CD Projekt in Q3 2021; Expensive Cyberpunk 2077 Maintenance and New Projects
CD Projekt Group published financial results for the third quarter of 2021. Necessary maintenance of Cyberpunk 2077 proved to be costly for the company, but the Poles are already thinking about new projects.
- CD Projekt Group published a financial summary for Q3 2021;
- The company has confirmed that the launch of next-gen editions of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 are still planned for Q1 and Q2 of 2022 respectively;
- The Polish developer also announced the development of other games from its catalogue and confirmed that new projects are being worked on.
CD Projekt has shared the latest financial results. In the third quarter of 2021, the company generated PLN 144 million in revenue (40% more than the year before), but had a lower operating profit than in 2020. (PLN 16 million). The results are much worse than analysts predicted, especially in the case of net profit, which at PLN 15.6 million was 54% lower than forecast (via Wirtualne Media [in Polish]).
It is easy to guess the reasons for this decline. CD Projekt had to put a lot of effort into - as they put it - "servicing" of Cyberpunk 2077. After its release a year ago, the title's condition left a lot to be desired and fixing the futuristic RPG was a priority for the devs. Moreover, it has been confirmed once again that the game will receive an upgrade on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in early 2022, slightly before a similar update for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (scheduled for Q2):
"We are hard at work on the next-gen version of Cyberpunk, scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2022, alongside another major update for all platforms. There is also ongoing work on the next-gen version of The Witcher 3 and the Cyberpunk expansion."
The company also revealed some details about development plans for other games. The Witcher: Monster Slayer will soon receive another pack of content after the recent update, and on top of that the developers want to look at monetization and "retention" issues.
CD Projekt also has plans for the card game Gwent, which is expected to translate into regular updates, including ones that add more content to the game. No specifics have been revealed as of yet, but we won't be waiting long for those. During the finals of Season 3 of Gwent Masters, on December 5 the devs will reveal plans for the title's development.
However, the developer does not intend to limit itself to supporting already released titles. The company gave one more reason for the lower net profit than a year ago, in addition to the aforementioned costs of Cyberpunk 2077 maintenance. It is about investments in "research work" on new projects, which are supposed to be at an early stage of development. Perhaps some of these are related to CD Projekt's recent acquisitions, and they won't be the last. We know from elsewhere that the company intends to look around for more teams to buy.
