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Coca-Cola Zero Sugar would be the firm’s greatest supply of progress in 2021, CEO says

Coca-Cola Zero Sugar will be the company's biggest source of growth in 2021, CEO says

The biggest source of growth for Coca-Cola over the next few years is likely to be the company’s sugar-free version of the company’s soda of the same name.

“In fact, Coke Zero Sugar will be the best growth driver in ’21 and likely for the few years to come,” said James Quincey, CEO of Coke, in an interview that aired on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” Friday.

The drink was launched nationwide in 2017 as an updated version of Coke Zero, which was 12 years old at the time. Coke Zero Sugar was designed to be more similar to traditional Coke soda, but still appeal to health-conscious consumers by omitting the sugar. And the product has paid off for the company, fueling sales growth even during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Coke Zero grew through Covid in 2020 and is the biggest growth driver for the company in absolute terms,” ​​Quincey told CNBC’s Sara Eisen.

Quincey pointed out Coke’s Topo Chico Hard Seltzer and AHA Sparkling Water as new products that did well in the early days of their launch.

Other beverage launches like Coke Energy have been challenged by the current crisis. Executives told analysts on Feb.10 that they would double Coke Energy this year after lockdowns impacted its first launch earlier last year.

Coke’s stock is down 16% over the past 12 months, bringing it to a market value of $ 215 billion.

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HNA Was As soon as China’s Largest Dealmaker. Now It Faces Chapter.

HNA Was Once China’s Biggest Dealmaker. Now It Faces Bankruptcy.

HONG KONG – Lenders are pushing for bankruptcy. Its chairman and co-founder has been tacitly stripped of power. Almost $ 10 billion of his money was misappropriated.

HNA Group, the giant Chinese conglomerate that has thrown tens of billions of dollars in trophy deals around the world, is nearing the biggest corporate collapse in recent Chinese history. The downsizing is an extraordinary twist for the company, which began as a regional airline in southern China’s Hainan Province and owned large stakes in Hilton Hotels, Deutsche Bank, Virgin Australia, and others. At that time, HNA employed 400,000 people worldwide.

For China’s leadership, HNA is now a cautionary story. Its story offers a glimpse of how Beijing treats its most powerful entrepreneurs. China has got its economy tighter, and regulators recently conquered another empire – that of China’s most famous billionaire, Jack Ma.

“It is a sharp reminder to China’s private sector and big soaring corporations and executives that you are never more important than the Communist Party,” said Jude Blanchette, a China scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Narrowing down large companies isn’t exactly central planning, but it certainly sets guidelines for how companies behave to make sure they’re going in the right direction.”

The pressure on companies whose behavior could pose a risk to the Chinese financial system is mounting. Xi Jinping, China’s leader, told a meeting of senior officials from the country’s Communist Party late last month that the government must foresee and anticipate risks even if it seeks growth. He urged officials to make plans to deal with the “gray rhino” events, highlighting major and obvious problems in the economy that are being ignored until they become urgent threats. Chinese media had often referred to HNA as a gray rhinoceros before its demise.

The party has strengthened its hand in private business in recent months and urged entrepreneurs to identify “politically, intellectually and emotionally” with their goals. It has also pledged to prevent something called “disorderly capital expansion,” an indication of the type of lavish spending on borrowed money that HNA had become known for.

The party’s recent high profile targets include Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba Group. In December, the authorities launched an antitrust investigation into the company Mr. Ma co-founded. A month earlier, days before a planned IPO of Mr. Ma’s financial giant Ant Group, regulators stepped in to stop this.

HNA was once the face of modern enterprise China, leading the first wave of private Chinese companies with political backing to make large global acquisitions. His propensity to fund borrowed money to buy shares in global famous names was expensive and risky, and seemed to dare regulators in Beijing and around the world to turn it upside down.

As HNA’s creditors wait for a Chinese court to approve their bankruptcy and reorganization petition, questions about the extent of the conglomerate’s problems arise. It has $ 200 billion in debt that it can’t pay off, and those owed money have to sift through dozens, possibly hundreds, of its subsidiaries, said Michelle Luo, a bankruptcy attorney at Hui Ye law firm.

The task became even more daunting when three of HNA’s subsidiaries announced late last month that HNA shareholders and dozen of subsidiaries had embezzled nearly $ 10 billion in corporate funds to repay their own debts. The HNA Group was one of dozens of shareholders and subsidiaries listed in the alleged allegedly money embezzled. Hainan Airlines, one of HNA’s subsidiaries, said some funds were used to pay for wealth management products but did not disclose specific details.

