CD Projekt Red Is “Not Encouraging” Cyberpunk 2077 Returns, Joint-CEO Tells Investors

Cyberpunk 2077 players on the previous generation of consoles are seeing distractingly poor performance across both Xbox and PlayStation. While developers CD Projekt Red said yesterday that last-gen players “can opt to refund” their copies, today Joint-CEO Marcin Iwi?ski stressed to investors that there’s no special refund arrangement in place with platform holders and that the studio would sooner hope for a chance to patch things.

CD Projekt Red, which has seen its company stock fall precipitously since Cyberpunk’s release, hosted a call with investors centered on the issue of poor PS4 and Xbox One performance earlier today (via VG247). While the studio released a public apology for the poor last-gen performance yesterday wherein it also spells out steps users could take to get a refund, Iwi?ski tells investors a wave of refunds isn’t the desired outcome.

“We are not encouraging gamers to return the game,” Iwi?ski says. “We hope they’ll give us a chance to improve the game on the old-gen consoles[…] we sincerely hope that gamers would rather wait for the update because they were waiting so long for this game.”

Indeed, the apology released yesterday on the official Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter also includes a similar appeal (“We would appreciate it if you would give us a chance”), but it appears to have given many upset buyers the impression that refunds would be swift. Many players on Xbox One and PS4 have since reported having their refund requests for digital copies declined by Microsoft and Sony.

“You have to understand, Microsoft and Sony, for every product that is released digitally on their storefronts have refund policies,” says Michal Nowakowski, CD Projekt Red’s SVP of Business Development. “These policies are in place and have always been in place. They are not opened up specifically for us. Anybody who has purchased any title on PlayStation Network or Microsoft’s storefront can ask for a refund.”

In a statement given to USgamer regarding digital refunds for Cyberpunk 2077 on Xbox One, Microsoft refers only to its standard digital refund policies and directs customers with additional concerns on Cyberpunk to contact the developer (Sony and CD Projekt Red have not responded to our request for comment by the time of publication).

CD Projekt Red itself has specified that customers who need direct assistance with refunds should contact helpmerefund@cdprojektred.com.

Later on the call, Nowakowski says he doesn’t believe that CD Projekt Red “felt any external or internal pressure to launch on [Dec. 10], other than the normal pressure which is typical for any release.” Leaving aside questions of crunch and why CD Projekt Red chose to only give access to a PC build for pre-release reviews, it does seem that the studio’s leadership knows there’s a long road ahead of it in terms of making good on its promises.

“We’ll do everything possible to prove that we stick to our values,” says Adam Kici?ski, CD Projekt Red’s President and Joint-CEO. “We truly hope that our efforts will let us rebuild the trust that we’ve lost.”