Cyberpunk 2077 has had a rocky launch on PS4 and Xbox One consoles, with reports of hard crashes, bugs and poor performance plaguing the game's release, and resulting in developer CD Projekt Red issuing an apology and even offering refunds to players.
The developer admitted in a conference that Cyberpunk 2077's launch has caused "the loss of gamers’ trust and the reputation" but, according to a new report, these issues have also had a monetary impact on the developer's parent company, CD Projekt.
According to a report by Bloomberg, CD Projekt's founders have seen more than $1 billion cut off their collective wealth, with shares of the company plunging by a third over the past six days (Cyberpunk 2077 released on November 10).
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The cost of bugs
Bloomberg reports that the value of the 34% stake the original four founders owned is down to $3 billion collectively. CD Projekt's founders are currently CEOs Adam Kiciński and Marcin Iwiński, CFO Piotr Nielubowicz, and former CEO Michał Kiciński.
As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, CD Projekt's share price has been falling since December 4, as the game approached release, with the share price dropping 29% from PLN 443 per share to PLN 310.6. Following the game's release, this price fell a further 21% from PLN 395.8 to PNL 296.
While this is a significant drop for the company and is attributed directly to the reports of widespread bugs on previous-gen consoles, share prices have risen again by 5% following CD Projekt's apology and refund offer.
Bloomberg analysts have estimated that how quickly CD Projekt Red fixes these bugs will factor into the long-term effects Cyberpunk 2077's release has on the company.
During the conference call earlier this week, CD Projekt affirmed that it intends to "fix the game", though a timeline on when we'll start to see some major changes remains unclear.
"Unfortunately I cannot share the cost related to additional work, but the cost of patching the game is irrelevant compared to what we have already spent," CFO Piotr Nielubowicz said. "So there’s no question – we definitely want to fix the game; we made a promise to gamers and we’ll be doing everything to stick with it."