HNA’s bankruptcy is the largest China has seen since the country first implemented its bankruptcy law in 2007, Ms. Luo said. It will also test the strength of the law – only 76 publicly traded companies have gone through bankruptcy proceedings in China.

Much of HNA’s restructuring is likely to take place behind closed doors and with strong government involvement. Officials from China’s Civil Aviation Administrator and the China Development Bank, the country’s main political bank, took over management of some of the company’s affairs last year, and two government officials joined the board of directors.

The fate of Chen Feng, chairman and co-founder of HNA, has been in doubt since he was removed from a list of members of the HNA Communist Party Committee, the company’s main decision-making body, according to an official release late last month.

While building HNA, Mr. Chen shaped his corporate culture with his own personal interests as a Buddhist and calligrapher. Mr. Chen, a former People’s Liberation Army pilot, said he was different from other entrepreneurs. “I don’t drink, smoke, do banquets, go to karaoke or get massages,” he once told the South China Morning Post. He had the company headquarters in Hainan built to look like a Buddha.

For years, doors opened for the company. It was cheaply funded by China’s state-sponsored banks. The executives had the kind of political connections that private companies in China could only dream of.

On his first state visit to the UK, China’s top leader Xi Jinping performed at an event in Manchester for HNA’s Hainan Airlines. Mr. Chen was once an advisor to Wang Qishan, China’s vice president. Another HNA manager partnered with the son of Wen Jiabao, the former prime minister of China, the New York Times reported in 2018.

HNA also had an influence abroad. One of the earliest supporters was George Soros, the billionaire. Executives mingled with Wall Street power brokers at black-tie galas and met with leaders in Washington. You have a business deal with Governor Jeb Bush. They attempted to buy Skybridge Capital, an investment firm co-founded by Anthony Scaramucci who at the time expected to create a link between the White House and the US business community. (The deal was canceled after companies realized regulators weren’t going to approve it.)

But the glory days of HNA were numbered as the authorities in China began to question the enormous debt that HNA and some of its politically affiliated counterparts such as Anbang Insurance Group, Fosun International and Dalian Wanda took up to fuel their global shopping spree.

Authorities took control of Anbang, a troubled insurance conglomerate that owned the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, and sentenced its founder, Wu Xiaohui, to 18 years in prison for fraud. Wanda, the former owner of AMC Entertainment, and Fosun, which owns Club Med and luxury fashion house Lanvin, quickly sold some of their overseas acquisitions.

As HNA turned to its own growing bill, it began to lose some of its businesses. She also tried to borrow money from her own employees by offering them high-yield investment products.

The Chinese government has not commented on the decryption of the HNA. The China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Hainan Supervision Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission did not respond to a faxed request for comment. HNA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

China’s state-controlled news media has tried to portray HNA’s bankruptcy process as a measure aimed at protecting the company’s assets rather than trying to get to the heart of them.

“The focus of bankruptcy and restructuring is not on ‘destruction’ but on ‘building’,” said a comment in Shanghai Security News. “It can also be seen as ‘rebirth’.”

On Chinese social media, some customers of HNA’s airlines asked if their tickets would be refunded, while people who had invested in its investment products complained that the company would repay the banks before returning any money it received from normal Had borrowed people. Others said they weren’t surprised at the company’s ultimate fate.

“In the end, the HNA Group still failed,” wrote Chen Haijian, a finance professional in Nanjing, on his personal page on WeChat, a Chinese social media platform.

“It feels like people have been saying this phrase for over 10 years.”

Cao Li contributed to the coverage from Hong Kong.

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Inconsistent provide is largest problem, says NJ hospital CEO

European Medicines Agency authorizes use in EU

Michael Maron, CEO of the Holy Name Medical Center, told CNBC on Tuesday that its New Jersey hospital’s Covid vaccination efforts had been hampered by a consistent problem: inconsistent availability.

“The biggest challenge we are currently facing is delivering the vaccine. We just can’t get it and we can’t get it any reliable way. It’s very difficult,” said Maron at the Power Lunch.

“One week we have Pfizer, the next week Moderna,” he added, referring to the manufacturers of the two vaccines, which have received emergency approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. “We never know exactly how much of it is, whether it’s a thousand doses … or two thousand or more.”

The Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, near New York City, has so far administered about 5,000 doses of the vaccine, Maron said. However, according to Maron, the hospital can deliver 3,000 doses a day, in part thanks to a partnership with Teaneck to set up a vaccination center at a community center.

