Outriders' Free Demo Is a Breath of Fresh Air After the Cyberpunk Fiasco

Author writes: "Outriders has been delayed by a couple of months and a free demo is on the way, and I can't help but shake the feeling Cyberpunk played a part."

[boing1]

I think it was a wake up call for whole industry.

[REDGUM]

Sure an incoming demo of Outriders is & will be welcome but can we please stop bashing this Cyberpunk game now.
This game needs time to heal & repair.
Sure, it wasn't what we were expecting but it will be patched to look much better in the coming months and dare say the true next gen versions will shine in the end. If we cripple these devs for much longer it'll only further damage the company instead of allowing them to rebuild the gamers trust over time.
Enough is enough surely.

[gold_drake]

i agree but the game was expensive. people are pissed because they got a broken game, riddled with bugs. it was a highly anticipated game, there was alot of hype behind it. something like that is not easily forgotten. especially since they've pushed it back twice.

[RgR]

Game was $60 and very refundable.

Pushing back a game shouldn't be an excuse to bash more...if anything it should have created more caution.

[MadLad]

The funny thing is this site was a lot more forgiving to No Man's Sky, which straight out lied about the entire game and took years to get anywhere close to what was ever promised.
Cyberpunk, while buggy, and having a few mechanics that didn't live up to expectations made, is still pretty much the base product they said it would be.

[Stanjara]

I think I will never play/pay Cyberpunk...I'm so over it.
Maybe next year with GOTY edition and everything for 5$ or something.

I see now Mass Effect andromeda for 5$ and I think to myself...I don't have time for that.

[lio_convoy]

I was lucky enough to cancel my pre-order for Days Gone early enough since that was at a time I was still buying disc games and pre-ordering everything. I got a bad feeling about the game and then decided to wait it out and it came out in a bad way. Not as bad as Cyberpunk, but it wasn't great. I said then I still wanted to buy it, but I was going to wait for a sale where it cost me under $20. That day came, and I picked it up and it had a few patches to fix some of the problems. So it was worth it. Cyberpunk 2077 falls into the same category for me. I'll pick it up eventually once the bugs have been worked out, but only if it's discounted to below $20. I won't touch it otherwise and I've got no regrets about that. It's just not worth anything more to me. I'd rather play something like Returnal or Persona 5 Strikers at a higher price point. I've played the demo for Strikers so I know I want it (Japanese demo) and Returnal I've seen enough to know it's in a way better state than Cyberpunk is and would have a ton of reply value and excitement for me Cyberpunk is a one play game and especially because that's the case, it needs to be good and not a buggy mess.

[Tankbusta40]

Cyberpunk caused its own demise...they hyped it and hyped it

[monkey602]

That is kind of like saying we should hold the developers responsible for some bad choices, mishandling and false representation, but only briefly because we don't actually want them to face any repercussions.
No! we hold them accountable until it is resolved and no sooner. If CDPR don't resolve the issue then the consumer should absolutely hesitate buying from them in the future.

The message has been sent. It means nothing if it's allowed to blow over so briefly after

[ecchiless]

but is cdpr they cant do wrong....

[lio_convoy]

Nah, it's not enough. Companies who make games that are that expensive for consumers need to make sure their products meet a minimum standard and Cyberpunk was anything but. Patches may come to fix bugs, but the experience for those who put the most down on a game (when it first comes out) should be awesome, not horrible. Otherwise, the industry needs to start severely discounting preorders because of the risk to consumers.

[SmokinAces]

Unfortunately you're asking a lot, the gaming community has never shown itself to be very forgiving.

[StoneyYoshi]

Im sure the fact that Avengers flopped is the #1 reason behind this. SE cant afford another flop like that right now. And I'm sure seeing what happened to Cyberpunk was the cherry on top.

[lio_convoy]

I bought Avengers at half off and I don't mind the story or missions. What gets me is the character control. It's just... Off somehow. I can't quite put my finger on it, but my characters don't seem to do what I want them and small things like just jumping indoors automatically grabs the ceiling really messes me up. It's not a *bad* game, but it's also not a great one or one that has me coming back for more. I keep going to other games. Mostly because of the controls.

[anast]

Halo/Destiny (Outriders) is a different kind of game, but hopefully the delay is because of the CP2077 blow back. Hopefully every one gets the message.

[sourOG]

It’s the first fu** up I have personally seen from CDPR and it was a doozy. I can understand people being upset but this whole”unprecedented tragedy, a lesson to be learned” or “destroy them” attitude isn’t fair imo. What they did was shitty but they are not irredeemable and they can still make it right. I bought cyberpunk day 1. I made a character played a few missions and turned it off. I was playing on ps5 but the “word of mouth” convinced me to wait for the actual ps5 upgrade. I have backlog hell, it’s not a big deal. I’m not spitting venom at them on Twitter or demanding a refund.

This is just strike one for me but they are on my radar now. I stopped counting strikes for some companies a long time ago so that alone makes strike one far more forgivable. Like EA, I will never forget EA closing visceral and black box because of their own incompetence. But no matter how badly I can’t stand EA, I would buy a dead space remaster tomorrow. The super fancy edition filled with China plastic lol.

This “lesson” of demos was a reality in the past. Every smaller game had to have a demo on the 360. I bought many games because of this common sense feature. It’s just good business. And the outrage is manufactured. Unmet hypes. You got weaseled out of 60 bucks, cry more. The media didn’t break NDA because they didn’t care about you either. Business is business. People’s emotional rides are just wild these days. Rationality is losing, big time.

[lio_convoy]

Growing up gaming, demos we're VERY common. Starting with ZZT, Wolfenstein, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, and so many others, you got to try a small slice of the game to judge the quality before plunking down your hard earned cash for an expensive game. It benefitted companies too because demos spreading around also acted as free advertisement. Excitement built up by word of mouth and sales weren't affected. Then something began to change. Companies slowly stopped releasing demos. They started taking pre-orders. Even if a company did release a demo, there was no guarantee you could play it. It might be E3 only. How stupid, only a small handful of people get to play it. A demo can also serve to tell the company they got it right or got something really wrong. I'd rather they release a demo and if something is broken, postpone the game and fix it. Patches are annoying. When I load up my console, I just wanna play. Not download the tenth patch for a game that should have been working right from day one. So I hope we start seeing more demos and earlier so companies can use them as an opportunity to fix what might be wrong before the full game gets released. Otherwise, I'm just adopting a new policy of next to no preorders and way for price drops and patches to be rolled out before I buy. That's less money in the developers pocket and less money they see right away for their shareholders, but I gotta protect my own interests.

[sourOG]

I agree. Demos are good business. Unfortunately business doesn’t care about being good anymore. They will happily take a hit to their bottom line in order to promote activism or anything like that. Weird times.

I have already adopted the policy of no preorders. Everyone needs to start being more responsible with their money. It’s like the people who buy “as seen on tv” shit and get pissed when it’s junk. Don’t go cry on twitter, it’s your fault you blindly bought broken garbage. It’s our fault, we all do it and need to learn not to. Our problem is our media is worthless and can’t rely on them to be honest. They are just a part of the apparatus. You can’t go on user reviews. You’re better off not buying day one at all and seeing the word of mouth a month or 2 later when the real opinions start popping up.