CD Projekt sales in 2020 go far beyond expectations

Developer and publisher CD Projekt Group, which also includes developer CD Project Red, has revealed two figures from its upcoming financial report for 2020. They give a great indication of how well Cyberpunk 2077 performed at launch, and how the company’s earnings looked for the year prior.

Full-year earnings for the company stand at PLN 2.14 billion ($562 million) in the form of consolidated sales revenues. The figure is over four times greater than what it was when the company reported its 2019 financial results. It’s also two and a half times the previous record for the company of PLN 798 million ($210 million). That previous record was from 2015, which is when The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt launched.

In addition to this new record, CD Projekt set a new bottom line record. Net profit has been reported at PLN 1.15 billion ($303 million). This is more than three times the company’s previous record of PLN 342 million ($89.8 million), which, unsurprisingly, is also from 2015.

This gap in records becomes even larger when you take into account that in 2015, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt launched in May, and Cyberpunk 2077 launched in December 2020. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt had months to generate sales, and Cyberpunk 2077 had less than a month. However, 2020’s release had garnered over 8 million pre-orders leading up to release.

While the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 was undoubtedly a success, these figures don’t take into account the fallout the company saw from the plethora of bugs and issues that plagued the game. These led to many users asking for refunds, so many that Sony has removed the game from the PlayStation Store.

CD Projekt Red will report its full financial results on April 22, 2021. These may give some indication of how the refund request had affected sales, but we won’t know until we see the figures.

Regardless of Cyberpunk 2077’s launch, CD Projekt has a hard year ahead. The company is shifting to working on two projects at once whilst also providing support and fixes for Cyberpunk 2077. 2021’s financial results may be lower, but the company could still pull things back with DLC or new game launches in the meantime.