All purpose Sales and Sales Rumours and Anecdotes [2020 Edition]

[Deleted member 11852]

C2077 sales update - 13M sold-through by Dec 20.
https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/investors/regulatory-announcements/current-report-no-67-2020/

Not quite transparent, they've qualified the statements on returns with "less all refund requests e-mailed directly to the Company by the publication date of this report in the framework of the “Help Me Refund” campaign." which is likely not going to be a significant number.

Early in the New Year, once end of December figures are now for all digital store fronts, I'm sure investors will be asking how many returns were refunds were issued. Because I would be asking this.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

IMO, refunds won't increase significantly. Outside of a very vocal minority, I'd imagine most people are mostly happy with their game. And of those that aren't, many are likely trusting that CDPR will address issues that they currently don't like much.

Of course, the volume of returns is likely higher than any other game but the volume of launch sales are also disproportionately large compared to most games.

This totally isn't representative (just like my local circle of friends), but how many here have asked for a refund? Hopefully, noone that played through the entire game first.

Nobody that I know personally in RL has expressed any interest in returning their game.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 7537]

Not quite transparent, they've qualified the statements on returns with "less all refund requests e-mailed directly to the Company by the publication date of this report in the framework of the “Help Me Refund” campaign." which is likely not going to be a significant number.

Early in the New Year, once end of December figures are now for all digital store fronts, I'm sure investors will be asking how many returns were refunds were issued. Because I would be asking this.

Yeah, most people will use either the MS or PS store or go to their physical retailer to get a refund, not send an email to a mostly unknown address.

IMO, refunds won't increase significantly. Outside of a very vocal minority, I'd imagine most people are mostly happy with their game. And of those that aren't, many are likely trusting that CDPR will address issues that they currently don't like much.

Of course, the volume of returns is likely higher than any other game but the volume of launch sales are also disproportionately large compared to most games.

This totally isn't representative (just like my local circle of friends), but how many here have asked for a refund? Hopefully, noone that played through the entire game first.

Nobody that I know personally in RL has expressed any interest in returning their game.

Regards,
SB

My guess is that most of the sales are on base consoles. Cannot imagine anyone being happy with that slide show.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

My guess is that most of the sales are on base consoles. Cannot imagine anyone being happy with that slide show.

Most of the console sales you mean? Last word from CDPR was that ~60 of sales were on PC.

Considering the install base for current gen consoles, it's probably unlikely that most of the console sales were on PS5 or XBS-X/S. For the previous gen consoles it would be interesting to see the split between the base consoles and the mid-gen consoles.

Of those that own it on the base consoles, I wonder how many of them got it on the previous gen base console only because they were waiting to get a hold of a current gen console. If this is the case, it's entirely possible that even if they don't find it playable on their base console, they may just hold onto it for whenever they can manage to get a current gen console.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

IMO, refunds won't increase significantly. Outside of a very vocal minority, I'd imagine most people are mostly happy with their game. And of those that aren't, many are likely trusting that CDPR will address issues that they currently don't like much.

You said this before but consider that Sony didn't just make it easy to get a refund, they stopped selling it which tells me a significant portion of people who bought it for PlayStation asked Sony for refunds. Based on Witcher 3 sales, that's a big portion of CDPR's sales. It's also folly to assume that if a refund hasn't been asked for yet, they won't later this month or next month. That's why that's qualified it very carefully.

Plenty of people don't live in video game news, plenty of people will have Cyberpunk for a present and not even tried it to know they want a refund. Others will be giving them a chance to patch it, another hot fix (v1.06) dropped overnight.

Sony puled the whole game from their store. That's unprecedented.

 

[eastmen]

You said this before but consider that Sony didn't just make it easy to get a refund, they stopped selling it which tells me a significant portion of people who bought it for PlayStation asked Sony for refunds. Based on Witcher 3 sales, that's a big portion of CDPR's sales. It's also folly to assume that if a refund hasn't been asked for yet, they won't later this month or next month. That's why that's qualified it very carefully.

Plenty of people don't live in video game news, plenty of people will have Cyberpunk for a present and not even tried it to know they want a refund. Others will be giving them a chance to patch it, another hot fix (v1.06) dropped overnight.

Sony puled the whole game from their store. That's unprecedented.

could just be that sony has the poorest return policy out of all the options and instead of changing their return policy they just delisted it to avoid issues or having to amend anything .

