Takes
Cyberpunk 2077 shows what expectation debt costs, itemised
Eight million pre-orders covered the whole cost of the game before a single review. Eight days after launch Sony delisted it and refunded buyers, and the shares fell 43% from their peak. Expectation debt is the only zone where a product is a commercial success on day one and a liability by day eight.
The promise worked. CD Projekt reported more than 8 million pre-orders, and said digital pre-order revenue alone exceeded the game's entire production and marketing cost before a single review was published (TechCrunch). Then the interest came due.
Eight days
8M pre-orders
December 2020
Day eight
June 2021
Removing a game from the PlayStation Store with full refunds is almost without precedent for a platform holder. CD Projekt's shares fell as much as 20% that day (CNBC) and 43% from the near-record high reached in the run-up to release (Forbes). Analysts had expected a 30-million-plus seller. Expectation debt is the only zone in which a product can be a commercial success on day one and a reputational liability by day eight.
Through the model. Step 1 decided this one: score delivery at the bad week, not the best case. Cyberpunk's best case was the PC version, praised for its story and art direction. Its bad week was the base PlayStation 4, running at frame rates in the teens. The marketing was built on the best case, and pre-release review access was limited to PC. The promise sat above bad-week delivery by construction, which is the definition of expectation debt, and seven years of anticipation set it higher still.
The prescription was cheap and available: say plainly what last-gen consoles would get, or delay and move the bad week up first. Either costs months. The delivery-lever repair the company chose instead, patching the game toward the promise, took years. That is the efficiency argument in reverse. Leave the expectation lever untouched and the delivery lever has to do all the work, and it is always the more expensive of the two.
The twelve-employee version
The renovator who quotes six weeks because everyone else does, and delivers nine, is Cyberpunk with a smaller marketing budget. The quote wins the job and then pays interest in every conversation for the next three weeks. Score delivery at the bad week, quote that, and lose the customers who only ever wanted the impossible number. They were pre-booked disappointments.
Frequently asked questions
- Why did Sony remove Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store?
Because the base PlayStation 4 version ran at frame rates in the teens while the marketing had been built on the PC version, and pre-release review access was limited to PC. Eight days after launch Sony delisted the game and offered full refunds, a step almost without precedent. It returned in June 2021.
- What would the expectation management model have prescribed?
Lower the promise to the bad week, by saying plainly what last-generation consoles would get, or move the bad week up by delaying. Either costs months. The delivery-lever repair chosen instead, patching toward the promise, took years and is always the more expensive of the two.
