I think you should google the definition of the word “generous”. They did not offer refunds until their hand was forced. It’s like if a restaurant served you a raw steak and then gave you a refund for it, would you call them generous? No the steak shouldn’t have been raw in the first place.
Was the game a scam the whole time? Maybe for the developers it wasn’t but from managements perspective it feels like it. Once again, they are a multi BILLION dollar corporation. Everything they do is calculated.
Generous: showing a readiness to give more of something, as money or time, than is strictly necessary or expected.
They have offered full refunds for the PC version, which is perfectly functional and highly praised by most accounts, and they did it pretty much immediately? Not sure how you could argue that was necessary. Being ambitious with creating a brand new ip rather than just milking the Witcher annually ubi-style, or adding paywalls and micro-transactions was also more than expected of a multi billion dollar company coldly calculating all decisions. All the physical and digital extras with the game (the equivalent or better than a $120 Ubisoft or EA Gold / Ultimate / BS edition) I would also say are generous. Were the first few delays in the midst of the COVID pandemic calculated as part of some corporate scheme to generate hype? Not everything always goes according to plan, and when it came time that another delay was probably necessary, they said no, we can’t delay again, it’s good enough, release it and we will fix it more later like everyone else does. That seems the most likely explanation for how things played out, not some nefarious scheme.
I just think the hate and negative impact to many’s livelihoods is out of proportion, especially when it seems to me they had good intentions with the product they were / are trying to create, and their positive past history of generous improvements and support with the Witcher 3. Just got released before it should of for too many platforms at once, the worst of which are un-optimized and buggy, but that’s certainly nothing new. I welcome this new precedent that Sony has set though, if it applies to all going forward. No more games released until they are complete and ready.