Have you been screened by "cyberpunk" in the past two days?
On December 10, after many bounces, the Polish company CD Projekt Red (CDPR) produced "Cyberpunk 2077" (Cyberpunk 2077) was finally officially released. This sci-fi open-world RPG developed by the developers of the "Witcher" series quickly caused a phenomenon in the gaming industry and beyond.
In less than 3 hours on Steam, it surpassed games such as "Among Us", "Dota 2" and "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" to achieve 1 million players online at the same time.
Since the release of the first trailer in 2012, news of Cyberpunk 2077 has been stirring the hearts of gamers. During this period, CDPR was crowned "like the next blizzard" with "The Witcher 3"; game consoles such as PS4 and Xbox One have come and gone, and now the era of PS5 has just arrived.
Even the official stepped down in person, and the Weibo "Polish Embassy Cultural Office" game representing the Polish Embassy released a meme on the day of release, ridiculing the developer’s eight-year history of repeatedly "bouncing" to delay the listing date.
It is worth noting that less than a day after the official launch, the huge sales and pre-orders have made the game manufacturer’s previous investment fully paid off, but CDPR’s share price is still falling. Some people argue that part of the reason is that players complain about "Cyberpunk 2077" bugs and various minor issues, which have been widely spread on social media abroad.
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"Cyberpunk 2077" debuts hot
The story of "Cyberpunk 2077" takes place in the 2077 California "cyberpunk" style dystopian city "Night City", and players take on the role of "V" in the open world.
The Night City in the game has six "administrative districts", which correspond to rich areas, poor areas, immigrant areas, industrial areas, and business areas. Each district presents different scenery characteristics and cultural atmospheres. Every vehicle, character, company, and even props in the game have detailed settings such as history and events.
The game also does a good job of presenting those amazing subtleties. There are about a thousand little secrets in the game that have nothing to do with the main mission. Of course, the futuristic cyberpunk elements of the worldview are everywhere: computer networks, replaceable prosthetics, large corporations, and dazzling giant displays and neon signs that symbolize "high tech, low life". A row of high-rise buildings, and neon tubes illuminate small, cramped, dirty units.
In a brief note to investors on Friday, the management board of game developer CD Projekt (CDPR) said that according to the company’s estimate, the current receivables related to pre-orders for Cyberpunk 2077 in all digital releases have exceeded the sum of the game’s development expenses, as well as marketing and promotional expenses.
This means that…Thanks to pre-orders on PS4, PS5, Xbox One/S/X, Xbox Series X/S, Stadia, and PC, Cyberpunk 2077 has been profitable since its release.
On the day it launched on December 10, the number of people online while playing the game on the Steam platform reached 1 million – excluding players on other gaming platforms and those who have not yet opened the game to start playing. Subsequently, the data shows that it has sold 8 million copies.
On Thursday, CDPR tweeted that Cyberpunk 2077 has earned more than $50 million on Steam in the past two weeks.
Previously, the Chinese intelligence station of "Cyberpunk 2077" was launched on Bilibili (Bilibili) and opened an appointment. The market speculated that Bilibili might become the Chinese agent of "Cyberpunk 2077".
However, some observers believe that even if "Cyberpunk 2077" hits the top,The price threshold of about 300 yuan and the PC configuration starting at about 5,000 yuan will discourage many domestic playersMore and more players are only in "cloud" games, and their spending power will not directly affect the game, but will be transferred to the craze of live broadcast, video and other fields. Liking to watch and playing are two different things.
On the other hand, the popularity of "Cyberpunk 2077" on the live stream cannot last long. On the one hand, with the cutscenes of the plot and the repetition of the game content, the enthusiasm of the viewers will gradually fade.On the other hand, the game content may not be suitable for players of all ages.
The ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) previously gave Cyberpunk 2077 a rating of M, meaning that this category may contain strong violence, gore and blood spatter, sexual themes or foul language, and in many countries and regions it is directly classified as the highest "18 banned".
Although our country has launched a unified logo of "game age-appropriate prompt" since 2019, it is a big step forward in game grading, but compared with foreign game grading systems, it is not perfect. Judging from the current broadcast situation of mainstream live broadcast platforms, although there is a more euphemistic "live broadcast mode", many content still has the risk of being banned.
The bumpy "history of bouncing tickets"
Why does this game make players around the world "love and hate"? One point that cannot be avoided is its bumpy road to launch.
From Sina Weibo @CDPROJEKTRED
According to the online public information:
In 2012, CDPR released the first preview of Cyberpunk 2077, confirming the approval of the project.
Around June 2016, after the completion of "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Blood and Wine", we began to fully develop Cyberpunk 2077.
