Despite boasting a financial success last year, the first quarter of CD Projekt's current financial year has seen a huge drop off in net profits following the fiasco of Cyberpunk 2077.
According to a slide shown during the company's earning presentation, net profits have dropped 65% in Q1 2021 compared to the same time period of 2020 - the loss has seen $32.5 million PLN ($8.84 million USD). Vice president and chief financial officer of CD Projekt, Piotr Nielubowicz, explained in a statement that the reason for this loss is due to the continuing work on Cyberpunk 2077.
"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. These expenses are recognized as current-period costs and are not subject to capitalization."
Adam Kiciński, president and joint CEO of the CD Projekt, also weighed in during the same post, stating that the company intends to come through with the promise made to fans in January. At the time it was said fixes would be arriving for both last-gen and current-gen systems, with a native next-gen version arriving sometime in the second half of 2021.
Kiciński also added that the company is expanding its studios, to help assist in the development of two AAA titles running parallel to one another in the future.
"We intend to live up to what we promised our gamers in January. While we already see major improvements, a large part of the team continues to work on making sure that Cyberpunk provides even better entertainment to gamers.
At the same time, we’re rolling out initial changes related to the internal transformation of our studio. This is a long-term project, but we regard it as essential if we are to efficiently develop two large AAA projects in parallel."
It's been a while since we've heard anything about Cyberpunk 2077, with the last patch arriving back in April. The earnings presentation provided a slightly updated roadmap for the game, which now shows support for free DLCs and updates will roll over into 2022. The same presentation also shows the crash rate for the game has dropped significantly since January, but failed to provide any information on what basis the data was made on.
Cyberpunk 2077 recently saw a new game director take the reigns of the project. Gabriel Amatangelo, who was the design director on Dragon Age: Inquisition DLC, and the lead designer on various expansions for Star Wars: The Old Republic, will lead the team with future DLCs, expansions, and updates. There's no word on when players can expect to see free content, but as we're approaching the second half of 2021, we may hear something soon.
Are you sticking with Cyberpunk 2077 after all this time? Let us know in the comments below.
[source cdprojekt.com, via cdprojekt.com]
Comments 11
A drop in profits compared to what? Years with sales of prior games? Or 2020 with making pure profit on a game that wasn't even completed, and then having to actually make the rest of the game after earning the profits up front?
That's great news. Nothing shows the industry as a whole not to lie to customers like red ink on the financial statement of some who did. I expect that once they fix the Xbox one version it will be in gamepass....I'll play it then perhaps. Wonder if they will ever be back on Sony's store or if they will keep them out as a warning to others.
I feel like some people made way too big of a deal about this, as if it is the only game to ever get hyped and disappoint anyone. Personally I can't even count how many times I have seen a game get massively hyped only for me to be totally disappointed in it, and ironically Cyberpunk is not one of those games. I never expected it to be the greatest thing ever made like some people did, and it met my expectations as a typical Bethesda RPG sort of experience where the game needs a lot of patching. I have also had a lot of fun with it, and I think it performed rather well on my Xbox One X.
There is definitely some dark hateful energy surrounding the critics of this game, like it gives them some joy to hate on it so they can be a part of some hateful bandwagon of people who didn't even play the game. Honestly I think that is the biggest problem with the industry these days, all these loudmouth bandwagoners on social and gaming media who need everyone to feel the same way they do about everything. At the end of the day this is just entertainment, you don't have to always love it, it doesn't have to always be for you.
Good, They don't deserve profit until the game is fully functional and patched..
insert sarcastically surprised Kirk meme
@JayJ it's not that it was overhyped. It's that it was almost unplayable on Xbone and the litterly we're supposed to launch with a special edition Xbone console....can't say it was a surprise to them to meet those system requirements. I say they got what they deserved and it's fully warranted. Game was great from a lot of people that I heard from on PC and the Series X.
It’s highly unlikely game sales will just turn around whenever the game is “in good condition” because most people will just not know the bleep storm passed.
Best case scenario for them will be likely to get the game into GamePass as soon as the Series X|S version is ready, if only so they can get some money influx directly from Microsoft. They should do the same with PSPlus.
@JayJ
Just because you're having a good time with it, doesn't mean CD Projekt weren't less than truthful about what they had promised. Holding companies accountable is not being hateful.
I think CDPR paying for their mistake will be a good thing for the industry.
We consumers are often treated poorly with buggy, rushed games because corporate suits seek profit over quality. And this is one of the first times this backlash is biting back against the bigwigs.
Likely though those big wigs will still get their bonus cheques. But at least the company won’t do this again and other companies will think twice before releasing a game before it is ready.
@Krzzystuff Funny, always seemed to look and play great for me on my Xbox One X. Had the occasional bugs at first but it's far from the worst gaming experience I have had.
@gingataisen Isn't the whole point of playing games to enjoy yourself? What else should I be concerned with?
@JayJ damn....i guess this whole thing was all fake and a conspiracy against CDPR then if you haven't had issues. I was fooled by the rest of the world.... thanks for clearing the air on that one.
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