Today Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher developer CD Projekt hosted its fiscal year 2023 earnings conference, and provided interesting information about its games and business.
The livestreamed conference featured joint Chief Executive Officer Michał Nowakowski, Chief Financial Officer Piotr Nielubowicz, and Chief Strategy Officer Adam Kiciński.
Since its release, the Cyberpunk 2077 franchise has generated 3 Billion PLN (Polish złoty) in cumulative revenue including the expansion Phantom Liberty. That's approximately $752 million at the current exchange rate.
Below you can check out a slide summarizing the games the CD Projekt has in the pipeline and their state.
We learn that the game code-named Polaris (the new mainline The Witcher Game) is CD Projekt's most-developed project at the moment. It's still in pre-production and will enter the full production phase in the second half of the year.
Later in the Q&A, we heard that we shouldn't expect "The Witcher 3 in new clothing." While the developers are building on the shoulders of what was done before and on the learnings it generated, it'll include new gameplay elements and new mechanics that we haven't seen in the previous games.
Sirius, the Witcher game in development at The Molasses Flood is now in the early pre-production phase. Later in the Q&A, we heard that this is the second most-developed project for the company at the moment.
Canis Majoris, the Witcher remake in development at Fool's Theory is still in the conceptual face. We already knew that it's being developed from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5.
Orion, the new Cyberpunk 2077 game, it's currently in the conceptual phase supervised by seasoned developers who worked on Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty. The team in Boston working on the game will be hiring more developers with AAA experience.
The new IP code-named Hadar has a team laying the foundation for it. Work is steadily progressing and the team is getting bigger.
We learn that the total number of developers working at CD Projekt is now at 627. The team working on the maintenance of Cyberpunk 2077 has shrunk considerably to 17 developers, and later in the Q&A, the executives mentioned that this number is sufficient as the game has reached a state that CD Projekt is happy about.
The team working on Polaris has now reached 403 developers, passing its target size to enter the production phase.
We also notice that the number of developers working on Sirius has not changed, while we learn that 47 developers are currently working on Orion and 20 on Hadar.
The "Shared Services" team does what it says on the team and provides services to various teams without being part of any, including localization, UX, and more. At the moment, half of this team is working on Polaris, but this percentage will fluctuate.
Speaking of financials, 2023 was the company's second-best year ever in terms of revenue, on top of the second consecutive year of growth. Revenue was up 29% year-on-year, while net profit was up 39% year-on-year.
Below you can check out a video with Nielubowicz providing a summary of the results.
Interestingly, we hear that not only is CD Projekt considering licensing out its IPs to third-party partners for the creation of mobile games, but they're also pursuing conversations with potential partners on the topic. Yet, they have nothing to announce at the moment.
We also hear a comment about the use of generative AI in development. According to the executives, it can fit the concept of not having "gigantic teams working on games." The developer prefers to avoid teams that become "too huge" and stick to 400-500 members.
As such, enhancing the capabilities of these developers with AI is defined as a "great opportunity" and fits CD Projekt's strategy. That being said, the developer doesn't expect to shrink its teams because of AI to cut costs.
