Sony Interactive Entertainment officially announced they are offering full refunds to players who have purchased Cyberpunk 2077 since it launched a week ago the same night they pulled it from the PlayStation Store.
Sony tweeted the announcement tonight.
SIE strives to ensure a high level of customer satisfaction, and we will begin to offer a full refund for all gamers who have purchased Cyberpunk 2077 via PlayStation Store and want a refund. Please visit the following link to initiate the refund: https://t.co/DEZlC0LmUG.
— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) December 18, 2020
“SIE strives to ensure a high level of customer satisfaction, therefore we will begin to offer a full refund for all gamers who have purchased Cyberpunk 2077 via PlayStation Store. SIE will also be removing Cyberpunk 2077 from PlayStation Store until further notice,” the official refund page of the website reads. “Once we have confirmed that you purchased Cyberpunk 2077 via PlayStation Store, we will begin processing your refund. Please note that completion of the refund may vary based on your payment method and financial institution.”
CD Projekt Red has had a tumultuous week following the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, with reports of numerous bugs, glitches and crashing issues across next and previous generation console ports alike. PC suffers from similar issues, but they don’t seem to be as game breaking.
On Monday, CDPR made an announcement that refunds would be available for Sony customers, but Sony did not make moves to offer refunds across the board until today.
— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) December 14, 2020
In an investor call on Monday, Joint CEO Marcin Iwiński said they are not actively encouraging gamers to seek refunds.
“We are not encouraging gamers to return the game; we hope they’ll give us a chance to improve it on old-gen consoles. One fix was released last weekend; another one is coming in seven days – but there is an option, obviously, and the easiest way is to ask the retailer for a refund. If that’s not possible, we also provide help,” Iwiński said. “As of today it’s too early to say; we’ve just begun the process and we sincerely hope that gamers will prefer to wait for updates since they had waited so long for the game, but – again – this is our humble hope. We’ll assess the situation in a couple of days when we have the numbers.”
Adam Kiciński, Chairman of the Management Board, said that COVID had an impact on quality assurance for the game in addition to pushing back the content roadmap.
“One thing that perhaps didn’t help us is COVID: internal testers are able to test the game working from home because we provide them with our own connected machines and so on, but external testers working for external companies were not able to test the game from homes – they have test centers and if they’re not there, they’re not able to work. So, we have seen a decrease in the number of testers, but I wouldn’t point to it as a major source of problems,” Kiciński said. “… [A]bout multiplayer – first and foremost, we haven’t confirmed any dates yet, and as I’ve said before, it’s hard to judge now. We’re in an unanticipated situation and we’ll have to reassess. This is planned for January. We’re now focusing on managing the single-player release, working on patches, communication and – as I said at the very beginning of this call – our focus remains on gamers. We’ll see about further plans; the direction is obviously to proceed as planned, but we have to sit and discuss – and that will happen.”
Michał Nowakowski, Senior Vice President of Business Development addressed the reported issues with the current-generation ports of the the game and the certification process.
“… [Y]our question was about the focus and the cause of ours ignoring, so to speak, the shortcomings of the current-gen version. It is more about us looking – as was previously stated – at the PC and next-gen performance rather than current-gen. We definitely did not spend enough time looking at that. I wouldn’t say that we felt any external or internal pressure to launch on the date – other than the normal pressure, which is typical for any release. So that was not the cause. In terms of the certification process and the third parties – this is definitely on our side. I can only assume that they trusted that we’re going to fix things upon release, and that obviously did not come together exactly as we had planned,” Nowakowski said. “Regarding the third question – where we want to go with the PlayStation and Xbox – as stated in the statement made public today in the morning, we are planning to get the game in much better shape than it is now, of course, and a lot of that is going to be happening in December. Come January and February you’re going to see larger improvements – which we’ve stated already. We have also stated that if your expectation is that the game is going to be equal to, say, nextgens or PC in terms of performance, that definitely isn’t going to happen. Having said that, I’m not saying it’s going to be a bad game – but if you’re expectations regarding, say, visuals or other performance angle, are like this, then we’re openly stating that’s not going to be the case. It will be a good, playable, stable game, without glitches and crashes, though. That’s the intention.”
You can read the full transcript in English here.
Update 12/18
CD Projekt Red tweeted early Friday morning that Cyberpunk 2077 is temporarily unavailable digitally through the PlayStation Store but is still available as a physical release.
Important Update for @PlayStation Users pic.twitter.com/fCB4z74M3z
— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) December 18, 2020
