Sales at CD Projekt are down. That’s according to the recently released financial report for the first quarter of its 2021 fiscal year. Net profit is down 64.7% thanks to continuing efforts into fixing Cyberpunk 2077, which had such a disastrous launch that it was delisted from the PlayStation storefront and still hasn’t been put back up.
It’s also because 2020 saw an unusual uptick in sales because of the pandemic. Lockdowns meant that more people were purchasing games in general, even five-year-old games like The Witcher 3. With lockdowns receding and people getting back to work/school, game sales have also come back down to Earth.
But CD Projekt Red is still making money, and the Q1 report also revealed that it’s already looking towards the future. Buried within the consolidated financial report are dollars marked for “involvement in new, future projects.” Further on is another sentence that announces “parallel development of two AAA games” that are set to begin development in 2022.
“Lower than usual net profitability is mainly due to continuing depreciation of Cyberpunk 2077 development expenditures, work on updating the game, and R&D activities related to future projects,” chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz confirmed in a statement to Reuters.
On top of new games, CD Projekt also plans to continue exploring possible studio acquisitions. CD Projekt purchased Vancouver-based studio Digital Scapes last March, a company they’ve been collaborating with since 2018, and will jointly work on future projects.
Both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 are still getting their current-gen upgrades later this year, while a new mobile Witcher game called The Witcher: Monster Slayer is set to release this summer. A location-based AR game, Monster Slayer is a lot like Pokemon Go except you kill the monster instead of capturing them.
