A drop in the cyberocean
The class action lawsuit that was filed against CD Projekt RED for the disastrous launch state of its mega-selling RPGCyberpunk 2077has been settled for $1.85 million USD.
The suit, filed on May 16, 2025 by New York’s Rosen Law Firm was launched by a party of investors whoaccused CDPRof misleading its shareholders over the quality of the title, which famously launched indisastrous fashiononPS4 and Xbox Oneback in December 2020. The suit argued that CDPR offered “materially false and misleading” statements on the title in its development stages, before finally releasingCyberpunk 2077in a “virtually unplayable” fashion.
This week, a California’s Central District Court judgesigned off on the $1.85 milliondamage payout. Previously it had been considered that the penalty would be somewhere in the region of around $11 million. It should be clearly noted that this case specifically is for CDPR’s investor market, and thus does not involve consumers or other parties.
It all, obviously, amounts to an afterthought, asCyberpunk 2077would sell somewhere in the region of13 million salesduring its launch month, and is believed to have shifted well over 20 million copies as of September 2022. The $1.85 million payout will be, essentially, loose change from the revenue pulled in from the title release — which has since gone on to launch on PS5 and Xbox Series X, albeit in a far greater and more polished technical form.)
With interest renewed via the excellentCyberpunk: EdgerunnersNetflix series, the catastrophic launch ofCyberpunk 2077has seemingly been all but forgotten by many, consigned to gaming history books as a chucklesome “remember when?” scenario. CD Projekt RED had, until that point a practically blemish-free record, and is already well on its way to redemption, at little cost. In fact, in this week’s end-of-year Steam awards, the troubled titlestunnedusers by bagging the ceremony’s “Labor of Love” award.
Here’s hoping that this whole sorry scenario and the causality of its closure does not set a precedent for future projects from major studios.