According to a post on Teaneck’s official website, 570 residents received the vaccine locally on Monday. Due to the “lack of vaccine available,” wrote community administrator Dean Kazinci, the website will be closed on Tuesday – an example of the supply problems Maron referred to.

“Holy Name Medical Center is waiting for additional trays of the vaccine to arrive mid-week. We will post additional information as it becomes available,” Kazinci wrote.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Holy Name website will also inform visitors that the hospital is not planning any Covid vaccination appointments “at this time” due to availability restrictions.

The rollout of Covid vaccines in the US has been slower than officials had hoped. According to the latest available data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 12.3 million doses had been administered as of Friday. 31.2 million cans were distributed.

President-elect Joe Biden, who will take office on Wednesday, has vowed to accelerate the introduction of the vaccine, with a pledge to deliver 100 million doses in 100 days. On Sunday, Biden’s election to head the CDC said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, she believes the US would have sufficient vaccine supplies to meet the target.

“It’s going to be a tough lift, but we’ve got enough to do that,” Walensky said on CBS ‘Face the Nation.

Covid hospital stays

While Covid vaccinations are crucial in limiting the effects of the disease, Maron warned that the U.S. coronavirus outbreak is a current threat. On Tuesday, the death toll in Covid exceeded 400,000, just over a month after 300,000 deaths were recorded. This is based on data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Maron said Covid hospital stays at Holy Name Medical Center are not at the level of the pandemic as they were in March and April. The hospital now has better treatments for patients too, he said. Still, he said a worrying aspect was the age of the patients who were hospitalized with the disease.

“It’s not who you would think,” said Marron. “They’re mostly people between the ages of 45 and 65, so these aren’t the frail elderly people everyone was talking about. They’re the ones who work on the ventilators, so we were a little worried.”

He said it was not clear what caused the hospitalizations among younger U.S. residents. “For us here in the industry, it’s a reminder that this is still a very, very serious and deadly virus. We shouldn’t take it lightly.”

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Carmakers Put Their Greatest Faces Ahead

Carmakers Put Their Biggest Faces Forward

Every generation of automotive design has its Mona Lisa – and its Dogs Playing Poker.

We had tail fins (time for a comeback?) And the replica convertible tops of Landau vinyl roofs (I judge my parents cruelly – but rightly – after this difficult decision of the 1980s). Do you remember the sharp-edged rear ends of the Cadillac Seville, Lincoln Continental, and Chrysler Imperial? No? Lucky you.

We can look back on 2020 when automakers reached their peak. Of course there is this pandemic and political chaos. But more than ever there are bars inside. Grids are big. Grids are bold. Grilles are a little unnecessary on some cars, but there they are. Some might qualify for their own zip code if they weren’t on wheels.

To understand why, it is helpful to understand the difficulties automakers face in creating great designs. Cars and trucks are global products that must meet what appears to be a myriad of global government safety and fuel efficiency standards. Imagine if a new law student has to pass the American, German, Japanese, Korean, and Swedish bar exams to be able to work. I rest my case, Your Honor.

Automakers are spending billions of dollars to face the regulatory blizzard and sculpting silhouettes to cheat the wind. We only see the styling that surrounds the technology. Design is the hiss, the emotion, at least a tiebreaker when choosing a vehicle.

When Akio Toyoda took over the presidency of the company with his family name on the building in 2009, he famously declared: “No more boring cars.” Now look at the list. My God, what a big face you have, Camry.

“Years ago Lexus had no identity,” said Kevin Hunter, president of Toyota’s Calty Design Research Studio. “The attempt was made to be a brand for everyone, which neutralized our position and identity.”

This is how the spindle lattice was born. The exaggerated hourglass shape is now the distinctive face of Lexus, Toyota’s luxury brand. Originally compared to Predator or Darth Vader’s mask, it quickly shared different camps. And that’s fine with Mr. Hunter.

“We call the identity our own, very different from our competitors,” he said. “It’s very big and polarizing, that’s true, but we like the fact that we’re polarizing now. It means we’re pushing the envelope and taking more risks. Consumers are realizing it – the radiator grille connects our cars as a coherent unit. “

Since aerodynamics dictate car design, the front is the best place to add character to vehicles. People don’t buy the cars they forget. You may not like Picasso’s Cubism era, but you will know when you see it.

