IbizaPocholo
NeoGAFs Kent Brockman
https://seekingalpha.com/article/42...-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single
We opened the Wrocław branch, thanks to taking over Strange New Things studio. People in the industry decided to work with us on cyberpunk. It's a very apt team that started working right away on our game. So, the most important thing, we started cyberpunk campaign. We started it on the most important fairs, E3 in LA that took place in June. Shortly before the fairs, during Microsoft conference on Xbox, our trailer was presented for the first time in an incredible way. It was sort of a crowning of the Microsoft conference and it was really very emotional for us.
The trailer was then placed on the Internet and until today, it was viewed more than 25 million times. It’s an absolute record in terms of our video materials. And during the fairs, we were showing a 50-minute piece of the gameplay. Every hour, we showed it behind closed doors and we invited representatives of the media influencers and business partners. All in all, the piece of the gameplay was seen by more than 1100 people. Thanks to this, during E3, the game won more -- won new awards, more than 100 awards during E3. That's twice as many as the Witcher 3 on Analogous [ph] Fair, when we were showing it for the first time in 2013.
We were showing the game to make sure that people write about it and this is what happened. And you can see the first covers of magazines and there was a lot of coverage in the electronic media. Actually, almost everyone wrote about cyberpunk and the opinions were absolutely positive. Later on, we were showing the game on gamescom in a similar model, and yesterday, we launched the piece of -- this piece of gameplay, you can see it, it's available on YouTube. It's 48 minutes of the demo that we were showing during the fairs in LA. Today, I'd like to show the first six minutes of the gameplay. The whole of it is available online and I encourage you to see it after the conference. We keep working on cyberpunk, so you see as not necessarily representative of the final quality of the game.
Question-and-Answer Session
Q - Unidentified Analyst
Hello. I have a question as to yesterday’s gameplay. And your -- the reactions of players you got. As you mentioned, in free and in gamescom, the gameplay was only available to a limited group of people, mainly media representatives, but the feedback from players and the broad spectrum of users must also be very interesting. Did your marketing specialists already manage to process that feedback?
Adam Kiciński
Well, I haven't read through any summary whatsoever, but I have read through the feedback and the general tone of feedback is very positive. We are more than interested in what the players are thinking. We’re quite self-conscious because the game like we said in a presentation is not in its final stage and I don't mention imperfections, I also mean some solutions that are still subject to change. But following these two trade events, we decided we owed that to the players that we should show them what we've got. [indiscernible] reception by our environment, by the media that saw the demo in free and in gamescom was very positive. So what we can see, what we can read through the feedback, what I managed to read tonight, that was more than positive. But read through the feedback yourself. I guess, this is the best method for you to assess the feedback we're getting.
Piotr Nielubowicz
Well, we've not been discussing it, but cyberpunk is by far the largest project, more than three times larger in terms of team involvement and a lot has been happening in Q2 related to cyberpunk and it was mainly due to the trade events. This is not a permanent trend in terms of our quarterly CapEx level. Well, it's always so that the closer it is to the launch, the more we're spending on the launch. Here, that peak was related specifically to the development of material for E3 and gamescom, but we are also hiring more and more people in the team. So just like you saw in that slide, quarter by quarter, our outlays -- our expenditures are growing steadily and that's good, because the closer we’re to the launch, the more ready the game is and the more the fixed costs go up, as GWENT and Thronebreaker too. So, we are getting into that cycle of heading towards the launch.
Unidentified Analyst
A question about cyberpunk. On the one hand, we've heard that cyberpunk is a game play, which you can play from the very start to the very end, but you keep saying that you have been developing the game. So what will be developed? Are we polishing the world -- are you polishing the world or as the plot constantly developed, are you adding new elements or are you just polishing the product?
Adam Kiciński
Well, you saw today and what is available on YouTube, the 47 minute is the polished piece, but not the whole game. The rest of the game, well, there's no good word in Polish. We say that it's a framework. You can go through it till the very end, but you don't want to see this. We can’t show it at this level. But from a production point of view, this is the way it should be, this is how you develop games, but still there is a lot of work ahead of us.
Unidentified Analyst
[indiscernible] I think it's working. Yes, it's working. Well, I have the following question. Regarding gameplay cyberpunk, on the one hand, you're saying that this is the polished version, not the whole game looks like this. On the other hand, well, you're still working on it. So the question is this, have you completed like 80% of the game more or less?
Adam Kiciński
We don't give an answer to this question, because we haven't announced the deadline of the launch. So we don't want to make any suggestions whatsoever in this regard. What we are saying is, I think, it's all coherent, because we picked a piece of the game, when we went further in terms of development, we polished a lot of elements, but we know that some of the solutions at this level, these are not final solutions, some elements may change, not because they're bad, but because we may have even better ideas.
