Daily Briefing: Wednesday 16th February

Apologies for a lack of Daily Briefing yesterday, patrons! This one is a bit larger to make up for anything you may have missed.

The Witcher 3’s Director Has A New Studio

Konrad Tomaszkiewicz left CDPR last year after being accused of bullying, accusations that he denied - and after a months-long investigation, he was determined not guilty. Still, he resigned, and now he helms his own studio in Warsaw. Rebel Wolves consists of ex-CDPR staff including The Witcher 3’s art director, its animation director, a writer, the design director of Witcher 1, a CFO and a studio head. Their first game is a “AAA dark fantasy built inside the Unreal 5 engine”. They want to evolve the CRPG genre and break away from the weight of existing AAA development.

• This is another instance of AAA development practices and goals burning developers out, and those at the higher levels are now capable of spinning out and working on new and exciting ventures. Like always, we can assume they seek what they were missing before, and this quote hits hard: “We want to stay small and agile—a place where people know and care for each other.”

Sony Under Fire For “Deceptive” Horizon Marketing

The Playstation Store on PS5 and mobile, as well as on web, funnels users towards the “Standard Edition” of Horizon Forbidden West on PS5, which also includes a PS4 version, for $69.99. If you look deeper and look at the extra editions, there’s a PS4 version that comes with a free PS5 upgrade for $59.99 - a whole $10 cheaper. It’s pointed out by Richard Hoeg of Hoeg Law that omitting information that would influence a customer’s decision-making is an unfair business practice in the US and could be liable to a class action suit - basically, they’re selling PS4 + PS5 together for $60, but all of their storefronts point, by default, to the version that’s $10 more expensive for no actual gain for the user.

• It’s more likely to be negligence or confusion than malice on Sony’s end, but the facts are the facts: Customers are being misled into paying $10 more than they need to, and Sony could be wrongfully taking hundreds of millions as a result.

Team17’s Staff Meeting Leaked To Eurogamer

Eurogamer’s Tom Phillips followed up on last week’s report by posting the results of an internal meeting that Team17 CEO Michael Pattison held with staff. Pattison spoke specifically about almost every issue Eurogamer and staff brought up, including promising an immediate pay review for QA, suggesting they need to revamp the benchmarks they use for pay, admitting that they have many open positions which means high workloads for existing staff, stating that a return to quality over quantity is a focus of his as the publisher’s CEO, and more - including admitting that they have to balance shareholder interest with customer & staff interests. The only thing he didn’t highlight was the role of Team17’s group CEO Debbie Bestwick. Generally, staff are ‘cautiously optimistic’ for the future under Pattison’s leadership.

• A publisher CEO who comes out and talks to the staff like they’re human, and actively talking about things that most publishers would handwave away, is extremely refreshing. Hopefully, the necessary action comes following these words.

Cyberpunk 2077’s Next Gen Update, Patch 1.5, Is Out

Cyberpunk’s next-gen update is available to download now on all platforms. The patch notes are extensive, but it fundamentally improves balance, fixes bugs, adds new features like appearance changing, apartment renting & redecoration, revamps the game’s driving model, and a lot more. The jump from last-gen consoles to next-gen has massively improved the console experience, improving performance and enabling the ‘living’ version of Night City, although PC players are reporting more of an iterative upgrade. Still good, but nothing revolutionary.

• Over one year later, CDPR have turned Cyberpunk into something of a respectable game... but it’s still a far cry from the game they promised and showed a vertical slice of. They still have a lot of ground to make back up.

Nintendo Are Closing Wii U & 3DS eShops, Killing Over 1000 Games

From March 2023, purchasing games on the Wii U and 3DS digital stores will be disabled. Credit cards will be disabled in May of this year, and the same with eShop cards in August. According to VGC’s analysis, that will mean over 1000 games will be unavailable to buy. Owners will be able to download them for the foreseeable future - but this deals a substantial blow to modern game availability. Of particular note is the Virtual Console, which is only supported with the limited VC Online on Switch - this effectively means there are dozens of high-quality and important GBA games that will be unavailable for purchase, like Advance Wars, Fire Emblem and Golden Sun games, Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission, among more.

• Fan measures to ensure games are preserved are becoming more justifiable on a cultural level on an almost yearly basis. This has increased calls for Nintendo to add proper emulation to the Switch and offer their older games for sale - because right now, the only option to experience vast swathes of gaming history is through piracy and emulators. This has also sparked a conversation about Nintendo’s unwillingness to make game music available for users to purchase or legally access. The ball is firmly in their court.