It might come as a surprise, but automakers aren’t necessarily trying to appeal to the broadest possible audience. Ask Domagoj Dukec, Head of BMW Design, what the brand stands for and he says: “Be stunning and make a difference.” Mission accomplished with the BMW 4 Series Coupé 2021. The current “it” car for maximum face, it takes the classic double kidney grille of the brand and turns the optics to 11. Maybe 12.

The design has drawn attention that money can’t buy – exactly what Mr. Dukec and his team were aiming for.

“Design is the emotional approach to every product experience,” he said. “It is of course very subjective. Not everyone will like it, but it has to have a personal and individual meaning to the customer. This can vary from product to product. A businessman would not want this bold face of the 4 Series in his 5 Series. “

Economy & Economy

Updated

Jan. 6, 2021, 1:10 p.m. ET

BMW is no stranger to the styling controversy. In a 10-year run that began in 1999, Chris Bangle highlighted designs that were so polarizing that there were backends commonly known as “Bangle Butts”. Now many see Mr. Bangles’ designs as groundbreaking.

Mr. Dukec understands that not everyone will like the 4’s large nostrils. But they convey the message.

“It’s very characteristic in our portfolio and clearly BMW,” he said. “Polarize, yes, but that’s very welcome because people want to show off.”

Another grill of the year contender can be found throughout the Genesis lineup. The so-called Crest Grille is an elongated version of the emblem between the wings of the brand badge. And it’s as big as Seoul.

Bold? Certainly. However, the scarcity of the brand’s new GV80 SUV suggests that the designers did something right.

“You could absolutely hate the grille,” said Jarred Pellat of Hyundai’s luxury brand, “and that’s what I love about the Genesis design. The designers aren’t afraid to make strong statements while building a brand from scratch. We don’t have the history of some of our German competitors – we can be innovative with design. The Crest Grille tells people this is a Genesis, like a second logo. “

Jeeps Wrangler’s round headlights and seven-slit grille are a real trademark of the brand (though the lights were square for a spell from the late ’80s). Jeep is defending it like a Rubicon scratching rough terrain suing General Motors’ Hummer division and most recently Indian automaker Mahindra.

Fun Fact: All Jeeps have a seven-slot grille, but “not all of them actually work,” said Mark Allen, Jeep Design Director. “It’s completely blocked on the compass, but it’s far from useless: they say this is a jeep.”

This robust American image helped the mark grow from 350,000 at the beginning of Mr. Allen’s tenure in 2009 to 1.5 million in sales. Jeep is the most successful American brand in what is known to be the closed Japanese market. It can’t hurt that the Wrangler is the most iconic vehicle in the world. Oh, and its grille is bloody big.

Andrew Smith, Executive Director of Cadillac Design, said, “Ultimately, design is about making the customer feel special so that they stand out from the crowd.” While the brand’s front signature is large vertical LED Chases are, few models, like the Escalade, have an acre face area.

“We don’t do a Russian doll design that has a small, medium, and large version of an SUV,” said Smith. “They’re all Cadillacs, but they’re different, and the grille wants to be proportional to the face of the vehicle.”

He added, “In the case of Escalade, the Giant Maw is functional. People haul it, it hauls a lot of people and cargo, so there needs to be an airflow to cool the engine. “The same goes for pickups.

Cadillac has announced it will accelerate the transition to electrification, starting with the Lyriq SUV in late 2021. Electric vehicles will challenge designers. Without a motor to cool down, the fronts still play a big role.

“Lyriq’s face will have complex lighting to make it look like a really luxurious vehicle,” said Smith. “We also have Super Cruise and new autonomous technologies with sensors that have to be in the front of the vehicle. We design surfaces that are flush and clean to place these sensors in such a way that they are invisible to the customer.

“The front will continue to give identity, like a kind of belt buckle,” he added.

BMW Mr. Dukec agrees. “Our upcoming iX electric vehicle has almost no openings in front of it,” he said. “The characteristic twin kidneys that announce that it is a BMW are closed because it is an electric vehicle. However, there are cameras and sensors in the kidneys that cannot see through color.”

And these kidneys? You guessed it, they are huge.

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The Largest Tendencies of TikTok 2020

The Biggest Trends of TikTok 2020

It’s been well over two years since TikTok arrived in the U.S. in August 2018 and offered a rejoinder to anyone who believed social media was lost. The app had it all: social comments, comedy, crafts, memes, challenges, makeup tutorials, and of course, dances. Even those who weren’t completely convinced couldn’t avoid the videos that were spreading on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.

