CDPR makes legal aggravations go away for an absolute steal
CD Projekt announced that it had settled the December 2020 class-action lawsuit filed against it. If all goes well, CDPR can take care of its legal troubles for $1.85 million. Understandably, many are up in arms about what CDPR is trying to accomplish. Not only is it a lowball offer, but if it is accepted, all members of the class will no longer have a say about what CDPR did with Cyberpunk 2077. To make matters worse, there’s no admission on CDPR’s part about what it did wrong with Cyberpunk 2077. Again, we’re not saying that $1.85 million is nothing - it’s just small relative to how much CDPR is worth and how much it’s made from Cyberpunk 2077. Keep in mind that CDPR is not an underdog. The gaming community might like to think that CDPR is some small studio that’s sticking it to the man, or so to speak, by scoffing at the notion of using DRMs, but the Polish studio is one of the largest video game companies in the world. Back in 2020, CDPR had a market valuation upwards of $8.1 billion. To put that into context, Ubisoft “only” has a market valuation of nearly $6 billion and it’s already planning on putting up its theme park. Following all the Cyberpunk 2077 related drama, CDPR’s market cap has dropped to just around $4.6 billion at the time of writing. TLDR; CDPR is the largest multiplatform video game publisher in Europe and paying just $1.85 million to settle a class-action lawsuit is insulting, to say the least. If it’s any consolation, the deal isn’t done yet. The court still has until January 13, 2022, to wait for a formal settlement document. After this, the court must notify the members of the class-action lawsuit before it goes back for final approval. This entire process will take several months to complete, and there’s no guarantee that the members will accept the offer. But, if they do, then CDPR will have just walked away with one of the largest coups in recent memory. In other Cyberpunk 2077 news, the game is finally playable. After nearly a year’s worth of fixes, public perception of the much-maligned game is finally starting to change, including Steam reviews. With at least two major updates coming up, Cyberpunk 2077 might finally start fulfilling its potential. Here’s to hoping that the negative fan backlash from this lawsuit doesn’t affect that.
