A new CD Projekt RED revenue report has been released, showing that the Polish video game developer and publisher has nearly doubled its revenue over the last year.
CD Projekt RED is a department best known as the creators of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and the hotly-anticipated Cyberpunk 2077. Those are far from the company's only projects, though — CD Projekt owns the DRM-free game distributor GOG.com.
Now, the company has revealed that 2020 has been a stellar year, nearly doubling its revenue from game sales at CD Projekt RED and owing in part to so many people being stuck at home without a whole lot to do.
"The free movement restrictions and stay-at-home orders introduced in many countries in March 2020 evidently increased the popularity of videogames and helped their sales, particularly in the context of digital distribution," read a portion of the company's financial report [PDF]."
CD Projekt RED Revenue Wasn't Just Helped by Lockdowns
The pandemic lockdowns certainly played a factor in CD Projekt's fantastic year, but it wasn't the only reason behind it's increase in profits. Part of their success is owed to ports of their games to other platforms and, of course, the launch of The Witcher Netflix series.
"Nevertheless, given the multitude of factors which may have had a positive effect on the Group’s factors in the recent three quarters (including marketing campaigns, releases of new products – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for Nintendo Switch, GWENT: The Witcher Card Game for iOS and Android devices, along with the Steam version, and Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales for Nintendo Switch, debut of The Witcher series on Netflix and the increased time customers spend at their homes due to the pandemic) makes it difficult to gauge the effect of each of these circumstances upon the Group’s sales," the report continued.
"Taken together, the aforementioned factors, coupled with the Group’s other business activities and the weakening of PLN against foreign currencies (observed between mid-March and mid-May 2020) resulted in a large increase in H1 2020 sales revenues compared to H1 2019 results, both at CD PROJEKT RED (86.7% increase) and at GOG.com (35.4% increase)."
A near-doubling of CD Projekt RED revenue is certainly impressive, but this may simply be the quiet before the storm. Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) anticipated launches of this year, dropping on PC and consoles in November 2020 — it's sure to be a boon for a company that has already had a fantastic year.
Are you happy to see CD Projekt RED revenue go up as much as it has in the last year? How much do you think the company will make from Cyberpunk 2077 sales? Let us know in the comments below!