As of April 2020, TikTok had been downloaded more than 2 billion times. As of the fall, it had an estimated 850 million monthly active users.

Despite the growth in size and scope, the uninitiated still largely see the app as a tool for other, much younger people. “TikTok is a kids dance app where kids upload videos of themselves for kids and adults to enjoy,” comedian Nathan Fielder joked recently. While TikTok changed the online dance culture, the platform has grown into a rich social and entertainment network. And in 2020 there was hardly a corner of society that it did not touch.

The most obvious effects of TikTok can be seen in the entertainment world. “More than any other social network since Myspace, it feels like a new experience, the emergence of a different kind of technology and a different kind of media consumption,” wrote journalist Kyle Chayka in November.

Primarily responsible for the uniqueness of the TikTok ad experience is the For You page, an algorithmic feed that delivers the content that you are likely to find appealing. You don’t have to follow or be chased by a single person to see the videos you want to see or to let the target audience see your videos, which has made a rapid rise to fame for many people. In 2020 alone, top users such as Charli and Dixie D’Amelio and Addison Easterling collected tens of millions of followers and became well-known names. The D’Amelios even landed a Hulu show.

The app has also reinvigorated the music industry, becoming a place to discover talent, market new songs, produce new music together, and mix tracks.

TikTok has an undeniable influence on what people wear and buy. In 2020, TikTokers appeared in campaigns for Louis Vuitton and Prada that were signed and trendsetting with agencies like IMG Models (think cottagecore and the strawberry dress). Gucci took on a challenge that taught people how to style items in their closets to look like Alessandro Michele’s runway models. (If you have a headscarf, turtleneck, and brightly colored accessories, you’re halfway there.) Mass market brands have adjusted to influencers too. Hype House Merch is sold at Target, for example.

“It goes beyond the outfits and into the creative expression,” Kudzi Chikumbu, director of the Creator Community at TikTok, told Vogue.com in December. “TikTok is a place of joy and offers the fashion industry a completely new way of presenting its art and personality.”

While physical stores closed in the first few months of the pandemic, new brands and stores emerged on TikTok, using the platform to drive online orders. Vintage resellers use TikTok to sell their wares and revive old styles. Large retailers like Sephora, Dunkin ‘, and GameStop even encouraged their employees to become TikTok influencers.

Service reps were some of the first to choose TikTok in 2018, and in 2020 people got a whole new perspective on their lives. Warehouse workers, fast food workers, and baristas turned to TikTok for a glimpse into their lives, sometimes finding accidental fame in the process. In 2020, many of their industries were hard hit by the pandemic and used TikTok to promote fundraising and relief efforts.

As the coronavirus continued to spread, TikTok also played an important role in the public health arena. Nurses, doctors, and other frontline health workers used TikTok to talk about the risks of contracting Covid-19, explain the importance of wearing masks, and break down misinformation about vaccines. (Many have also documented their vaccinations on the platform.)

Patients with coronavirus and other diseases have recorded their health journeys and are connected to the outside world from their hospital beds.

With support across the country this summer for the Black Lives Matter movement, TikTok became a place where young activists talked about police brutality, what it means to be an ally and criminal justice reform, and the app’s relationship with blacks Creators could speak.

Political activism was fruitful in the app too. In June, TikTok users organized a campaign to raise visitor expectations for President Trump’s campaign event in Tulsa. Photos from the event showed a sparse crowd with plenty of free spaces. After the event, longtime Republican strategist Steve Schmidt wrote on Twitter: “America’s teenagers dealt a heavy blow to @realDonaldTrump.”

One of the earliest and most visible trends at TikTok in 2020 was the Renegade, a dance choreographed by Jalaiah Harmon (15) to the song “Lottery” by the Atlanta rapper K-Camp. Most popularized by white influencers, the dance opened a dialogue about black creators and gave recognition where it is due.

In 2020, the viral food culture migrated from Instagram to TikTok. The platform popularized pancake cereal, whipped coffee, and carrot bacon. It also helped young talent like 18-year-old culinary darling Eitan Bernath be discovered and teach millions stuck at home during quarantine how to cook.

TikTok songs and audio tracks provided the soundtrack through 2020. The platform lifted new artists out of the dark at a rate the music industry had never seen before. It put songs like Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” back in the spotlight and introduced new ones to the mass audience.

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Cyberpunk 2077 Was Imagined to Be the Largest Video Sport of the Yr. What Occurred?

Cyberpunk 2077 Was Supposed to Be the Biggest Video Game of the Year. What Happened?

