is exalted, the more satisfying the fall becomes for skeptics, haters, or for those simply looking for more engagement and views.

The nature of social media itself creates a very strange incentive structure. Some influencers or traditional gaming outlets might have felt that this game was good, but not great. Maybe some felt like it was okay, but not necessarily a flaming wreck. Regardless of how people actually felt, strong reactions obviously outperformed nuanced takes, so that’s what gamers found in their feeds.

Was the Outrage Actually a Net Positive?

There’s a strange, counter-intuitive truth about human emotions. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s complete indifference. Humans can easily shift from love to hate, or hate to love. But from a position of indifference? The intensity of an emotion is what’s engaging, and both love and hate are intense emotions. So the intensity of the emotion itself matters more than whether it is positive or negative. And what’s more, negative emotions seem to be more salient and memorable compared with positive ones.

This isn’t just a fandom or gaming phenomenon. A bias for negativity is a well-documented concept in psychology. People pay attention to and remember bad experiences more than good ones. From an evolutionary standpoint, it’s important to remember if eating from that bush made you sicker than ever. It’s important to remember where you were ambushed and who tried to ambush you.

So even though most people aren’t thinking “This story is more emotionally compelling, so I’ll share it”, it is true that flops like Cyberpunk 2077 get more attention than a solid, well-made game that debuts with an 8/10 rating. Few people share a tweet or a video review that concludes “This game was pretty good, and I don’t regret my purchase.”

No Man’s Sky

Cyberpunk 2077 was far from the first game to have a disastrous launch. No Man’s Sky (2016) promised ambitious features like real multiplayer encounters across a massive planetary simulation. These encounters were completely missing at launch, and the backlash was so strong that the founder of Hello Games basically went missing for months.

Hello Games survived, and they kept patching the game month after month without charging players extra for DLC. The narrative of No Man’s Sky being a complete disaster slowly changed. Today, No Man’s Sky enjoys a positive reputation coupled with enthusiastic player reviews. The outrage didn’t kill the game. If anything, it made players more aware of its existence in the first place. I had never heard of No Man’s Sky until I read about how much of a disaster it was. Indeed, the gaming media might not have given it so much ongoing coverage if the game had launched with a “respectable” rating.

So what makes for a better story?

"Developer ABC has quietly improved what was already a decent game and made it a better one."

"Developer XYZ has turned an absolute disaster into a game players love."

I think you know the answer. So, if we’re being cynical (but realistic) about the modern media landscape: a “pretty good”, drama-free launch might be the worst commercial outcome there is. A great game generates tons of praise and accolades. Player reviews and organic rankings drive its success further.

A bad game generates a lot of negative coverage, but presents an opportunity for a redemption narrative that humans naturally gravitate towards. And if you had never heard of the game before launch, you’re certainly aware of it now.

But a decent game that doesn’t over promise or under deliver? It doesn’t generate the strong emotions that drive compelling narratives or “viral” reactions.

So where does Cyberpunk 2077 go from here? Well, they have already succeeded in getting everyone’s attention. And after the success of The Witcher 3, they most certainly have the resources to throw at a No Man’s Sky style redemption arc.

Since Cyberpunk failed so spectacularly in meeting the expectations set for its launch, it’s hard to argue that completely tanking wasn’t the next best thing that could have happened.