Even though Cyberpunk 2077 has improved a lot since launch and CDPR has shifted its focus to CP2077’s first major expansion, no one will ever forget the launch. Many devs have worried about what could be the “next Cyberpunk,” which says a lot about its launch condition. Now, one recent report may have shed some light on the situation.
A recent video report/rumor has come about, suggesting that QA testing company Quantic Lab, which worked on the QA side with CDPR, lied about the condition of Cyberpunk 2077. The big claims came down to Quantic Lab having a smaller team than the contract demanded, lying about senior staff and using juniors with less than 6 months' experience, and following a quantity-not-quality quota where tons of pointless bugs were reported instead of the much more needed ones.
Now, Quantic Lab CEO Stefan Seicarescu has issued a statement on these allegations (as provided to Forbes). The entire statement can be read below, which boils down to the original video not getting Quantic Lab’s history right, misunderstanding the QA process, that Quantic Lab was not the only QA company CDPR worked with and little more. It seems noteworthy that the claims regarding Cyberpunk 2077 are not denied, and while this whole situation is strange, it’s a symptom of a bigger problem at worst.
Quantic Lab Statement:
“Concerning the article published in Forbes on June 26th, Quantic Lab’s would like to clarify the following:
The video published on social media as mentioned in your article starts with incorrect statements about Quantic Lab’s history. There seems to be a lack of understanding in the process of how a game is tested before its release to the market.
Quantic Lab was founded in 2006 with a team of twelve, fully focused on Quality Assurance, and has since then grown into a leading QA company with more than 60 active clients, and more than 400 employees in 3 office locations in Romania. Quantic Lab supports over 200 projects per year from several global leading publishers and continues to maintain a quality comes first approach to all the work we undertake.
All our customer agreements are confidential but in general, global publishers are working with several QA outsourcing companies, not depending solely on one, in addition to internal QA resources at developer level in most cases. Each project we undertake is unique with regard project requirements. Project direction is agreed and adjusted accordingly as per real time requirements with our clients.
Quantic Lab always strives to work with transparency and integrity with our industry partners.”
All too often, QA is blamed for the shortcomings of game when, chances are, it was indeed caught by QA. It was not Quantic Lab or any other QA’s decision to launch Cyberpunk 2077 in the state it was in; it was CDPR management. Some saw this, even if it’s not what it meant, as some attempted absolution of CD Projekt Red, but the idea that the company responsible for the game isn’t aware of its status is laughable at best.
It'll be interesting if more comes out about this situation, as there’s still a lot that could be learned regarding Cyberpunk 2077’s launch. At the same time, that was then. CDPR has certainly learned its lesson, and many other devs remain aware of the blowback. It’s something that’s not going anywhere, but as CDPR moves on with a new Witcher game and Cyberpunk 2077’s expansion, what’s important is that lessons were learned, and hopefully, the future remains bright.
Cyberpunk 2077 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Source: Forbes