The hype around Cyberpunk 2077 had been building for nearly a decade.

When CD Projekt Red, the Polish studio behind the video game, announced the title in 2012, it was billed as a gripping, free-flowing saga that would immerse players in a lifelike sci-fi universe. Since then, fans have been treated to impressive teaser trailers, buy-in from celebrities including Keanu Reeves, Grimes and ASAP Rocky, and headlines heralding it as the most anticipated title of the year, if not the century.

The game is set in a dystopian future where digital nomads navigate a high-stakes world of corporate espionage (with Mr. Reeves as their guide) and augment their bodies with high-tech weaponry. Players, especially those using next-generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft, were promised a revolutionary experience, with extensive character customization options and an expansive world to explore. Eight million people pre-ordered copies, sight unseen, ahead of its December release.

In July 2018, as anticipation for the game neared a crescendo across Twitter, one user tweeted at the official Cyberpunk 2077 account: “Will there be memes in the game?” The account responded: “Whole game is going to be a meme.”

The tweet was somewhat prescient — but not in the way developers had hoped.

Since the release of Cyberpunk 2077 on Dec. 10, thousands of gamers have created viral videos featuring a multitude of glitches and bugs — many hilarious — that mar the game. They include tiny trees covering the floors of buildings, tanks falling from the sky and characters standing up, inexplicably pantless, while riding motorcycles.

These videos depict a game that is virtually unplayable: rife with errors, populated by characters running on barely functional artificial intelligence, and largely incompatible with the older gaming consoles meant to support it. Fans are livid.

So many gamers demanded refunds from distributors this week that they overwhelmed Sony’s customer service representatives and even briefly took down one of its corporate sites. In response, Sony and Microsoft said they would offer full refunds to anyone who purchased Cyberpunk 2077 through their online stores; Sony even pulled the title.

Cyberpunk’s rollout is one of the most visible disasters in the history of video games — a high-profile flameout in the midst of the holiday shopping season by a studio widely considered an industry darling. It shows the pitfalls gaming studios can face when building so-called Triple-A games, titles backed by years of development and hundreds of millions of dollars.

But it is also a tale that insiders said they saw coming for months, based on CD Projekt Red’s history of game development and warning signs that Cyberpunk 2077 might not live up to its sky-high expectations.

CD Projekt Red was founded in Warsaw in the 1990s by two high school friends, Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński, during a time of transformation and growth in the gaming industry. (CD-ROM discs were a novel innovation back then.) The two began importing games from the United States, and essentially repackaging and republishing them in Poland.

“By the time school was out we had both become truants, skipping classes to play games,” Mr. Iwiński said in an oral history of the studio.

Early employees who spoke to The New York Times described the company’s leaders as deft marketers, storytellers and artistic visionaries. They said that their enthusiasm for their games often ran ahead of their engineering and technical prowess. The employees spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

The company’s ambitions were astronomical early on, as were some of its failures. In the early aughts, CD Projekt Red made a play to develop The Witcher, a popular series of books by the Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, into an immersive video game franchise.

But the first Witcher game, released in 2007, was buggy and stuffed with more features than it could support. Former employees who worked on the game said it would take three to five minutes to load basic screens.

Employees said that often, much of the game development took place in-house, bucking the common industry practice of contracting out such tasks to other, more experienced studios. As a result, the developers created worse versions of features that had been perfected by other companies.

Still, the Witcher series gained the studio an early following and fan base. The studio received the most acclaim for The Witcher 3, which won awards for its detailed universe and rich storytelling. Like earlier titles, it was buggy from the outset, frustrating players. But most fans accepted what they saw as a kind of test-and-release culture around CD Projekt Red games: a willingness to put out projects that were not yet problem-free.

Then came Cyberpunk 2077. First announced in 2012 and based loosely on a tabletop role-playing game created in 1988, the title was CD Projekt Red’s first attempt at creating a new, futuristic world.

It was to be set in Night City, a darkly dystopian megacity where humans and machines were fused together and repackaged as mercenaries, carrying out sabotage missions against evil corporations. The game would combine elements from some of sci-fi’s greatest hits: Strange Days meets Blade Runner meshed with The Matrix.

To hammer that point home, CD Projekt Red cast a familiar famous face in the game: Keanu Reeves. At a development conference in 2019, the actor burst onto the stage in a cloud of smoke after a video revealed his character.

