Completing an IT project and releasing it into service is always an extremely exciting and satisfying moment and delivering it within a pre-determined timeframe and budget certainly ramps up the joy … but also the pressure!
When your confidence in going live is shaken by bugs or issues, and your stakeholders are breathing down your neck, what do you do?
When PM friend Fiona found herself in this exact position recently, she gained a valuable insight, not from an experienced colleague, or a trusted IT Advisory partner. Fiona’s mentor was her teenage son!
THE STORY OF CYBERPUNK VS GTA 6
“I was chatting with my husband over a glass of Pinot about a work issue,” Fi told me, “my IT project was due for delivery but had some glitches, that day we’d been debating delaying or launching and fixing the bugs with the project live. Then I overheard my son, Charley, chatting online with his friends and without realising, he gave me the exact advice I needed”
If you’re a gamer (or have gamers in the family) you may be familiar with these titles: ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ (developed by ‘CD Projekt Red’) and ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ (Rockstar Games). You may also know of the post launch troubles of the former and the strategic delays of the latter.
Both games were delayed, but Cyberpunk was, with hindsight, given a rushed launch. It was buggy, glitchy and in Fiona’s son’s words “borderline unplayable”. It took the development team 2-3 years to fix the bugs, restore trust and catch up with their planning on future projects.
Charley said, “I wish they’d waited. It’s mint now!!”
Grand Theft Auto, meanwhile, was given a delay of a year to make sure that the game lived up to massive anticipation placed on it, rather than rushing it out to make a quick buck.
What is a video game, if not an IT Project?
Probably like Fiona, reading this, you’ve nodded your head in a “been there, done that kind of way”. I have!
There are many parallels between the challenges we face and what these game developers had to deal with … and some valuable lessons too! There are also some PMaasS (Project Management as a Service) insights to lift your game to the next level!
LESSON 1: RUSHING TO LAUNCH CAN TEST TRUST
Cyberpunk 2077 was super hyped, but when it launched, plagued by the issues mentioned, the company took a hit to its reputation which had to be repaired with updates, patches and bug fixes spanning years.
Many IT projects rush to meet deadlines at the expense of readiness. When systems go live half-baked, underwhelming and potentially unusable, the consequences can include costly reworks potentially leading to lengthy setbacks for other projects in the pipeline, and a loss of user confidence which can be extremely difficult, sometimes impossible to recover.
NEXT LEVEL – PMaaS Insight:
PMaaS professionals aren’t just delivery leads, they can also be reality-check agents. They bring impartiality, data-driven planning and analysis, and the experience to push back when unrealistic timelines threaten outcomes. Their independence can protect your internal team from being railroaded by external pressure.
LESSON 2: DELAYS CAN BE STRATEGIC
GTA 6 has been in development for years (predecessor GTA 5 released nearly 12 years ago!) Despite multiple rumours and leaked dates, Rockstar Games continues to prioritise readiness over release. The delay is calculated, and anticipation continues to build. Fans trust Rockstar to deliver quality based on a history of industry defining products, games that are often played for years after launch.
In our projects too, delaying a system launch can feel like failure. But if the extra time results in higher quality, fewer issues, and better user adoption, it’s a strategic investment – not a setback that could buy you and your team years to work on your next project, continuing a successful cycle of top-quality products and large ROI.
NEXT LEVEL – PMaaS Insight:
A PMaaS partner worth its salt brings a “fresh pair of eyes” and robust go/no-go processes, using quality gates, performance metrics, user readiness assessments, etc, Stoneseed PMaaS talent have helped businesses avoid premature launches.
LESSON 3: MANAGE THE HYPE BEFORE IT MANAGES YOU
Both games were subject to intense public scrutiny!
Cyberpunk was announced way back in 2012, started full development in 2016, and was released in 2020. That’s a long time in tech, in gaming it’s a hardware life cycle! PlayStation 4 would launch in 2013 and PlayStation 5 in 2020, roughly mirroring Cyberpunk’s development, it’s argued that Cyberpunk overpromised and underdelivered in terms for readiness for the next generation of hardware it would release on.
Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto 6 is the latest instalment in a franchise spanning decades. Rockstar kept things close to their chest, drip feeding information about their game and only sharing what they want to share when they were ready to share it! This satisfied consumers, stakeholders and the media leaving Rockstar to quietly get on with working on the game.
In IT project management, excitement around a project’s deliverables can build long before delivery is ready. Over selling and over sharing, well before its ready can create poorly managed hype, breeding stakeholder disappointment and misaligned expectations, and can add unnecessary pressure to your team.
NEXT LEVEL – PMaaS Insight:
PMaaS talent can bring strong stakeholder management capabilities, translating delivery updates into meaningful business language, ensuring expectations are aligned, tempered, and — most importantly — managed with transparency.
LESSON 4: FIXING IT AFTER THE FACT IS ALWAYS MORE EXPENSIVE
After its rocky launch, Cyberpunk 2077 spent years issuing updates and patches. The damage control effort cost time, money, and developer focus.
“Launch now, fix later” is a common but costly approach in IT. It can increase user resistance, and eats up budgets with emergency workstreams, which can significantly reduce ROI and profitability in the long term.
NEXT LEVEL – PMaaS Insight:
With a Stoneseed PMaaS engagement, governance and Quality Assurance are baked into the delivery rhythm. One colleague, on a recent attachment, introduced testing cycles, user feedback loops, and even pilot launches help catch issues early – in this instance reducing costly rework and ensuring that support teams weren’t left cleaning up avoidable messes.
LESSON 5: REPUTATION IS EARNED OVER TIME, LOST IN A FLASH
Rockstar has earned a reputation for delivering polished, immersive games. That legacy buys them time and trust. CD Projekt Red’s reputation was also one of high quality and they had garnered massive trust over many years of successful and near flawless games, the hit this took after Cyberpunk’s launch has taken several years to repair.
Garrett Ettinger, writing for Screen Rant, wrote that he’d had the 2020 version of Cyberpunk refunded but had since bought the repaired product and it was his “favourite game of 2024”.
In our game, IT teams are only as good as their last big release – a poorly executed launch can undermine years of good delivery and good-will, shaking confidence in future initiatives.
NEXT LEVEL – PMaaS Insight:
PMaaS talent can help your organisation build a delivery track record that earns trust, sharing best practice, consistent governance, better processes, objective reporting and, of course, those skills! PMaaS can help IT teams shift from reactive to reliable – and protect your reputation!
CLOSING THOUGHTS: ROCKSTAR THINKING FOR ENTERPRISE DELIVERY, DON’T LEAVE YOUR PROJEKT’S PROFITS IN THE RED
Delaying the release of your project may temporarily frustrate stakeholders but it can prevent years’ worth of headaches, lost ROI and “catch-up investment”.
Project Management as a Service can give you the tools, talent, and often, truth-telling to deliver successfully.
Your perfect PMaaS partner should feel like an extension of your team – bringing consistency, structure, and the courage to suggest … “not yet”.
And that’s always better than GAME OVER!
More about Project Management as a Service from Stoneseed
Sources
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-55364935
https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/media/news/postponement-of-cyberpunk-2077-release
https://screenrant.com/cyberpunk-2077-refunded-2020-replaying-2024-retrospective