Dunno but apparently over 60% of sales are were pc. So MS and Sony split 40% of sales some how.

 

[Shortbread]

You said this before but consider that Sony didn't just make it easy to get a refund, they stopped selling it which tells me a significant portion of people who bought it for PlayStation asked Sony for refunds. Based on Witcher 3 sales, that's a big portion of CDPR's sales. It's also folly to assume that if a refund hasn't been asked for yet, they won't later this month or next month. That's why that's qualified it very carefully.

Plenty of people don't live in video game news, plenty of people will have Cyberpunk for a present and not even tried it to know they want a refund. Others will be giving them a chance to patch it, another hot fix (v1.06) dropped overnight.

Sony puled the whole game from their store. That's unprecedented.

GameStop (of all entities) has extended their return policy of CP up to 30 days from the time of purchase, which also means those who have completed the game can essentially return it for a full refund as well - without hassle.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/22/22195420/gamestop-cyberpunk-2077-returns-even-if-opened

GameStop reportedly sent a memo to employees telling them to accept returns of Cyberpunk 2077, even in the event the physical game box has already been opened, according to Kotaku and Vice reporter Patrick Klepek. GameStop’s return policy typically doesn’t let you return opened games, but GameStop seems to be making an exception for Cyberpunk 2077 after its buggy launch.

You can return PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of game within 30 days of purchase to get a refund, reports Kotaku. GameStop didn’t reply to a request for comment, but employees at GameStops in Chicago and Houston confirmed to The Verge by phone that their stores were accepting returns of the game.

 

[goonergaz]

IMO, refunds won't increase significantly. Outside of a very vocal minority, I'd imagine most people are mostly happy with their game. And of those that aren't, many are likely trusting that CDPR will address issues that they currently don't like much.

Of course, the volume of returns is likely higher than any other game but the volume of launch sales are also disproportionately large compared to most games.

This totally isn't representative (just like my local circle of friends), but how many here have asked for a refund? Hopefully, noone that played through the entire game first.

Nobody that I know personally in RL has expressed any interest in returning their game.

Regards,
SB

I should imagine a large % are actually Christmas presents

 

[eastmen]

I should imagine a large % are actually Christmas presents

Seems like CD project red is putting out patches quickly. So the experience on Christmas day for all new owners should be better than launch day when comparing patch 1.06 to day one. I am not sure if we will see any more by new years day. But i wouldn't be surprised. With every patch the likely hood of someone returning the game should decrease

 

[Deleted member 11852]

could just be that sony has the poorest return policy out of all the options and instead of changing their return policy they just delisted it to avoid issues or having to amend anything .

Sony's refund policy is indeed shite, but they could have have taken the same approach with Cyberpunk as they did with, again exceptionally, No Man's Sky.

Sony chose to remote it entirely from the store.

 

[eastmen]

Sony's refund policy is indeed shite, but they could have have taken the same approach with Cyberpunk as they did with, again exceptionally, No Man's Sky.

Sony chose to remote it entirely from the store.

Wasn't No man's sky an exclusive console game for Sony and a tie in marketing deal ? Wonder if that would have influenced their choices then vs cyber punk now?

 

[Shortbread]

Wasn't No man's sky an exclusive console game for Sony and a tie in marketing deal ? Wonder if that would have influenced their choices then vs cyber punk now?

This simply boils down to tolerance. There wasn't a massive amount of PS4 players inundating Sony with NMS refund request, nor hundreds of news stories (locally and/or internationally) about the level of issues NMS had in comparison to CP2077. And most of all, Hello Games didn't unilaterally make a decision on Sony's behalf on how to handle returns and refunds, which CDPR did and got themselves into trouble over.

Anyhow, more was expected out of CDPR and CP2077 than Hello Games and NMS. CDPR management only have themselves to blame for this mess, regardless of Sony's shitty return policies.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

 

[Silent_Buddha]

You said this before but consider that Sony didn't just make it easy to get a refund, they stopped selling it which tells me a significant portion of people who bought it for PlayStation asked Sony for refunds. Based on Witcher 3 sales, that's a big portion of CDPR's sales. It's also folly to assume that if a refund hasn't been asked for yet, they won't later this month or next month. That's why that's qualified it very carefully.

