Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the most ambitious video games ever created. And in 2020, its
launch broke digital sales records making over $550 million dollars according to Forbes.
However, its launch was mired with controversy. An incomplete version of the game was released.
And there were multiple bugs and glitches that were noticed by players on the very first
day of its release.
In this video, I’ll share some business lessons you could learn from the Cyberpunk
2077 product launch strategy. Perhaps, you could use these business lessons to successfully
launch a product for your own company in the future.
But, before I start, I just want to say that Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t all bad. It’s actually
outstanding in many areas such as the graphics, character designs, world design, voice acting,
and many elements of the story. But there were obvious problems with this game’s launch,
and I’ll discuss what you can learn from this launch for your benefit.
Let’s dive right in.
1. Make Sure Your Capabilities Can Measure Up To Your Product Requirements
As most people watching this know, CD Projeckt Red developed this game. Before developing
Cyberpunk 2077, the most advanced game that CD Projeckt Red developed was Witcher 3, which
was the company’s most successful game by a wide margin at the time of its release.
But from a development and technical standpoint, the transition from Witcher 3 to Cyberpunk
2077 was a significant and ambitious jump.
Their team was acclimated to the formula they used for Witcher 3 where everything in the
game world was stretched out on flat terrain. When they started developing Cyberpunk, they
had to address entirely new constraints. They needed to create a world where there were
a multitude of custom objects, interacting systems, and mechanics all condensed in one
big city. They also had to make improvements to its proprietary game engine and fine-tune
low-level elements like rendering systems, shading systems, and physics systems.
It’s normal for game companies to fine-tune low-level elements as a game is being developed—kind
of like flying an airplane as you’re building it. But unfortunately, CD Projekt Red committed
to a massive undertaking that was well above their physical capabilities at the time. Even
the largest game studios in the world with the biggest budgets would find it difficult
to develop this game in way that satisfies both critics and fans.
When you take on a project that far surpasses anything you’ve ever done, make sure that
you can gain the needed resources, whether it’s tools or human capital, as early in
the development process as possible.
2. Identify Potential Risks Before They Happen The knowledge you have at the start of a project
can be categorized in 4 ways: • Known Knowns
• Known Unknowns • Unknown Knowns
• Unknown Unknowns
Whenever any company develops a new type of product, there’s an increased chance of
encountering those last three categories.
To help counteract against this, it helps to develop what is known as a risk register.
This is a document used in project management where you identify potential risks that may
occur and develop plans for addressing those risks.
But, obviously, a global shutdown occurred in 2020, which was near impossible to predict.
Because of that reason alone, they had a reasonable and understandable excuse to delay the game
by another year.
3. Set Realistic Deadlines The deadlines set for this game weren’t
achievable based on its scope, the fact that CD Projeckt Red were developing an entirely
new type of game for their company, and the fact that this game was extremely ambitious
by every stretch of the imagination. All of this increased the risk of things going wrong
throughout the process. And based on the performance of patches close to the middle of 2021, this
game launch may have needed to be delayed by another year.
Project managers often use what is known as the PERT Estimation Technique to estimate
when a task will be completed. This technique involves deriving three estimates: optimistic,
most likely, and pessimistic. It seems as though optimistic estimates were favored toward
the end of this game’s development cycle, which led to the release of an incomplete
game.
4. Make Sure Your Marketing and Your Product Are Aligned
Their marketing team did a phenomenal job of hyping the game up week after week before
its launch. That marketing team probably did a better job at hyping up the game than what
you would see from considerably larger game studios and companies. But it seems like there
was a disconnect between what their marketing team was saying and the actual product performed.
Not only that, the game was announced extremely far ahead of its release date (around 7 to
8 years ahead to be exact).
As a rule of thumb, it’s probably a good idea to only announce a game of this scale
after it surpasses 50% completion.
5. Simplify Your Distribution Channels, If Possible
CD Projekt Red probably launched this game on too many systems at one time and stretched
themselves thin. In this case, they needed the game to run on personal computers and
5 different consoles at launch. This may have been too much of a burden to take on considering
the issues they were already experiencing at the time. And as a result, the game barely
worked at all on old generation consoles like the Playstation 4 base console and Xbox 360
due to bugs, glitches, and other factors. These problems were apparently overlooked
during QA testing.
In cases like these, it’s probably a good idea to break your distribution into phases
after a product launch instead of meeting that commitment all at once. Another alternative
is simply delaying the product altogether.
Regardless of the mistakes made during this game launch, CD Projekt Red has two outstanding
game franchises and hopefully, this company learns from its mistakes. I look forward to