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CD Projekt's market value continues to grow, now worth over $1.6 billion

But... how can they be profitable when their games are on PC? With all the pirating and whatnot and their really low prices on their games and no DRM to boot. I thought low game prices + PC pirating + no DRM spelled a death sentence for PC game profits?

Seriously though, I wonder what their most profitable platform is?
 
They're currently sitting on over $122 million in cash. The Witcher 3 cost them $81 million in total, with the marketing budget mostly paid in advance by the distributors (and repaid through the sales of the game). So yeah, they're doing very well.



It's growing steadily and generating profits, and the future looks bright with Gwent and Cyberpunk's multiplayer powered by GOG's infrastructure. One of the lead programmers from The Witcher 3 was moved to GOG to help them out too, so they're definitely trying hard to develop it in the right direction.

Thanks for the info!

the bit about gog infrastructure is interesting. what does that mean for sales of the game on steam? they would launch a separate gog launcher similar to how Ubi games work now?

Kind of fascinating.
 

boskee

Member
Damn. Assuming they invest heavily in Cyberpunk, it's going to be crazy.

They seem to have invested heavily in Cyberpunk. They currenty have over 300 people working on it, more than on The Witcher 3 during peak in production, so yeah.

But... how can they be profitable when their games are on PC? With all the pirating and whatnot and their really low prices on their games and no DRM to boot. I thought low game prices + PC pirating + no DRM spelled a death sentence for PC game profits?

Seriously though, I wonder what their most profitable platform is?

That would be PS4 AFAIR.
 

Nikodemos

Member
the bit about gog infrastructure is interesting. what does that mean for sales of the game on steam? they would launch a separate gog launcher similar to how Ubi games work now?
They might create a compact Galaxy client, sort of like the matchmaking bit minus the GOG frontend.
 

boskee

Member
Thanks for the info!

the bit about gog infrastructure is interesting. what does that mean for sales of the game on steam? they would launch a separate gog launcher similar to how Ubi games work now?

Kind of fascinating.

No idea. One of their employees is on record stating that Gwent will be released on Steam, so if that's true (and that hasn't been confirmed by the corporate yet), it surely won't require GOG Galaxy.
 

mindatlarge

Member
Seeing these guys get to this point from such humble beginnings while maintaining their integrity and loyalty to their fanbase throughout is quite refreshing.
 
It would be nice if the Eastern European flank would become a powerful factor in video gaming and IT.


The poles have a lot to be proud of regarding CD Projekt:)
 
Seriously though, I wonder what their most profitable platform is?

It's PS4 by a pretty good amount

Yup. CDPR seems to have developed quite a partnership with Microsoft so I'm pretty sure that's where we will see Cyberpunk 2077. The only question is whether or not it will be this or next years.

I think we will see it this E3. It will be early footage and I don't expect the game to be playable at the show but I think we get our first real trailer this year. It will be 2 years since Witcher Wild Hunts release this E3 and they have a pretty damnn large staff working on it. It should be in a presentable state by June in some capacity.

Right now I think they are aiming for a late 2018 release
 

Dalibor68

Banned
It would be nice if the Eastern European flank would become a powerful factor in video gaming and IT.


The poles have a lot to be proud of regarding CD Projekt:)

To be fair I think one could argue that there are already more/bigger developers in eastern(which is actually central, but whatever) than western europe.

Poland has CDProject Red, Techland, 11bit Studios, City Interactive(they produce budget games, but those are still fairly well known), Flying Wild Hog, People Can Fly, Reality Pump(Two Worlds).
Ukraine has 4A games, Frogwares and Ubisoft Kiev.
Czech republic has 2K Czech, Warhorse Studios, Bohemia Interactive.

What does Germany have? Nothing really aside from the failing Crytek and mobile / adventure studios.

France is strong though. And the North, which I wouldn't qualify as "western europe" however.
 
It has been one heck of a ride for them. Back when I played The Witcher in 2007 I knew they were something special but I never thought they would end up at the top of the AAA RPG pyramid.

What does Germany have? Nothing really aside from the failing Crytek and mobile / adventure studios.

Piranha Bytes. Elex is going to be great.
please
 

Spirited

Mine is pretty and pink
To be fair I think one could argue that there are already more/bigger developers in eastern(which is actually central, but whatever) than western europe.

