The world of the video game business never sleeps and a lot happened in the last seven days. Luckily, EarlyGame has Industry Intel – the weekly recap of major events. Let’s see what’s going on this time!
Steam Breaks Its Own Records Again
What do you get when there’s a global pandemic and arguably the most hyped video game of the generation finally releases after so many delays? You get a boatload of people in front of computers, that’s what.
Last weekend, Steam reported - get this - 24.8 million concurrent users on the digital platform. This overshadowed the previous 22 million record from March 2020, when the coronavirus first hit the Western world.
Now, this number includes users playing all sorts of games, including Valve’s own Counter-Strike, but Cyberpunk definitely contributed to the achievement and set a record of its own: Over 1 million users played the game concurrently.
Cyberchaos
Speaking of Cyberpunk 2077... we have to address the chaos. Of course, a release this big can’t happen without some mix-ups. Well... 'some' is probably the understatement of the year. Literally. The Cyberpunk 2077 release has been anything but smooth.
Like... really... really not smooth at all.
As of now, Sony stepped up to refund the game for disgruntled gamers, while CDPR promised to patch the bug-infested game. Unwillingly, Cyberpunk has become the official sequel to a Bug's Story. The chaos is real and we're curious to see how this story continues to unfold...
What’s great though, is that the hard-working developers inside the company will get their bonuses after all. The previous policy of giving away bonus money only if a certain number on Metacritic is passed is scrapped, and studio boss Adam Badowski assured staff they’ll be paid, because they "did everything [they] could to deliver an ambitious, special game."
This is better than the infamous situation of Fallout: New Vegas, where Obsidian developers didn’t get their bonuses because the game scored 84 on Metacritic, instead of 85. Let’s not have stupid things like that in the industry anymore, please!
EA Outbids Take-Two on Codemasters Sale
Legendary British gaming company Codemasters is up for sale and with a bid of $994m by Take-Two it all looked like a sealed deal. However, EA placed a last-minute $1.2 billion bid, making it look like these two are playing “eBay sniper”. The deal is to be closed in Q1 2021 and it makes sense that EA should have a very strong interest in the leading racing game developer of the console world.
Nintendo Speaks Up!
Let’s wrap it up with a development from the last Industry Intel, where we reported on the issue of Nintendo knowingly selling broken hardware: Nintendo of America boss Doug Bowser (it’s been 2 years and we still can’t get over his name! Bowser!) stated that Nintendo is taking careful note of the hardware that’s being sent for repairs and that “an opportunity to make improvements” has been identified. Hey, better late than never. It’s good to see that consumer pressure can actually get things done when it comes to shady corporate practices. Nice!
For more industry news and video game information, keep reading EarlyGame!
