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CD Projekt's The Witcher Mobile Game Sees Technical Difficulties on Launch Day

A bird flies in front of the Cd Projekt logo at its headquarters in Warsaw, Poland January 21, 2020. (Reuters)
A bird flies in front of the Cd Projekt logo at its headquarters in Warsaw, Poland January 21, 2020. (Reuters)
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CD Projekt's The Witcher Mobile Game Sees Technical Difficulties on Launch Day

A bird flies in front of the Cd Projekt logo at its headquarters in Warsaw, Poland January 21, 2020. (Reuters)
A bird flies in front of the Cd Projekt logo at its headquarters in Warsaw, Poland January 21, 2020. (Reuters)

CD Projekt said that its mobile game “The Witcher: Monster Slayer” was now available to download after technical issues impacted its launch, in another glitch for the Polish company hit by the troubled release of “Cyberpunk 2077” game last year.

The Pokemon-style game, developed by CD Projekt’s Spokko studio, is based on the Witcher medieval fantasy series, where players hunt foul creatures in story-driven quests. It marks the group’s debut in augmented-reality technology.

CD Projekt told Reuters the technical problems that put the much-anticipated launch of the mobile game in service mode earlier, were now resolved.

The free-to-play game has so far had over 100,000 installs on Google Play and has a 3.6 score out of 5 based on 3,094 reviews.

In the reviews section of the store’s listing for the game, users were mentioning connection difficulties.

With Monster Slayer, CD Projekt is stepping up its efforts in the mobile games market, which is the fastest-growing segment in gaming, boosted by demand during the pandemic when many other forms of entertainment were shut down.

Global consumer spending on mobile games rose 17.9% to $44.7 billion in the first half of 2021, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower.

CD Projekt is mostly known for its high-budget productions and has so far only dipped its toes into mobile games.

While analysts have said that the financial potential of Monster Slayer remains uncertain, it could be supportive to the Witcher and Cyberpunk franchises if it proves a hit.

Maciej Kietlinski from Noble Securities, who estimated the game’s revenue at several dozen million zlotys annually, said such problems can happen on the day of the release and if they are resolved quickly, they should not have an impact on the game in the long run.

“Nevertheless, in the case of CD Projekt and the Cyberpunk PR mishap, the share price in the shorter term may be highly sensitive to any technical problems related to the launch of the mobile game.”

CD Projekt’s shares turned negative and closed 1.7% down after rising as much as 3.5% in the day.

Cyberpunk, CD Projekt’s flagship game featuring Hollywood star Keanu Reeves, was pulled from the Sony PlayStation Store shortly after its debut last year as gamers complained about glitches. It returned to the store last month.

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Technology

Meta, TikTok and YouTube Face Landmark Trial over Youth Addiction Claims

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Meta is seen at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 11, 2025. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Meta is seen at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 11, 2025. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
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Meta, TikTok and YouTube Face Landmark Trial over Youth Addiction Claims

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Meta is seen at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 11, 2025. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Meta is seen at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 11, 2025. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo

Three of the world's biggest tech companies face a landmark trial in Los Angeles starting this week over claims that their platforms — Meta's Instagram, ByteDance's TikTok and Google's YouTube — deliberately addict and harm children.

Jury selection starts this week in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. It's the first time the companies will argue their case before a jury, and the outcome could have profound effects on their businesses and how they will handle children using their platforms. The selection process is expected to take at least a few days, with 75 potential jurors questioned each day through at least Thursday. A fourth company named in the lawsuit, Snapchat parent company Snap Inc., settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum.

At the core of the case is a 19-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM," whose case could determine how thousands of other, similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out. She and two other plaintiffs have been selected for bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury and what damages, if any, may be awarded, said Clay Calvert, a nonresident senior fellow of technology policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

KGM claims that her use of social media from an early age addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. Importantly, the lawsuit claims that this was done through deliberate design choices made by companies that sought to make their platforms more addictive to children to boost profits. This argument, if successful, could sidestep the companies' First Amendment shield and Section 230, which protects tech companies from liability for material posted on their platforms.

“Borrowing heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry, Defendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue,” the lawsuit says.

Executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to testify at the trial, which will last six to eight weeks. Experts have drawn similarities to the Big Tobacco trials that led to a 1998 settlement requiring cigarette companies to pay billions in healthcare costs and restrict marketing targeting minors.

“Plaintiffs are not merely the collateral damage of Defendants’ products,” the lawsuit says. “They are the direct victims of the intentional product design choices made by each Defendant. They are the intended targets of the harmful features that pushed them into self-destructive feedback loops.”

The tech companies dispute the claims that their products deliberately harm children, citing a bevy of safeguards they have added over the years and arguing that they are not liable for content posted on their sites by third parties.