Plenty of people don't live in video game news, plenty of people will have Cyberpunk for a present and not even tried it to know they want a refund. Others will be giving them a chance to patch it, another hot fix (v1.06) dropped overnight.

Sony puled the whole game from their store. That's unprecedented.

Sony pulled the whole game because CDPR requested "no questions asked" full refunds for the game, at least according to CDPR. Sony didn't want to implement a policy like that and at the same time allow a game to continue to be sold, thus setting a precedent for another publisher to ask for that. So, rather than make a special allowance for CDPR as MS have done, they've completely removed it from the store.

So, I'm not entirely convinced that Sony pulled it from the store due to a massive (say a million or more) requests for refunds.

Considering how publicized the state of the game is for CDPR and that CDPR is asking retailers to offer no-questions asked refunds for the game, I'm not even sure retailers like GameStop offering full refunds for up to 30 days is evidence of millions of consumers asking for a refund.

Basically any retailer who doesn't offer unrestricted refunds for the game right now would be committing PR suicide regardless of how many or how few refunds have been requested.

I should imagine a large % are actually Christmas presents

Considering it's hard to hide a digital version under the Christmas tree, I do wonder how many are actually Christmas presents that haven't been received yet. We know that ~60% is the minimum number of digital copies (PC). So out of the 40% console version it's highly like that at least 50% are digital copies.

I'm not entirely sure that more than say 5% are unused purchased copies of the game. And, IMO, even that is being generous.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Wasn't No man's sky an exclusive console game for Sony and a tie in marketing deal ? Wonder if that would have influenced their choices then vs cyber punk now?

A bit like Microsoft's marketing deal with CDPR?

Sony pulled the whole game because CDPR requested "no questions asked" full refunds for the game, at least according to CDPR. Sony didn't want to implement a policy like that and at the same time allow a game to continue to be sold, thus setting a precedent for another publisher to ask for that. So, rather than make a special allowance for CDPR as MS have done, they've completely removed it from the store.

Game publishers don't define now platform owners manage refunds. You've posted a lot of opinion as fact.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Game publishers don't define now platform owners manage refunds. You've posted a lot of opinion as fact.

Obviously.

CDPR asked Sony to give any consumer that asks for refund of Cyberpunk 2077 and Sony decided to pull it from their digital storefront as part of giving consumers a refund. Although Sony didn't go so far as to pull product from store shelves. In that case, Sony is leaving it up to the store's to decided how they want to hand refunds. IE - the evidence, IMO, points to Sony not wanting to set a precedent for "no questions asked" refunds of indeterminate timeframes on their digital storefront, but they are fine with Cyberpunk 2077 being sold to PS customers.

CDPR asked MS to give any consumer that asks for a refund of Cyberpunk 2077 and MS decided that they could do that without pulling it from their store.

There's pros and cons to both. In Sony's case, they likely don't wish to set a precedent for these sorts of refunds and they may feel like they are protecting their customers (well the digital ones anyway, the physical product customers are on their own ). In MS' case, they likely feel that this request fits within the framework of their refund framework and they likely feel like consumer are best served by the consumer deciding for themselves if they want to buy the game or not.

Both Sony and MS decided to approach CDPR's request from different angles.

Also, Cyberpunk 2077 is still the top seller on Steam and GoG despite the Steam Winter Sale and GoG Winter Sale going on and the negative publicity it's getting. All the negative publicity hasn't slowed sales of the game on PC and I'm rather doubtful that sales for the game have slowed much on Xbox. It's likely only slowed on PlayStation because Sony pulled the game.

Regards.
SB

 

[eastmen]

A bit like Microsoft's marketing deal with CDPR?



Game publishers don't define now platform owners manage refunds. You've posted a lot of opinion as fact.

perhaps , hard to tell how its influenced eithers choice. I am just pointing out that there are other circumstances in regards to sony not pulling that specific game. Has ms ever pulled a game due to being buggy ?

 

[chris1515]

perhaps , hard to tell how its influenced eithers choice. I am just pointing out that there are other circumstances in regards to sony not pulling that specific game. Has ms ever pulled a game due to being buggy ?

They disserve it, this is not the fact the game is buggy but the way they throw Sony and MS under the bus for refund. Sony doesn't want people buy the game and after ask a refund. People having the game and wanting a refund will be able to do it but because of CDProjekt mismanagement of the situation they pull out the game from the PSN.

