CD Projekt Red Franchise & Lore Designer For 'The Witcher 4' Described Cyberpunk 2077 Players As "Fascistic, Unempathetic, And Depraved" As Well As "Poisonous And Predatory Wankers"
Cian Maher, CD Projekt' Red’s Franchise & Lore Designer, who is working on the upcoming The Witcher 4 game previously called CD Projekt Red’s paying customers “fascistic, unempathetic, and depraved” as well as “poisonous and predatory wankers.”
Maher, who has been working at CD Projekt Red since April 2023 previously worked at The Gamer from September 2020 through December 2021 as an Associate Editor and then the Lead Features Editor.
Maher wrote an article published in December 2020 at The Gamer titled “People Who Call Cyberpunk 2077 Perfect Are The People That Cyberpunk Warns Us Against.”
As part of the article, he declared, “While I can recognize that CD Projekt’s marketing of Cyberpunk 2077 leaned into the edgelord egos of a demographic that rhymes with bin sell, the sheer volume of people who have exposed themselves as irredeemably malicious lowlifes over the past few months - and the past few days in particular - is not just just disheartening, but legitimately frightening. I was always aware of the malevolent mob, although I never recognized its alarming number of proponents.”
After generalizing Cyberpunk 2077 players, he then pointed to specific examples and rightfully derided individuals who were trying to trigger a seizure in former GameInformer writer Liana Ruppert as “deplorable.”
He wrote, “I wonder if they realize that by sending critics who have notified the world of potentially life-threatening sequences in the game videos that could triggers seizures in real life, that their actions are deplorable beyond human comprehension.”
Ruppert wrote a piece at Game Informer sharing that she suffered a major seizure while playing the game, “During my time with Cyberpunk 2077, I suffered one major seizure and felt several moments where I was close to another one. I kept going because I made that decision to, and I feel like that decision helped me sort of slap together a small little guide for players wanting to take part in this game for fear of missing out.”
She also claimed on X, “I’ve been sent hundreds of videos disguised as support that are deliberate flashing to induce photosensitive triggers. If you’re sharing this saying you’re epileptic and receive a video, don’t press play. I’m back to being on my ass. Be better, please.”
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However, he then claimed Cyberpunk 2077 were harassing so-called trans people.
Maher wrote, “I wonder if they realize that by harassing trans writers who have rightfully and justifiably critiqued Cyberpunk 2077’s haphazard and sometimes harmful representation of trans people, that they themselves are the exact kind of people that cyberpunk is designed to destroy: fascistic, unempathetic, and depraved proponents of a regime designed to foster irreversible and indiscriminate misery in technophilic dystopia.”
A bit later in the article, he declared, “The people who perceive Cyberpunk 2077 as some impenetrably perfect game - the vast majority of whom haven’t so much as played a single second of it - are a gross testament to the members of society it - and the cyberpunk genre at large, - paint as antagonistic. It is a weird form of voyeurism that is frighteningly and almost unbelievably ignorant of itself.”
“I can assure you of one thing: the people who call Cyberpunk 2077 perfect and refuse to acknowledge its failings are the very same people who have no place in the society that cyberpunk warns against,” he declared. “As the internet drowns in vitriolic virulence in anticipation of the game’s full, unadulterated launch, these people are sharks in the water, hungry for blood. But we are not living in Cyberpunk, and we have not yet reached technophilic dystopia - we can suppress their hatred by starving them until they cannibalize each other, and revel in the humanity that Cyberpunk 2077’s quieter moments offer, away from the maelstrom and free of the people it has exposed as poisonous and predatory wankers.”
None of this is surprising coming from Maher. YouTuber The Reviewer: Wild Take uncovered dozens of posts to Twitter and X showing what Maher thinks of gamers.
In one post, he made it clear he wants to physically punch them.
In another he described them as “toxic little weirdos.”
What do you make of Maher’s article? What do you make of CD Projekt Red hiring someone like Maher who openly hates and disparages its customers?
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All the people that made fun of you for reading comics, playing video games and watching Star Wars are now in charge of making these products. The more stuff comes out about Witcher 4 the more terrible it sounds. CDPR is cooked.
Pandering to the very vocal minority hasn't worked out for anybody else, let's see how CDPR plans to do the exact same thing and get different results.