In our recently posted summary of the entertainment industry's reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine we mention but don't fully detail CD Projekt Red's response.

It's now being reported that CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 has been review bombed on Steam.

The Gamer point to a Mixed score for Recent Reviews, with only 59% being positive.

In November we commented on the surge in positive Steam reviews for CP 2077 so we know this to be aberrant but no-one needs to take our or The Gamer's word for it.

On CP 2077's Steam page click on the offending Mixed, then Show Graph.

The larger graph on the left shows lifetime reviews with most around the time of launch and most of those positve (light blue and above the line).

On the right is a smaller graph showing just the past month and you can see a sharp spike in negative reviews (below the line and orange) over the past few days.

CP 2077 released a major update mid February. Hence the mid-month increase in review numbers.

What was CD Projekt Red's response to the invasion?

As we mentioned in our summary, they were one of the earlier game developers to protest the invasion.

They've made humanitarian donations of money and personal care products.

Most recently - on March 4 - they halted all sales in Russia and Belarus.

In light of the Russian military invasion in our neighbouring country of Ukraine, until further notice the CD PROJEKT Group has made the decision to halt all sales of our games to Russia and Belarus. Today, we begin working with our partners to suspend digital sales and cease physical stock deliveries of CD PROJEKT Group products, as well as all games distributed on the GOG platform, to the territories of Russia and Belarus.

The entire CD PROJEKT Group stands firm with the people of Ukraine. While we are not a political entity capable of directly influencing state matters, and don't aspire to be one, we do believe that commercial entities, when united, have the power to inspire global change in the hearts and minds of ordinary people. We know that players in Russia and Belarus, individuals who have nothing to do with the invasion of Ukraine, will be impacted by this decision, but with this action we wish to further galvanize the global community to speak about what is going on in the heart of Europe.

To our brothers and sisters fighting for their home country - stay strong!

In terms of their own games, CP 2077 was their most recent release back in December 2020. They're unlikely to be selling a huge amount of copies at this point so wouldn't stand to lose much on this front.

The Good Old Games digital sales platform for their own and other developers' games has never been as popular as Steam but is still one of the oldest and most widely recognised.

So GOG taking this stance is significant regardless of how much or little they lose.

Steam and Epic Games are the two majors.

Epic is making concessions for professional Fortnite (an Epic created game) players unable to compete in tournaments because of the crisis but the Epic Games Store continues to trade as usual.

They are 40% owned by Chinese multinational Tencent, who do not support Ukraine.

Steam also appear to be trading as usual but Russian developers using state-owned banks are unable to receive payments courtesy of sanctions.

[ Main Image: Cyberpunk 2077 Recent Reviews Graph. Credit: Steam. ]

References

CD Projekt Red [@CDPROJEKTRED] (March 5, 2022). CD PROJEKT teams #StandWithUkraine. Twitter.

CD Projekt Red [@CDPROJEKTRED] (March 5, 2022). In light of the Russian military invasion in our neighbouring country of Ukraine, until further notice the CD PROJEKT Group has made the decision to halt all sales of our games to Russia and Belarus. Twitter.

CD Projekt Red [@CDPROJEKTRED ] (February 26, 2022). The recent invasion on Ukraine, our friends and neighbours, left us shocked and outraged. Twitter.

Foster, George (March 4, 2022). Cyberpunk 2077 Is Getting Review Bombed On Steam Following CDPR's Stance On The Ukraine War. The Gamer.

Steam. Cyberpunk 2077. (viewed March 6, 2022)

Troughton, James (March 1, 2022). Sanctions Stop Russian Steam Developers From Getting Payouts. The Gamer.

Vatsa, Shubhendu (March 1, 2022). Fortnite takes a noble stand for pros affected by Russia-Ukraine crisis. Sports Keeda.

Wikipedia. Tencent. (viewed March 6, 2022)