“Recently, a number of lawsuits have attempted to place the blame for teen mental health struggles squarely on social media companies,” Meta said in a recent blog post. "But this oversimplifies a serious issue. Clinicians and researchers find that mental health is a deeply complex and multifaceted issue, and trends regarding teens' well-being aren't clear-cut or universal. Narrowing the challenges faced by teens to a single factor ignores the scientific research and the many stressors impacting young people today, like academic pressure, school safety, socio-economic challenges and substance abuse."

Meta, YouTube and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

The case will be the first in a slew of cases beginning this year that seek to hold social media companies responsible for harming children's mental well-being. A federal bellwether trial beginning in June in Oakland, California, will be the first to represent school districts that have sued social media platforms over harms to children.

In addition, more than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming it is harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. The majority of cases filed their lawsuits in federal court, but some sued in their respective states.

TikTok also faces similar lawsuits in more than a dozen states.

Technology

EU Says WhatsApp to Face Stricter Content Rules

Teenagers pose for a photo while holding smartphones in front of a Whatsapp logo in this illustration taken September 11, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Teenagers pose for a photo while holding smartphones in front of a Whatsapp logo in this illustration taken September 11, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
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EU Says WhatsApp to Face Stricter Content Rules

Teenagers pose for a photo while holding smartphones in front of a Whatsapp logo in this illustration taken September 11, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Teenagers pose for a photo while holding smartphones in front of a Whatsapp logo in this illustration taken September 11, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

WhatsApp is set to face greater EU scrutiny after the European Commission on Monday added the platform to its list of digital firms big enough to face stricter content rules, AFP reported.

The Meta-owned company joins Facebook, TikTok, X and others in a list of 26 "very large online platforms" with more than 45 million monthly active users in the European Union, a commission statement said.

As such it will face tougher obligations under the bloc's Digital Services Act (DSA), but they will apply only to WhatsApp channels, a broadcasting feature, rather than the platform's core messaging feature.

Technology

Social Media Giants Face Landmark Trial Over Addiction Claims

The TikTok logo is displayed at a TikTok office on January 23, 2026 in Culver City, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
The TikTok logo is displayed at a TikTok office on January 23, 2026 in Culver City, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Social Media Giants Face Landmark Trial Over Addiction Claims

The TikTok logo is displayed at a TikTok office on January 23, 2026 in Culver City, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
The TikTok logo is displayed at a TikTok office on January 23, 2026 in Culver City, California. (Getty Images/AFP)

A landmark trial beginning this week in Los Angeles could establish a legal precedent on whether social media companies deliberately designed their platforms to addict children.

Jury selection is set to start in California state court on Tuesday in what is being called a "bellwether" proceeding because its outcome could set the tone for a tidal wave of similar litigation across the United States.

Defendants in the suit are Alphabet, ByteDance and Meta, the tech titans behind YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

Meta co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is slated to be called as a witness during the trial.

Social media firms are accused in the hundreds of lawsuits of addicting young users to content that has led to depression, eating disorders, psychiatric hospitalization and even suicide.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs are explicitly borrowing strategies used against the tobacco industry in the 1990s and 2000s that faced a similar onslaught of lawsuits arguing that companies sold a defective product.

The trial before Judge Carolyn Kuhl in state court is expected to start the first week of February, after a jury is selected.

It focuses on allegations that a 19-year-old woman identified by the initials K.G.M. suffered severe mental harm because she was addicted to social media.

"This is the first time that a social media company has ever had to face a jury for harming kids," said Social Media Victims Law Center founder Matthew Bergman, whose team is involved in more than 1,000 such cases.

The center is a legal organization dedicated to holding social media companies accountable for harms caused to young people online.

"The fact that now K.G.M. and her family get to stand in a courtroom equal to the largest, most powerful and wealthy companies in the world is, in and of itself, a very significant victory," Bergman said.

"We understand that these cases are hard fought and that it is our burden to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that K.G.M. was harmed by the design decisions of these companies - that's a burden that we happily undertake."

- Design not content -

A decisive outcome of the trial could provide a "data point" for settling similar cases en masse, according to Bergman.

Snapchat last week confirmed that it made a deal to avoid the civil trial accusing it, along with Meta, TikTok and YouTube, of addicting young people to social media.

The terms of that deal were not disclosed.

Internet titans have argued that they are shielded by Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, which frees them of responsibility for what social media users post.

However, this case argues those firms are culpable for business models designed to hold people's attention and promote content that winds up harming their mental health.

"We are not faulting the social media companies for failure to remove malign content from their platforms," Bergman told AFP.

"We are faulting them for designing their platforms to addict kids and for developing algorithms that show kids not what they want to see but what they cannot look away from."

Lawsuits accusing social media platforms of practices endangering young users are also making their way through federal court in Northern California and state courts across the country.