Work Reform

Yes GOG, owned by CDPR. It's the same people running the show. I think you're imagining the business as far larger than it is. Hell, the business back when Witcher 3 first came out was much smaller than it is even now.

However things have definitely changed with CDPR. That happened during the Cyberpunk development, which is what I was trying to point out.

I don't have a source on Keanu Reeves pushing it. It's my own rationalisation - a theory, but one that fits well. Also, to be clear, I'm not talking about Keanu Reeves the person, I'm talking about Keanu Reeves the Hollywood actor who as a legal entity is represented by a team of agents, negotiating contracts on his behalf.

Keanu Reeves is a Hollywood A-lister, his team has all the weight when it comes to contractual negotiations with CDPR. They negotiate Hollywood contracts. Hollywood expects a movie to take more or less a fixed amount of time, then payment will come in. This does not fit well with game development, which can very easily suffer massive delays. In the past, CDPR have been more than aware of this, and have readily delayed games to get them closer to a finished state. However, CDPR did not do this with Cyberpunk, they pushed and pushed and pushed to get it out the door, coupled alongside a massive Hollywood-style marketing campaign.

Like I say, this is speculation. I don't claim that this is exactly what happened. However, it seems far more likely than almost every other explanation I've read. CDPR were at the height of their game before Cyberpunk, it's hard to imagine that they wouldn't have enough capital (particularly with ongoing income from GOG) to tick things over until the game was finished - unless they had some bigger player they needed to satisfy.

The only bigger player involved in Cyberpunk 2077 is Keanu Reeves.

Edit: Also, for clarification, CDPR is both the developer and the publisher in this instance. They're pretty small time for a publisher, compared to the likes of EA and others, but it's not hard to imagine they'd have visions of loftier heights. One way of doing that is getting a Hollywood star on board, even if it's costly and you have to negotiate a contract that doesn't work well for you.

Regardless, ultimately CDPR almost certainly released early for financial reasons. The exact explanation for that is private, we can only speculate. However I think you're probably right about the "shitty publisher" behaviour - in fact I think most of it falls down to the attitude of just one man in a semi-senior position at CDPR. I'm terrible with names though.