After the class action from some investor maybe the CEO and the management(founders) will change. They are good for doing game but maybe not as good to be CEO of a public company.

They disserve everything happening, they lied to investors during a conference call about the state of the games. They hide the PS4 and Xbox One version to reviewer. And they talk about refund without any permission from Sony and MS.

The founders don't have the majority of stock, if the other shareholders decide it is time to change of management, this is possible. They better improve and be better if they don't want to be demoted.

 

[Shortbread]

They disserve it, this is not the fact the game is buggy but the way they throw Sony and MS under the bus for refund. Sony doesn't want people buy the game and after ask a refund. People having the game and wanting a refund will be able to do it but because of CDProjekt mismanagement of the situation they pull out the game from the PSN.

After the class action from some investor maybe the CEO and the management(founders) will change. They are good for doing game but maybe not as good to be CEO of a public company.

They disserve everything happening, they lied to investors during a conference call about the state of the games. They hide the PS4 and Xbox One version to reviewer. And they talk about refund without any permission from Sony and MS.

The founders don't have the majority of stock, if the other shareholders decide it is time to change of management, this is possible. They better improve and be better if they don't want to be demoted.

Yup.

Plus, expectations behind the scenes were quite high... so yeah, heads are going to roll.

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/76860/analysts-drop-cyberpunk-2077-sales-forecasts-by-20/index.html

Before the controversy, the median predictions among analysts had Cyberpunk 2077 selling 19.2 million at launch, and 31.4 million after a year. Now those forecasts see launch sales at 15.1 million (-4.1 million, -21%), and one-year sales at 25.4 million (-6.6 million, -19%).

 

[Silent_Buddha]

They disserve it, this is not the fact the game is buggy but the way they throw Sony and MS under the bus for refund. Sony doesn't want people buy the game and after ask a refund. People having the game and wanting a refund will be able to do it but because of CDProjekt mismanagement of the situation they pull out the game from the PSN.

After the class action from some investor maybe the CEO and the management(founders) will change. They are good for doing game but maybe not as good to be CEO of a public company.

They disserve everything happening, they lied to investors during a conference call about the state of the games. They hide the PS4 and Xbox One version to reviewer. And they talk about refund without any permission from Sony and MS.

The founders don't have the majority of stock, if the other shareholders decide it is time to change of management, this is possible. They better improve and be better if they don't want to be demoted.

Not defending their actions. They did a terrible job of communicating with investors and consumers. And likely tried to hide the state of the base console versions. I don't mind that reviewers didn't get the console version until the last day if they were in fact still working on it, but that should absolutely, 100%, have been communicated to the reviewers and the consumers.

However, unless things drastically change this title is going to massively outsell Witcher 3. It has already sold ~225% of Witcher 3 sales for the same time period. Despite the negative publicity and the very vocal minority, most users still appear to like it.



That's a day by day snapshot of actual purchaser reviews of the game since launch for the game. If you look through the comments positive reviews get more thumbs up in general than the negative reviews showing that people view the game favorably. You have to actually have bought the game to leave a review (unlike Metacritic) but you don't need to own the game to leave a thumbs up or thumbs down on a review.

This is especially noteworthy because, in general, people with a bad experience with a product are far more likely to leave a review than a person who had a good response.

Anyway, positive reception by buyers continues to greatly outweigh negative reception by buyers. This may be different than the base console owners, but as I've posted above I question whether base console owners who bought Cyberpunk 2077 outnumber PS4-P/PS5/XBO-X/XBS-X/S owners.

If Cyberpunk 2077 continues to outsell Witcher 3 by 2:1 or more despite "no questions asked" returns, investors may grumble but they aren't likely to remove or change the management. Investors are in it for the money, they aren't in it to win a PR contest.

Another thing to note. Even if 100% of console owners returned the product, Cyberpunk 2077 most likely still outsold Witcher 3 for the same time period.

Just out of curiosity, I looked at the Amazon ratings for the game to get a feel for console user views.

• Xbox
  • 67% positive (4 or 5 star)
  • 7% neutral (3 star)
  • 26% negative (1 or 2 star)
• PS4
  • 55% positive
  • 9% neutral
  • 36% negative

Regards,
SB