Earlier today, the CD Projekt capital group had their 2018 financial results conference, with Joint CEO Adam Kiciński and CFO Piotr Nielubowicz making the standard presentation, then answering some questions from the audience. Since the conference was held in Polish, all the information in this article is based on the English commentary track that was included in the YouTube video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdBhUN3SZ8g
As we'd expect, Cyberpunk 2077 was one of the most anticipated subjects as E3 2019 approaches. The massive first-person RPG is in a very advanced stage of development, and they have no plans to expand their development team much further at this point, barely at all, in fact, according to Kiciński. They have plans to release the game on both current-gen and next-gen consoles, and their in-house development engine is prepared for the porting process. They are also having talks with Google about Stadia, though nothing is confirmed yet.
Most of the marketing budget for Cyberpunk 2077 will be covered by the physical edition publisher, similar to the marketing of The Witcher 3, though they believe the expansion of the digital distribution market is something to take more seriously. Their own marketing outlets reached much more people than they expected, along with influencers, amounting to a total of over 250 million people reached. They also quashed the rumor about a collaboration with Lady Gaga, claiming that there will be some surprises at E3 2019, but a pop artist is not one of them. Still, E3 2019 is supposed to be the most important event in the company's history, larger in scale than their historical presence at E3 2018.
The executives also shared some long-awaited news on the mysterious AAA RPG that they had first announced back in their 2017 financial results conference, which was then slated for a 2021 release. This release window is still valid. The team working on this yet unnamed title is much smaller than the team working on Cyberpunk 2077, and Kiciński suggested that it won't be nearly as big as either The Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk 2077 in terms of budget and scope, though it will have the same standard of quality. It's also not a port of any of their previous games, and Kiciński suggested that fans should avoid speculating about it. This is likely intended to defuse expectations of those who hope for a sequel to The Witcher 3. As the other Joint CEO, Marcin Iwiński, had already told investors in 2016, there won't be The Witcher 4: “The Witcher was designed as a trilogy and a trilogy cannot have a fourth part.”
In other news, the company announced the upcoming release of Gwent for mobile devices. Also worthy of note is the fact that the GOG division only generated 7.8k USD (30k PLN) net profit in 2018, confirming the reports of financial troubles, which likely caused them to lay off about a dozen employees. The profit and loss account table below shows all the relevants sums pertaining to net profit and revenues of 2017 and 2018 side by side.
Are you hyped to see Cyberpunk 2077 at E3 2019? What do you think about this other AAA RPG? What kind of game do you expect, knowing it won't be a sequel to The Witcher 3? Let us know in the comments below!