There are certain imperfections, what you can see to the naked eye, but the rest of the game does not look like this. The rest of the game looks differently, but like I said, we have the general framework and the development work has been progressing according to the time schedule and we have an avid proof for that. The presentations during gamescom and E3 were planned exactly like that. This was an outcome of a long term plan and we did deliver with a lot of efforts, but we did. So we've been following the plan. So this gameplay, it stayed as of June. Well, this gameplay, it stayed as of between June and today.
Unidentified Analyst
Good morning. I have a question as to what you're showing in your presentation now. Is this is one-off concept or is it more, do you believe that's what your CD is going to look like, are these buildings going to be interactive, will you be able to enter each and every of them and each and every floor levels?
Adam Kiciński
This is one of the concept, it’s developed for the fair. But I believe, it is representative and so far, as everything that we are showing today is representative, with this big reservation that this game is still subject to change. When talking about design details, we don't want to go any deeper than that. What we showed you in the demo and the comments, this is all we want to tell you about the game as of today. So I'd like to avoid answering this question, because I don't feel, well, this is not when we would like to discuss the game design, because the game design is included in that 48 hours of gameplay, please watch it, listen to the comments and this is all we have to say on this topic today.
Unidentified Analyst
And one last question, probably, you're not going to respond, but I have to ask. How about next IP? According to the strategy, you were supposed to be working on another AAA game. So do we know what kind of IP is going to be? Can we learn anything about that? And if not today, then when?
Adam Kiciński
Well, for now, we're focusing on cyberpunk. We have started cyberpunk promotion. And GWENT, obviously, it's a separate subject, but we're going to continue talking about cyberpunk 2077 only in our communication. It's an obvious and a conscious choice. We want this to be the only topic we are discussing. What comes next, we will discuss next, not necessarily after the launch, but definitely not at this point. But this is not anything you're working on. It's not GWENT, it's not cyberpunk. This next AAA game, no. No, not GWENT, not Thronebreaker. Thank you.
Unidentified Analyst
One of those questions without the answer, probably and between the release of the first gameplay of the Witcher 3 and the actual release, some two years past. What will it look like for cyberpunk? Maybe due to more people working on cyberpunk, the progress of work should be bigger or considering the complexity of the project.
Adam Kiciński
Well, the period of work is comparable as in the case of the Witcher 3. Yes, you're right, we can’t answer this question. Well, yes, the project is more complex and the speed is faster. Yes. More people are involved in cyberpunk than Witcher, but the game is more ambitious, clearly more ambitious.
We opened the Wrocław branch, thanks to taking over Strange New Things studio. People in the industry decided to work with us on cyberpunk. It's a very apt team that started working right away on our game. So, the most important thing, we started cyberpunk campaign. We started it on the most important fairs, E3 in LA that took place in June. Shortly before the fairs, during Microsoft conference on Xbox, our trailer was presented for the first time in an incredible way. It was sort of a crowning of the Microsoft conference and it was really very emotional for us.
The trailer was then placed on the Internet and until today, it was viewed more than 25 million times. It’s an absolute record in terms of our video materials. And during the fairs, we were showing a 50-minute piece of the gameplay. Every hour, we showed it behind closed doors and we invited representatives of the media influencers and business partners. All in all, the piece of the gameplay was seen by more than 1100 people. Thanks to this, during E3, the game won more -- won new awards, more than 100 awards during E3. That's twice as many as the Witcher 3 on Analogous [ph] Fair, when we were showing it for the first time in 2013.
We were showing the game to make sure that people write about it and this is what happened. And you can see the first covers of magazines and there was a lot of coverage in the electronic media. Actually, almost everyone wrote about cyberpunk and the opinions were absolutely positive. Later on, we were showing the game on gamescom in a similar model, and yesterday, we launched the piece of -- this piece of gameplay, you can see it, it's available on YouTube. It's 48 minutes of the demo that we were showing during the fairs in LA. Today, I'd like to show the first six minutes of the gameplay. The whole of it is available online and I encourage you to see it after the conference. We keep working on cyberpunk, so you see as not necessarily representative of the final quality of the game.
Question-and-Answer Session
Q - Unidentified Analyst
Hello. I have a question as to yesterday’s gameplay. And your -- the reactions of players you got. As you mentioned, in free and in gamescom, the gameplay was only available to a limited group of people, mainly media representatives, but the feedback from players and the broad spectrum of users must also be very interesting. Did your marketing specialists already manage to process that feedback?
Adam Kiciński
Well, I haven't read through any summary whatsoever, but I have read through the feedback and the general tone of feedback is very positive. We are more than interested in what the players are thinking. We’re quite self-conscious because the game like we said in a presentation is not in its final stage and I don't mention imperfections, I also mean some solutions that are still subject to change. But following these two trade events, we decided we owed that to the players that we should show them what we've got. [indiscernible] reception by our environment, by the media that saw the demo in free and in gamescom was very positive. So what we can see, what we can read through the feedback, what I managed to read tonight, that was more than positive. But read through the feedback yourself. I guess, this is the best method for you to assess the feedback we're getting.