“Let me tell you, the feeling of being there, of walking the streets of the future, is really going to be breathtaking,” Mr. Reeves said at the event. (A spokeswoman for Mr. Reeves did not respond to a request for comment.)

Inside CD Projekt Red, it was a very different story. Developers were increasingly concerned with some of the grand promises being made by management on the promotional marketing tour. Far into the game’s development, former employees said, the hyper-customizable and endlessly explorable world being sold to players was nowhere close to manifesting.

By 2019, chatter began to circulate in Polish game development circles that CD Projekt Red was way behind schedule with Cyberpunk 2077, even with a release date set for the following April. Some saw the departure of top executives — including key board members — as major warning signs.

On Glassdoor, a site where people can rate their previous employers, current and former CD Projekt Red workers said there was chaos behind the scenes: Office rumors spreading on Discord servers, misleading deadlines set by managers, infighting among the company’s top brass, and incompetence and poor planning leading to unnecessary “crunch,” a term for overworking employees to produce games under a tight deadline. Longtime engineering staff left the company as a result of overwork.

“The owners treat the company as a machine to earn money, and do not see employees as people but more like data in the table,” one former employee wrote on the site.

This January, CD Projekt Red tweeted that the game’s release had been delayed until Sept. 17, because there was “still work to be done.” Then, in March, the coronavirus pandemic caused CD Projekt Red to send its work force home.

Though the company said remote work would not hurt Cyberpunk’s chances of a September release, executives eventually announced further delays. The game was pushed to Nov. 19 in order to “fix a lot of bugs.” It was the same story in October, when the game’s release date was pushed to Dec. 10, at the height of the holiday shopping season.

Inside CD Projekt Red, as executives and communications staff geared up for a wide release, the problems were evident. While developers had created a functioning game for PC users, Cyberpunk was glitchy and crashed frequently on next-generation consoles like the PlayStation 5 and the new Xbox devices. Even worse, the game barely ran on older consoles like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Typically, game developers send early copies of new titles to reviewers with ample lead time. But CD Projekt Red kept Cyberpunk 2077 under wraps for as long as it could. The company only shared advance copies of the PC version with gaming publications and news organizations, previewing the best possible version of Cyberpunk to reviewers who would post their ratings online just days before the game’s release.

For months, reviewers, including those at The New York Times, tried to obtain review copies for the new game consoles released by Sony and Microsoft this year. Stephanie Bayer, a spokeswoman for CD Projekt Red, said in a previous email correspondence that the company would “hold off sending our console codes until close to launch” so that they could “send them securely.” That never happened.

Early reviews mentioned some issues with bugs, but the impressions were largely positive. Excitement continued to build until the game was released on Thursday, Dec. 10.

Eager fans were thrilled to finally be playing the game for the first time. Ashley Shoate, a D.J. in Northville, Mich., said she was amazed at the detail on her PlayStation 5, and loved the ability to customize her character, literally, to the teeth.

Then came the bugs. Ms. Shoate said it was impossible for her character to complete basic tasks like running, dodging and picking up weapons. Steering a car was so challenging that she felt like she was “drunk driving.” On one mission, Ms. Shoate had to sneak up and kill an enemy with a katana sword.

“I’m bringing a knife to a gunfight, so I’ve got to be on my P’s and Q’s. I can’t even do that,” she said. “It’s almost unplayable.” For the time being, she’s shelved the game.

“I really thought it was going to be to that level of top-three game ever on a new console,” she said. “It’s very disappointing.”

Billy Marte, an account executive at a software company in Austin, Texas, said he bought into the high expectations and the commercials with Mr. Reeves. Playing on his PC, he loved the story line and missions, but was often frustrated by glitches that made his character stand up while riding a motorcycle, or forced him to backtrack to an earlier saved game. Some of his friends, he said, had decided to return Cyberpunk.

“There was so much there, but they just didn’t pay attention to the details,” he said. “It’s evident that this game was rushed.”

Almost as soon as the game arrived, players began posting screenshots of the most glaring glitches on social media. Entire subreddits are now devoted to the frequent, nonsensical bugs users observed as they traversed deeper into Night City.

One frequent glitch includes characters going into “T-Pose” — standing with their arms raised to either side — and suddenly losing their pants. Users on Reddit described the phenomenon as “straight Donald Duckin’ it.”

Other bloopers include characters being flung through buildings seemingly out of nowhere and cars exploding for no reason. The non-player characters, or N.P.C.s, act so unnaturally that they can ruin the gaming experience.