Poland has CDProject Red, Techland, 11bit Studios, City Interactive(they produce budget games, but those are still fairly well known), Flying Wild Hog, People Can Fly, Reality Pump(Two Worlds).
Ukraine has 4A games, Frogwares and Ubisoft Kiev.
Czech republic has 2K Czech, Warhorse Studios, Bohemia Interactive.

What does Germany have? Nothing really aside from the failing Crytek and mobile / adventure studios.

France is strong though. And the North, which I wouldn't qualify as "western europe" however.

Didn't 4A games move to malta?
 

boskee

Member
Unfortunately, a lot of people here prefer to emigrate rather than set up local companies. The brain drain makes it difficult to create a sustainable environment.

I decided to emigrate to UK 9 years ago despite passing the interview @ CDP so yeah, it's true. Looking at the current state of the politics in Poland I have no desire to move back, even tho I miss my home city.

Still, there's plenty of startups popping up in Poland. All of them consist of former CDPR and Techland devs, which gives me hope. Fool's Theory, the guys responsible for Agony and the Strange New Things guys among others.

Right now I think they are aiming for a late 2018 release

Agreed.
 
To be fair I think one could argue that there are already more/bigger developers in eastern(which is actually central, but whatever) than western europe.

Poland has CDProject Red, Techland, 11bit Studios, City Interactive(they produce budget games, but those are still fairly well known), Flying Wild Hog, People Can Fly, Reality Pump(Two Worlds).
Ukraine has 4A games, Frogwares and Ubisoft Kiev.
Czech republic has 2K Czech, Warhorse Studios, Bohemia Interactive.

What does Germany have? Nothing really aside from the failing Crytek and mobile / adventure studios.

France is strong though. And the North, which I wouldn't qualify as "western europe" however.

Yeah France is really the outlier here. And then it is probably the UK that has the biggest concentration of talent studios.

Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal are big markets but also don't have a lot of big studios.
I can think of MercurySteam (Spain) but that is about it.

Taleworlds is Turkish but that is not really "europe" in the traditional sense.
 

Yep I'm almost sure of it given their laid out timeframe. They said they plan to release 2 more AAA games by 2021. If Cyberpunk hits in 2018 and the other AAA game (Witcher 4 imo) hits in 2021 that gives them a nice 3 years gap in releases starting with Witcher Wild Hunt.

Whether they are actually able to hit those milestones who knows but I think that's the plan
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
I'm happy for them. The Witcher games are fantastic and GOG is a great store. Can't wait for Cyberpunk 2077 and whatever else they put out.
 

Arulan

Member
Glad to see CD Projekt doing well. They're one of the few AAA developers today that still puts design first, and doesn't cater completely to the mainstream. GOG is also a fantastic platform, and one of the only competitors to Steam that shares the values of the PC. As long as CD Projekt remains independent, I think it'll become a strong competitor to Steam in the future.

It's PS4 by a pretty good amount

Source?

I find that hard to believe considering the last official statement was 10 million last March. Steamspy sits at 2.76 million, and we know from September of 2015 that GOG reached 1 million. The latter is likely a lot higher a this point. Then considering that digital makes almost double the profit of physical, and that in addition to that, their GOG sales are 100% profit, instead of the 70% of other digital storefronts, it seems very unlikely that any console could have surpassed that.
 

DemWalls

Member
Whether they are actually able to hit those milestones who knows but I think that's the plan

Exactly, I don't think they'll manage. Still remember when, at the end of 2011, they had 2 "AAA+" titles planned for 2014-2015, and we know how that went. Yeah, they were basically a different studio then, but their games have also become way more ambitious, so I don't expect them to hit the 2021 release for the second title. If it's an RPG as big as the others in their portfolio, that is.
 
That's great to hear. I hope they're able to successfully channel all this... success into a Cyberpunk 2077 that is somehow an even better The Witcher 3.
 

boskee

Member

You're right. They planned to release one in 2014 and another one in 2015. It's pretty clear they meant W3 (2014) and C2077 (2015).

Welp, W3 revised their plans and I'm fairly certain they've learned their lesson back then. Even if they haven't, I don't see C2077 released after EO 2018.
 
Source?

I find that hard to believe considering the last official statement was 10 million last March. Steamspy sits at 2.76 million, and we know from September of 2015 that GOG reached 1 million. The latter is likely a lot higher a this point. Then considering that digital makes almost double the profit of physical, and that in addition to that, their GOG sales are 100% profit, instead of the 70% of other digital storefronts, it seems very unlikely that any console could have surpassed that.

