31.08.2023

CD Projekt's development expenditures hit nearly $40 million in H1, as Project Polaris (The Witcher) team gets bigger

CD Projekt has released its financial report for the first half of 2023 ended June 30. Despite a decrease in revenue and net profit, the company remains optimistic due to the upcoming release of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty and the progress on the next Witcher game.

CD Projekt spent nearly $40 million on game development in H1, as the team behind the new Witcher gets bigger

Financial highlights for H1 2023

  • According to its latest earnings release, CD Projekt reached PLN 325.2 million ($79.2 million) in revenue, down 14% year-over-year.
  • 73% of the total came directly from game sales, of which 88.6% were digital units. CD Projek’ts first-party titles accounted for 73.2% of its H1 revenue.
  • North America accounted for 64.7% of total sales, followed by Europe (21.8%) and Asia (7.43%).
  • Net profit fell 19.8% year-over-year to PLN 91.2 million ($22.2 million). There was also a 28% decrease in operating profit, which reached PLN 99 million ($24.1 million) in H1 2023.

Team structure and games in the pipeline

  • According to CD Projekt CFO Piotr Nielubowicz, the company’s expenditures on development projects reached PLN 160 million ($39 million) for the first half of the year. This mostly relates to the “most intensive phase of Phantom Liberty development” and the work on the next Witcher game (codenamed Project Polaris).

  • As can be seen in the image below, the team working on the next Witcher game is getting bigger.
  • According to Reuters, almost 260 devs are now working on Project Polaris. After the launch of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, which involves about 300 employees, the new Witcher team will grow even more.

CD Projekt RED’s team structure (as of July 31, 2023)

  • At the same time, there were decreases in the size of the teams of Project Sirius (due to a recent reboot of the project and layoffs at developer The Molasses Flood) and GWENT (due to upcoming end of content support for the game and layoffs).
  • During an earnings call, CD Projekt noted that Phantom Liberty will be the only expansion to Cyberpunk 2077 due to the company’s transition to Unreal Engine 5 from its proprietary REDengine.
  • CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński also said that the company is “very happy” with pre-orders of Phantom Liberty.
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