I draw a line with pre-orders and day zero buys depending on my willingness to take the ride on a sucky game. And by that I mean, being on the ground to witness it. That can be its own experience. You get to see what people will only tell embellished and gleamed-over fables about. Buy the ticket, take the ride. And when you get the message, hang up the phone. Don't keep waiting for more, or yammering on. That's my attitude. Other people will just have different temperaments about it. I can be easy come, easy go. Or I can be going "Oohooohhhoooohooo... MURDER. DEATH. UNCOUNTABLE RETRIBUTION IS NEEDED FOR THIS GRIEVOUS INJUSTICE." Best part is.. it's always dumb shit that nobody cares about, but I can't ignore. So it's a nice, alienating feeling when everyone either ignores me or downplays it like it's irrelevant because it's not a big deal for them. Generalizing across the greater gamerspace here. Not callin anyone out, just sayin! It really be like that out here.
So I get it. Prefer the former over the latter when I can manage it, though lol
Cyberpunk was one where I knew it could be very good and/or very bad. I knew I wasn't getting anything I could imagine. So I tried not to imagine and let my curiosity be the main point of entry. And I had a greahhht fukken time, when both taking it seriously and not.
Still extremely dubious of CDPR. I'm sorry, man. Too much. Too much... I can't resonably keep remotely the same standard for them. They need to do it right first. And be fair and honest. Calling a lot of things 'mistakes' is being incredibly charitable. They're getting roasted because people expected better from them. Other studios don't get it as bad because the bar was already lower in their cases. Whereas here, CDPR boosted the signal to Jupiter, and the community surrounding them took it beyond Pluto.
Let this be a lesson in expectations. For players and marketers alike. I think that's the silver lining. This is impactful. I have zero doubts that the needle tipped... at least a little. You see it. You feel it inside of you as you look out at the landscape.
Since yall are mentioning 76... I have 3 bethesda titles in my list of absolute favorite game experiences... and I passed on 76 completely. Just didn't care to even know about it. I drew a line on the kind of crap I would put up with, and couldn't trust 76 to not cross it in a bunch of ways just on the premise and what I understand them to be capable of.