One Reddit user posted a video of him throwing a grenade into the middle of a freeway at rush hour, only to see every N.P.C. open their car doors, leave their vehicles and crouch for cover simultaneously, as if choreographed by a professional dance troupe. (Someone else quickly edited the video to mimic the opening scene from “La La Land,” in which drivers abandon their vehicles to dance in the middle of the freeway.)

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game have this many gaffes, this often, this early into a release,” said Chris Person, a video producer who runs Highlight Reel, a YouTube show dedicated to video game bloopers and glitches. “Broken games can be super charming when they’re funny, like you’re seeing the strings on a puppet in a bad movie.” Two of Mr. Person’s most recent shows have been dedicated almost entirely to Cyberpunk glitches.

Most players, though, are pretty unhappy. On Thursday, Sony said it would refund players who wanted to return the game and pulled Cyberpunk from the company’s digital storefront. A PlayStation spokesman said the company had nothing further to add beyond its decision. Microsoft also said on Friday that it would issue refunds, but did not remove the game from its online store.

CD Projekt Red said Friday that it would refund disappointed players “out of our own pocket if necessary.” The company’s stock has dropped 41 percent since early December. Ms. Bayer, the company spokeswoman, declined to comment on a detailed list of questions provided by The Times.

Inside the studio, there has been infighting and finger-pointing. In a contentious meeting with board members on Thursday, CD Projekt Red staffers pressed executives on the game’s unrealistic deadlines and false promises. Management was tight-lipped about its tense discussions with Sony, Bloomberg reported on Friday, though people at Sony are upset at CD Projekt Red’s initial handling of the situation, people close to the company said.

The immediate future looks dark for Cyberpunk’s makers — perhaps even darker than the future they built in Night City. Refund requests are pouring in by the thousands. Lawyers and investors in Warsaw are circling the situation, contemplating a class-action lawsuit against the company for what one attorney described as potential criminal “misrepresentation in order to receive financial benefits.” Many gamers are swearing off playing Cyberpunk entirely until the company fixes all of the problems.

The coming weeks will determine whether CD Projekt Red can make good on a promise it made back in 2017, when players wondered whether the title would ever come out. “Worry not,” the company tweeted, assuring fans that Cyberpunk 2077 would be “huge” and “story-driven.”

“No hidden catch, you get what you pay for.”

Categories
Business

Shares making the most important strikes after the bell: Roku, Amgen & extra

Stocks making the biggest moves after the bell: Roku, Amgen & more

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Check out the companies making headlines after Wednesday’s bell:

Herman Miller – The office furniture company’s shares rose 0.8% on a better-than-expected result. Herman Miller reported earnings per share of 89 cents, beating a FactSet estimate of 56 cents per share. The company’s sales also increased 7% over the previous year.

Roku-Roku shares rose more than 3% after the company announced it would be transporting HBO Max on its platform.

Amgen – Amgen rose 0.3% after the biotech company increased its quarterly dividend from $ 1.60 per share to $ 1.76 per share.

Categories
Politics

Meet the Electoral School’s Largest Critics: A number of the Electors Themselves

Meet the Electoral College’s Biggest Critics: Some of the Electors Themselves

“You happened to ask people if they would be a voter,” said Justin Sheldon, a lawyer suing on behalf of Mr. Wright. (Mr. West was prevented from appearing on the Virginia ballot because of the program.)

Those seeking to reform the system have recently seen hope in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement in which states agree to only send voters for the candidate who wins the referendum.

So far, 15 states and the District of Columbia have voted to join, representing 196 votes. The pact, which has worked its way through state houses for more than a decade, would go into effect if states with 270 voters agree, enough to rule the race.

Ms. Baca, the electoral college skeptic, backed the Colorado deal, which was passed by lawmakers last year and voted in a referendum in November. But she says that’s not enough.

“We have to go much further,” she said, noting that the electoral college was set up by the constitution and is therefore difficult to circumvent. “We have to change the constitution and let democracy work as we have told other democracies it should work.”

In 2016, Ms. Baca, who is also a former state lawmaker, received her largest platform to date to position herself on the electoral college.

That year, Mr. Trump lost the popular vote to Ms. Clinton by nearly three million votes, but won the electoral college and became president. With the help of a Colorado voter Michael Baca, then a Jamba Juice employee in his early twenties who had nothing to do with Ms. Baca, she began recruiting Republican voters to switch her votes from Mr. Trump. They became what the electoral college calls “unfaithful voters,” people who do not vote for the winner of the majority of the votes in their state.