Piotr Nielubowicz
Well, we've not been discussing it, but cyberpunk is by far the largest project, more than three times larger in terms of team involvement and a lot has been happening in Q2 related to cyberpunk and it was mainly due to the trade events. This is not a permanent trend in terms of our quarterly CapEx level. Well, it's always so that the closer it is to the launch, the more we're spending on the launch. Here, that peak was related specifically to the development of material for E3 and gamescom, but we are also hiring more and more people in the team. So just like you saw in that slide, quarter by quarter, our outlays -- our expenditures are growing steadily and that's good, because the closer we’re to the launch, the more ready the game is and the more the fixed costs go up, as GWENT and Thronebreaker too. So, we are getting into that cycle of heading towards the launch.
Unidentified Analyst
A question about cyberpunk. On the one hand, we've heard that cyberpunk is a game play, which you can play from the very start to the very end, but you keep saying that you have been developing the game. So what will be developed? Are we polishing the world -- are you polishing the world or as the plot constantly developed, are you adding new elements or are you just polishing the product?
Adam Kiciński
Well, you saw today and what is available on YouTube, the 47 minute is the polished piece, but not the whole game. The rest of the game, well, there's no good word in Polish. We say that it's a framework. You can go through it till the very end, but you don't want to see this. We can’t show it at this level. But from a production point of view, this is the way it should be, this is how you develop games, but still there is a lot of work ahead of us.
Unidentified Analyst
[indiscernible] I think it's working. Yes, it's working. Well, I have the following question. Regarding gameplay cyberpunk, on the one hand, you're saying that this is the polished version, not the whole game looks like this. On the other hand, well, you're still working on it. So the question is this, have you completed like 80% of the game more or less?
Adam Kiciński
We don't give an answer to this question, because we haven't announced the deadline of the launch. So we don't want to make any suggestions whatsoever in this regard. What we are saying is, I think, it's all coherent, because we picked a piece of the game, when we went further in terms of development, we polished a lot of elements, but we know that some of the solutions at this level, these are not final solutions, some elements may change, not because they're bad, but because we may have even better ideas.
There are certain imperfections, what you can see to the naked eye, but the rest of the game does not look like this. The rest of the game looks differently, but like I said, we have the general framework and the development work has been progressing according to the time schedule and we have an avid proof for that. The presentations during gamescom and E3 were planned exactly like that. This was an outcome of a long term plan and we did deliver with a lot of efforts, but we did. So we've been following the plan. So this gameplay, it stayed as of June. Well, this gameplay, it stayed as of between June and today.
Unidentified Analyst
Good morning. I have a question as to what you're showing in your presentation now. Is this is one-off concept or is it more, do you believe that's what your CD is going to look like, are these buildings going to be interactive, will you be able to enter each and every of them and each and every floor levels?
Adam Kiciński
This is one of the concept, it’s developed for the fair. But I believe, it is representative and so far, as everything that we are showing today is representative, with this big reservation that this game is still subject to change. When talking about design details, we don't want to go any deeper than that. What we showed you in the demo and the comments, this is all we want to tell you about the game as of today. So I'd like to avoid answering this question, because I don't feel, well, this is not when we would like to discuss the game design, because the game design is included in that 48 hours of gameplay, please watch it, listen to the comments and this is all we have to say on this topic today.
Unidentified Analyst
And one last question, probably, you're not going to respond, but I have to ask. How about next IP? According to the strategy, you were supposed to be working on another AAA game. So do we know what kind of IP is going to be? Can we learn anything about that? And if not today, then when?
Adam Kiciński
Well, for now, we're focusing on cyberpunk. We have started cyberpunk promotion. And GWENT, obviously, it's a separate subject, but we're going to continue talking about cyberpunk 2077 only in our communication. It's an obvious and a conscious choice. We want this to be the only topic we are discussing. What comes next, we will discuss next, not necessarily after the launch, but definitely not at this point. But this is not anything you're working on. It's not GWENT, it's not cyberpunk. This next AAA game, no. No, not GWENT, not Thronebreaker. Thank you.
Unidentified Analyst
One of those questions without the answer, probably and between the release of the first gameplay of the Witcher 3 and the actual release, some two years past. What will it look like for cyberpunk? Maybe due to more people working on cyberpunk, the progress of work should be bigger or considering the complexity of the project.
Adam Kiciński
Well, the period of work is comparable as in the case of the Witcher 3. Yes, you're right, we can’t answer this question. Well, yes, the project is more complex and the speed is faster. Yes. More people are involved in cyberpunk than Witcher, but the game is more ambitious, clearly more ambitious.
