CD Projekt Red Faces Multiple Cyberpunk 2077 Lawsuits Over Misleading Claims
CDPR is now facing multiple class action lawsuits, with one of them being brought forth on behalf of investor Andrew Trampe by the Rosen Law Firm [PDF]. It's alleged that CDPR executives willfully neglected to inform investors of just how bug-riddled the game was and that the company downplayed other issues surrounding the game prior to release.
The lawsuit claims that public statements made about the game prior to release "were materially false and/or misleading because they misrepresented [facts]" and "[CDPR] failed to disclose that Cyberpunk 2077 was virtually unplayable on the current-generation Xbox or PlayStation systems due to an enormous amount of bugs."
Those allegations are then backed up by these comments that CDPR execs made admitting to its shortcomings, which we covered earlier this month:
After 3 delays, we as the Management Board were too focused on releasing the game. We underestimated the scale and complexity of the issues, we ignored the signals about the need for additional time to refine the game on the base last-gen consoles. It was the wrong approach and against our business philosophy. On top of that, during the campaign, we showed the game mostly on PCs.
A separate lawsuit from the Schall Law Firm is also seeking class action status "for violations of §§10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission." This lawsuit lays out much of the same evidence presented by the Rosen Law Firm, citing the numerous bugs and near-unplayable state of the game for previous generation consoles.
"Based on these facts, the Company’s public statements were false and materially misleading throughout the class period. When the market learned the truth about CD Projekt, investors suffered damages," the complaint states.
Following its initial release CDPR addressed a huge number of bugs and performance issues across all platforms with the v1.05 hotfix for Cyberpunk 2077. A separate, smaller v1.06 hotfix was released this week to fix the pesky save data corruption issue on PC platforms. Looking to the near future, CDPR has big updates planned in January and February to address outstanding issues on console platforms.