Eh it's possible. As of launch year console was the major source of revenue. The breakdown in units was 70% console, 30% PC, with PS4 selling more copies than Xbone so it accounted for a larger share of the console revenue. That gap may have shrunk over time with PC moving up, but during launch timeframe PS4 was certainly the revenue lead.
 

Arulan

Member
Eh it's possible. As of launch year console was the major source of revenue. The breakdown in units was 70% console, 30% PC, with PS4 selling more copies than Xbone so it accounted for a larger share of the console revenue. That gap may have shrunk over time with PC moving up, but during launch timeframe PS4 was certainly the revenue lead.

You're mistaking platform units sold breakdown with profit breakdown. A 30/70 split would easily put the (largely) all-digital and 100% GOG profits above any one console.
 
You're mistaking platform units sold breakdown with profit breakdown. A 30/70 split would easily put the all-digital and 100% GOG profits above any one console.

I'm not. It was a huge gap between console and PC opening time frame and we know Witcher 3 had a 25% digital rate on console where CDPROJEKT would get 70% of revenue from each sale.

PS4 was the lead source of revenue at launch time frame. Again that very well may have changed since then with the PC becoming lead source of profit but we haven't gotten breakdowns since last year
 

napata

Member
Eh it's possible. As of launch year console was the major source of revenue. The breakdown in units was 70% console, 30% PC, with PS4 selling more copies than Xbone so it accounted for a larger share of the console revenue. That gap may have shrunk over time with PC moving up, but during launch timeframe PS4 was certainly the revenue lead.

Even that is doubtful based on the launch revenue we got: 50% of their total revenue was from digital downloads with only 25% of their total sales being digital downloads.

I'm not. It was a huge gap between console and PC opening time frame and we know Witcher 3 had a 25% digital rate on console where CDPROJEKT would get 70% of revenue from each sale.

PS4 was the lead source of revenue at launch time frame. Again that very well may have changed since then with the PC becoming lead source of profit but we haven't gotten breakdowns since last year

I think you're mistaken. That 25% was for total sales, including PC. I assume the vast majority of the 25% are PC sales. Now you're combining consoles? How much would the PS4-XB1 split be? 50-20% in terms of total sales?
 
Even that is doubtful based on the launch revenue we got: 50% of their total revenue was from digital downloads with only 25% of their total sales being digital downloads.

Keep in mind PS4 sold more copies than PC. With that said yes it was 25% of course sole copies were digital, while PC was nearly 100% digital, but that 25% is still out of a very large number. The game had a 65% share on PS4 compared to Xbox One so it was a large majority of the console 70% split.

I feel pretty sure launch window was PS4 > PC > Xbox One.

It very well may be PC in the lead now.


I think you're mistaken. That 25% was for total sales, including PC. I assume the vast majority of the 25% are PC sales. Now you're combining consoles? How much would the PS4-XB1 split be? 50-20% in terms of total sales?

Whoa wait a second, 25% was total digital split with PC included? Witcher 3 launched that low in units on PC? I would assume of we included PC digital that share would go up quite a bit. I remembered that as being console digital split, guess I'm mis-remembering. That info was over a year ago though so that's likely why
 

napata

Member
Whoa wait a second, 25% was total digital split with PC included? Witcher 3 launched that low in units on PC? I would assume of we included PC digital that share would go up quite a bit. I remembered that as being console digital split, guess I'm mis-remembering. That info was over a year ago though so that's likely why

Yeah I googled it again to make sure. I found this GAF thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1116442.

PC-consoles was 30-70, like you said, but digital-physical was 25-75.

Not even at launch.

The Witcher 3 – Sells 1.3 Million Copies on PC, Out of 4 Million Total

693K was from GOG. Is it so hard to see how the significant revenue difference between digital, GOG digital, and physical, make that 1.3 million weigh in a lot more?

That's not really correct either. Any non-Steam copy counts as a GOG copy, including physical copies.
 

Lorcain

Member
Whoa...that's incredible. They deserve whatever success they've earned. I remember how cool they were with customers early on, and continue to be today.
 

Arulan

Member
That's not really correct either. Any non-Steam copy counts as a GOG copy, including physical copies.

I realize that. Physical is certainly in the minority. The article you linked to even states that digital made up 50% of revenue. That is, 25% of the sales is making up 50% of the revenue! Even if you apply that average directly (without taking into account the GOG difference), it doesn't take much to realize that a platform where digital vastly predominates compared to one where it is maybe 25%, is weighing in a lot more.
 
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