Q&A: May 11th, 2022

RupertLitterBin Asks
Can I ask a question?

Only if it's not about Halo Wars.

Jake Malone Asks
What is a company that you think people defend way too much?  PS. Its nice to see someone else who appreciates Cyberpunk :)

The real irony of this question is that a couple years ago, my answer would've easily been CDProjektRed. I understand there's fans of Assassin of Kings, and the original game, but for the most part, people who always put CDProjektRed on a high benchmark seemed to have only played Witcher 3.

Not that Witcher 3 doesn't deserve its credit, I adored the game too, but at the end of the day, it was just one video-game. Though... the hype behind CD seemed to be less about Witcher 3, and more the context Witcher 3 was released under.

For reference, Dragon Age Inqusition came out the year before and while a good game (which won Game of the Year), it was more about Bioware finally returning to form after Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3, which love em or hate em, were definitely not putting Bioware into people's good graces.

Meanwhile Witcher 3 seemed to be a Triple AAA game that was improving fundamental aspects of the genre we'd taken for granted, mainly in treating Side Quests as evenly as major story events.

Rather than just putting out the same product again and again and again as Ubisoft, EA, and Activision had been doing for years and years, here was a company finally using it's Triple AAA resources for the arguable improvement of games themselves, all the while not bowing down to microtransactions, season passes, and embarrassing licensing deals.

The problem?

CD didn't want to rain on their parade.

They didn't want to admit to people that they were ultimately operating under the same market pressures as everybody else, with the same debates, and same challenges that would ultimately lead to them sacrificing a game's quality in the name of company profit.

I'd say this would be a lesson for people, but, I've seen this happen half a dozen or more times over the years, so no. It's only a matter of time before people fall for another hype cycle over a single product that came before.

Submit your questions in the comments below, for future Patreon Q&A's.