I wonder if releasing a widely anticipated game unfinished is sometimes actually strategically beneficial marketing wise. Perhaps it's a marketing dark pattern?
It makes the game stay in people's minds longer because people keep coming back to it asking "is it good yet, have they fixed it yet?". It kind of feels it has worked like that for Cyberpunk. If it's a finished game on launch day people will quickly make up their minds if it's for them and then move on.
Personally I would be on the fence about buying it even if it was good on launch and I would probably not buy it straight away. But I might just change my mind if I get reminded of it enough times. Then again I felt like that about Cyberpunk as well and I still haven't bought it.
I think half-finished is a good way to describe the state of day-1 releases of games these days. Look back on other games (and non-game software) and measure A. the amount of time between when the developer started and the first release, and then B. the total amount of time it took to get to the final patch. I bet for many, MANY games, A ≤ B/2: They were literally "half-finished" in terms of time, on first release.
Sure, but that's not how consumers measure "finished". By that logic, Binding of Issac wasn't even in Alpha state when it launched in 2011. Since it got its latest update this year. Meanwhile, Sonic 2006 launched once, never got updates, and was buried for 15 years before Sega loosened up. It was by all accounts "finished", in the worst way.
I think Cyberpunk was only able to turn itself around because the studio got so famous with The Witcher and people were willing to give them another chance. If they hadn't been famous already, it'd just have been another rando shitty game on Steam, of which there are thousands...
But then there are stories No Man's Sky too, which had a miraculous turnaround as well. So maybe it can happen sometimes...
I have a more conspiratorial opinion of Cyberpunks criticism. If you look at Cities Skylines 2 and many other AAA titles, they are just as bad or worse. Yet, the one company that sought to fight the way other developers and publishers behaved got a shitload of criticism for what was - in my opinion - a much smaller problem. CS:2 is much worse, Starfield is way more buggy, etc.
In my opinion, Cyberpunk was punked by the gaming industry to harm CD Project Red. I have no proof at all, of course.
It makes the game stay in people's minds longer because people keep coming back to it asking "is it good yet, have they fixed it yet?". It kind of feels it has worked like that for Cyberpunk. If it's a finished game on launch day people will quickly make up their minds if it's for them and then move on.
Personally I would be on the fence about buying it even if it was good on launch and I would probably not buy it straight away. But I might just change my mind if I get reminded of it enough times. Then again I felt like that about Cyberpunk as well and I still haven't bought it.