Cyberpunk 2077 franchise hits $752 million in revenue, annual profit up 39%: CD Projekt announces 2023 results

CD Projekt has just released its 2023 financial report, posting strong growth in both revenue and net profit. The company also disclosed the lifetime revenue of Cyberpunk 2077 and provided an update on its game development pipeline.

Financial highlights

• According to its consolidated report for 2023, CD Projekt reached PLN 1.23 billion ($308.4 million) in revenue last year, up 29% year-over-year. Game sales accounted for nearly 85% of the total.
• Cyberpunk 2077 generated PLN 852 million ($213.6 million) in 2023, up 81.5% from 2022 — driven by the launch of the Phantom Liberty expansion.
• The Witcher 1-3 (+ expansions) brought in PLN 158.7 million ($39.8 million), down 23.7% year-over-year.
• GOG.com reached PLN 234.9 million in revenue, up 24.5% compared to 2022.

• North America remained the top region by revenue, accounting for 71% of the company’s total sales last year. It is followed by Europe (18.7%), and Asia (6.6%). Domestic sales (Poland) had a 2.51% share.
• Net profit increased by an impressive 39% year-over-year to PLN 481.1 million ($120 million).
• With strong revenue growth, this makes 2023 the second-best year in the entire history of CD Projekt — behind only 2020, when it generated over $560 million in revenue and $303 million in net profit.

CD Projekt’s annual revenues (in PLN thousands)

• The company also announced that lifetime revenue of Cyberpunk 2077, including the Phantom Liberty expansion, has surpassed PLN 3 billion since the base game launched in December 2020.
• “The success of Phantom Liberty and reinvigoration of positive sentiment surrounding the base game are crucial for further growth of CD Projekt, which is rooted in building strong, widely recognized brands,” CFO Piotr Nielubowicz said in a statement.

• This means that the Cyberpunk IP has successfully recouped its investment, given the franchise’s total budget of over $400 million: Cyberpunk 2077’s development and marketing costs amounted to $316 million (at the April 2021 exchange rate), while Phantom Liberty’s total costs were $84.5 million.

CD Projekt’s team structure and games in development

In its 2023 presentation, CD Projekt provided updates on five games in its pipeline, three of which are based on The Witcher franchise:

• Project Polaris (the next Witcher game) — at the pre-production stage;
• Project Sirius (a spin-off by The Molasses Flood) — at the pre-production stage;
• The Witcher 1 remake (by Fool’s Theory) — at the concept stage;
• Project Orion (a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077) — at the concept stage;
• Project Hadar (brand new IP) — at the IP concept stage.

As of February 29, 2024, the company had 627 employees involved in the development. The biggest team of 403 people is working on Project Polaris, followed by Orion (47), Sirius (37), and 20 (Hadar). 17 employees are still supporting Cyberpunk 2077, while 95 workers are on the Shared Services team (QA, localization, data, AI, etc.).

In 2023, CD Projekt significantly increased its costs, including expenditures related to development on new products and the research phase of new projects (costs of work on the future games preceding the development phase).

“We intend to work on multiple projects in the framework of our franchises — including projects which go beyond the video game field,” CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski said. “In the case of Cyberpunk the next challenge, following on the heels of the excellent reception of the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime series, will be a live-action project developed in collaboration with the renowned Anonymous Content production studio.”