WARSAW: CD Projekt Red SA is ramping up investment as it prepares the next chapter of its flagship monster-hunting Witcher franchise, with several projects now in development.
Five years after betting its fortunes on a single title, Poland’s biggest gaming studio is at a “completely different stage” today, chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz said in an interview.
The Warsaw-listed company plans to reinvest most of its strong cash flow from older titles directly into an expanding development pipeline, making capital expenditure a primary consideration in decisions over shareholder payouts.
Research and development costs jumped 53% from a year earlier to more than 200 million zloty (US$54mil) in the second quarter as headcount swelled past 1,000 people.
Still, the studio continues to find new ways to monetise its core intellectual property between major releases.
The centrepiece of this massive investment is the next mainline Witcher game, starring Ciri, tentatively planned for 2028.
Following the troubled 2020 launch of Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt is prioritising development readiness, with Nielubowicz emphasising that release timing will not be dictated by rival blockbusters.
“We don’t want to discuss what the publishing gap should be among the Witcher 3 expansion, the release of GTA VI and The Witcher 4,” Nielubowicz said.
“The release date of the new game will depend on our readiness and the state of development.”
Licensing made a significant contribution to first-half sales, expanded through collaborations with external studios, a trading-card game and another season of Netflix Inc’s Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
Nielubowicz said licensing could become an increasingly important revenue stream as the firm’s brands gain deeper global recognition.
The studio is mining its legacy franchise. A remastered version of The Witcher 3 is due on Sept 29, followed by a paid expansion, dubbed Songs of the Past, next year.
The 2015 game recently saw a pick-up in sales following last month’s Gamescom trade fair, adding to the 65 million copies sold over its lifetime.
However, Nielubowicz cautioned against precise sales forecasts for the upcoming expansion.
“Any estimates regarding sales of the expansion may be subject to a large margin of error, as releasing it 12 years after the launch of the main game is an unusual situation in our industry,” he said.
“We have never been in a publishing situation like this before, and it is difficult for us to forecast it precisely.”
Broader market dynamics are also working in the developer’s favour.
CD Projekt hasn’t seen higher hardware prices, fuelled by artificial intelligence- related demand for memory and graphics chips, weigh on game sales. — Bloomberg
