CD Projekt did an amazing job with Witcher 3, but the fact is that Witcher 2's E3 video is one of the more infamous examples of graphics being severely downgraded once the final product ships. Witcher 3's E3 video contains very little gameplay but the cut schenes included have noticably worse graphics in the same cut scenes in the actual game. Gwent's E3 video barely contained any gameplay at all, and it wasn't representative of the released game at all.
CD Projekt retained trust because Witcher 3 is an amazing game - not because they delivered games with graphics matching their E3 videos.
> the fact is that Witcher 2's E3 video is one of the more infamous examples of graphics being severely downgraded once the final product ships
I just watched a W2 side-by-side comparison and I really don't see it. Yes, some textures look less sharp in the release version, but only some. The rest seems to just be a colour grading thing. In any case, the two look so similar to me that I don't see what the controversy was about. Also, the enhanced edition, which everyone who bought the release version got for free some months later, included a ton of graphics improvements which make W2 IMHO surpass the E3 demo's visual quality easily.
Of course -- In most cases it's about texture quality and quality of the lightning effects, and I honestly believe many E3 shots are better because they're taken at a point where the game is done enough to show it off, but before the Q/A team started reporting stuff like bad performance on 95% of consumer hardware (or in Witcher 2's case, the Xbox 360) or that the game filled to much to fit on X discs.
I was just pointing out that CDPR retains their reputation based on the quality of their games, and not because they deliver a final product that matches gameplay videos presented at E3.
The Xbox version came out about 9 months after the PC version came out, so while they designed it with consoles in mind, I doubt too much of the "downgrade" on PC were because of the console version.
> I was just pointing out that CDPR retains their reputation based on the quality of their games
Yes, absolutely. CDPR aren't immune to criticism and get plenty of it, they just deal with it well and don't suffer from it because they've built a reputation of amazing games and of being consumer friendly. Most of us can overlook the criticism since its quite minor in the grand scheme of things.
CD Projekt retained trust because Witcher 3 is an amazing game - not because they delivered games with graphics matching their E3 videos.