Cyberpunk 2077 Day: CD Projekt and Video Gaming Industry

This week includes Cyberpunk Day for the video gaming industry. Why? Because the much anticipated release of the action role-playing game Cyberpunk 2077 will be officially released by its development team, CD Projekt Red.

This Isn’t Gen-X Gaming

For us at Coventry League who came of age in the 1970s and 1980s (Gen-X),¹ Born between 1961 and 1981, broadly speaking. the gaming industry is now unrecognizable.

For example, back in the day, some favorite video games for Gen-X-ers were played on personal machines such as the Atari 2600.² Released in 1977 for $200. Most local malls had a video game room (the Arcade) that was usually packed full of kids on the weekends playing Pac-Man, Defender, Space Invaders, Asteroids, and others while listening to tunes from The Cars, Led Zeppelin,³ Zeppelin – the most important point of the “Special Five Point Plan!” Van Halen, The Go-Go’s, Tom Petty, etc.

A good representation of these wonderful times is the opening clip of the 1982 movie, “Fast Times At Ridgemont High.”

Cyberpunk 2077 Video Game

Fast forward to today and we now have action role-playing video games like Cyberpunk 2077, which one may stream over the Internet.

The Game’s Backdrop

The game, itself, is an adaptation of a table-top role-playing game named Cyberpunk, initially released in 1988 and developed by R. Talsorian Games based in Renton, Washington. And, of course, the game’s name refers to the sub-genre of science fiction, cyberpunk, which incorporates themes of advanced technology and dark (dystopian) futures.

The original game incorporates a story that takes place in a dystopian city, Night City, located on the west coast of the United States somewhere between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A Wikipedia page describes the backdrop of Night City and the story as follows:

Major events have included the collapse of the global superpowers, and the rise of Megacorporations that fight amongst themselves for dominance. Food blights have caused disastrous famines, and the Middle East is a radioactive desert. Bioengineering, against a backdrop of warfare, has resulted in the rapid development of cybernetic prosthetics and direct human-machine interfaces. With the lack of government and police, casual violence is endemic. Many also suffer from “technoshock”, an inability to cope with a world of synthetic muscle tissue, organic circuits and designer drugs.

Cyberpunk (role playing game)

The storyline of Cyberpunk 2077 builds on the Cyberpunk franchise storyline and develops further as follows, according to the Wikipedia page:

…the story takes place in dystopian Night City, an open world with six distinct regions. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customisable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery, an arsenal of ranged weapons, and options for melee combat.

Cyberpunk 2077 action role-playing video game

Game Release Anticipation and Date

To get a sense of the excitement by gamers about the anticipated release of Cyberpunk 2077, consider the Steam Top 10 Games Sold for the week ending 29 November whereby Cyberpunk 2077 is number one per a tweet by Daniel Ahmad (and note that Cyberpunk 2077 is only pre-order since it has yet to be released!). Another factor adding to the excitement is Keanu Reeves will have a starring role as the fictional character Johnny Silverhand.

Steam Top 10 Games Sold (ending 29 Nov.)

1. Cyberpunk 2077 (Pre-Order)
2. Valve Index VR Kit
3. Football Manager 2021
4. Phasmophobia
5. Hades
6. Red Dead Redemption 2
7. Halo: MCC
8. PUBG
9. Death Stranding
10. Doom Eternal

Official Release Date and Time

According to the official twitter account of Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame), the game will be released on 10 December at 12:00 am local time on consoles.

However, on PC and Stadia, CD Projekt Red will perform a simultaneous release based on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which is the time used in the United Kingdom and is five hours ahead of East Coast time (ET) in the United States. So, people living in the ET zone in the Americas will get access to the game at 7:00 pm local time on Wednesday, 09 December.

We like how Dave Thier at Forbes refers to “clock time” in his article:

…everyone will actually be playing it at the same time, and the wait between, for example, the publication of this article and the launch time for Cyberpunk 2077 will remain the same for everyone regardless of location. But if you accept the idea that “clock time” is not actually an irrelevant mass delusion but in fact an important organizational structure for human society, then yes, I would argue that certain people get to play this game “early”.

David Thier, freelance writer; Forbes article

The bottom line is everybody gets access simultaneously. That means Cyberpunk Day may be on both Tuesday and Wednesday, depending on your perspective.⁴ Not to confuse matters further, but pre-load to your computer is actually on 07 December.

Required Hardware Specs

According to RepulicWorld, the game will be released on PS, PC, and Xbox.⁵ This is one of those downsides of being a Penguinista/Linux user.

System Requirements (per RepublicWorld)

• CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz / AMD Ryzen R5 1600
• RAM: 16 GB RAM
• HDD: 70 GB of space
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
• OS: Win 10 64
• Direct X: Version 12
• Screen Resolution: 1080p

For a more granular summary of system requirements, read “Can Your PC Run Cyberpunk 2077?” by PC Mag. It includes a breakdown for several systems and screen resolutions, a summary in table format, pricing, and where to purchase the game.

CD Projekt – The Company

CD Projekt S.A. is a Polish video game company based in Warsaw, Poland. Founded in 1994, the company is publicly traded on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) under ticker CDR. In the United States the company trades on the over-the-counter (OTC) markets (OTCMKTS: OTGLF).

Peer Valuation (Seeking Alpha)

The following is a snapshot of a table from Seeking Alpha as of 04 December 2020.

• The company had 2019 revenues of about $141 million (Polish Zloty 521 million) with net income margin of 22%.
• It has roughly 1,074 employees.
• The stock is up over 100% from its lows back in March 2020 and trades at just over $100 per share.
• The company only has about $5 million of debt and its enterprise value is nearly $12 billion, rivaling Ubisoft as one of the most valuable gaming companies in Europe.
• The company also shares its financials online in a dynamic manner.

Closing Words

Now you. What are some of your favorite cyberpunk games, books, movies, and music? Let us know in the comments.