Cyberpunk 2077 Still Sells Worse Than Expected
Cyberpunk 2077 has begun to regain the trust of gamers, but the game's sales are still lagging behind the initial, overly optimistic predictions.
- According to estimates, sales of Cyberpunk 2077 barely topped half of the 30 million copies predicted before the game's debut;
- New projections suggest sales will be slightly better in 2022, but will still lag far behind forecasts for 2021;
- CD Projekt's stock has dropped 54% since the game's release last year.
A year after release, the controversy surrounding Cyberpunk 2077's disastrous launch has quieted down a bit, and the game has apparently started to regain the trust of gamers. Unfortunately, this does not mean that the CD Projekt Group has put its problems behind it. Analysts remain pessimistic, reporting that sales of Cyberpunk 2077 were barely over half of what was expected.
Before the launch, it was predicted that 30 million copies of the game would reach buyers within the first year. But (as Bloomberg reports, based on the average of estimates by nine experts), CD Projekt managed to sell "only" about 17.3 million copies during that time, over 40% less than expected. This includes CP2077's preorders, equal to about 13.7 million copies. In other words, in 2021 the game moved only 3.6 million copies.
In the following year, the situation may not look much better. In 2022 analysts expect sales of 5.6 million copies. Although it can hardly be considered a poor result, it still does not bring Cyberpunk 2077 significantly closer to the 30 million copies threshold, which the game was supposed to reach after just 12 months, not 24.
To make matters worse, the game's price in the coming months remains an open question. You can already find it for around $30, even on consoles, and that's without having to search for great bargains. Theoretically, the price could suddenly rise after the title is patched. However - even leaving aside the naivety of this assumption - the progress made by the developers in this area in the current year make us think that it will not happen too soon.
Of course, these are only predictions, and those - as the history of Cyberpunk 2077 - may turn out to be wrong. The fact is, however, that the need to fix the latest game will be a big burden for CD Projekt - not only in financial terms, although 54% drop in share value is definitely a painful blow to the Polish company (especially since analysts do not predict a reversal of this trend until the end of 2022). It is also a nuisance for developers, whose "maintenance" of the game distracts them from working on other projects.