In June 2019, the "Cyberpunk 2077" project was exhibited at the E3 Consumer Electronics Show, and the game was open for pre-sale at the same time, indicating that it was officially released on April 16, 2020. CDPR also implored players to buy it on the GOG platform, because GOG is their own platform, and they can have full income.
On January 17, 2020, CDPR announced that the game is currently playable, but it needs to be cleaned up and polished, pushing the release date to September 17.
On June 19, 2020, CDPR announced that the game was playable, but we needed to fix bugs, so the release date was postponed to November 19.
On October 5, 2020, CDPR said that it will start to enter the factory pressure plate, see you soon!
On October 7, 2020, CDPR made it clear that there would be no further bounces.
However, on October 28, 2020, CDPR announced that the game needed to be polished to accommodate various versions, and the release date was postponed to December 10.
After the sale, the stock price is still falling
Every time I noticed that although it has been officially sold, the share price of CDPR has not stopped falling. Since December 4th, the share price of CDPR has fallen from 443 PLN (Polish zloty) per share to 320.45 PLN, with a total market value of 30.8 billion PLN, equivalent to 6.93 billion euros.
In May this year, CDPR’s market value once surpassed the French manufacturer Ubisoft to become the most valuable game company in Europe. However, a day later, Ubisoft’s market value surpassed it again.
Foreign media speculate that it may be due to the previous delay of "Cyberpunk 2077" and the poor performance of bugs and stability after its release.
Previously, under the relevant page of the game evaluation website Metacritic, 14 of the 44 professional media rated the game with a perfect score of 100, and only 2 media gave a score below 80. The average score of the game was 91, which was in line with most people’s normal expectations for the game.
However, what was surprising was that, unlike all the positive reviews from the media, after Steam launched on December 11, the positive rating of this game was only 72%. From "special praise" to "most praise", the positive rating fell all the way below 80%.
From the feedback in the Steam comment area, most players are generally complaining that the game requires high graphics card requirements, low frame rate, and card quality.
What exactly is "cyberpunk"?
In the field of sci-fi culture, the concept of cyberpunk is derived from the visual science fiction movies. According to the Global Times, it can even be said that it is the classic sci-fi film "Blade Runner" in 1982 that created this high-tech background and low cost of living. The aesthetic style is cold and depressing, and then influenced many works of later generations.
Cyberpunk is a combination of words (Cyber + Punk), according to research from William Gibson’s Cyberspace (Cyberspace), whose book "Neurowanderer", which predicted that multinational corporations would control the world through computer networks, was born at the same time as "Blade Runner".
Cyberpunk 2077 Release Trailer
Not aspiring to the universe, nor obsessed with extraterrestrial life, cyberpunk creators usually focus on human destiny and social system, and how to resist under the "domination" of future technology. In the original science fiction novel "Blade Runner", "Do Bionic People Dream of Electric Sheep?", the company that makes replicants has an all-pervasive computer network, which can be seen as the prototype of the "Matrix" series more than a decade later. By 2017, in the cyberpunk era depicted in "Blade Runner 2049", Wallace’s company has the ability to directly locate replicants, track AI, and instantly attack and capture, which is very close to the definition of cyberspace.
For a general audience,Even if you don’t understand the sci-fi definition behind cyberpunk, the visual style of the dark, gorgeous and cold on the screen is also very recognizableIn cyberpunk films, highly ordered rebel individuals often wander in the icy night rain and neon, as depicted in films such as Total Recall, Ghost in the Shell, The Matrix, and Alita: Battle Angel.
The only thing that can be compared to cyberpunk is "Steampunk", which draws on the spirit of the Industrial Revolution. Although steampunk was also born in the 1980s, its aesthetic foundation is derived from the Victorian era more than 100 years ago. It has a more retro "cannon ship" cult, including steam power, pure mechanical transmission mainly based on gears, gentleman scientist and other elements. Steampunk-based games and TV series include "Final Fantasy" series and "Hal’s Moving Castle", "Skyfall" and "Time Machine".
In addition, in recent years, Liu Yukun, a famous Chinese science fiction writer, developed an Eastern-style "silk punk" based on the Western perspective of steampunk, grafting ancient Chinese scientific and technological inventions and legends into the history of Chu and Han’s struggle for hegemony, and appearing magnificent and heroic in his work "Dandelion Dynasty". The short film "Good Harvest" in the high-score animation "Love, Death and Robots", which is called the sci-fi version of "Fox Fairy Legend", belongs to "silk punk".
(Daily economic news comprehensive Wall Street news, Sina Weibo, interface, Global Times, public information, etc.)