"Nie ma nic gorszego dla twórców niż przeciętny projekt" -Adam Kiciński, CD Projekt /NicZaDarmo #116

Good morning. Finally we meet in person. I was looking at calendars and photos, remembering when was the last time we saw the company live. Before the pandemic, I think it was the 2019 conference. Then the pandemic hit, and we were all with online recordings and VOD. Theoretically we had a lot, but it was hard to just talk calmly and work creatively. I wonder whether the company has managed to return to pre-pandemic times or if they will never come back. In the long run, we'll see. For now, we have a hybrid model and a 'Home First' model, meaning mainly from home. About 50% come to offices, but it depends on the team. We have learned a lot about remote work. Some people are more productive at home, some prefer the office. I always prepare by calling people anonymously. I heard that when the pandemic started, CD Projekt briefly turned into a logistics company to move everyone home. We completed the move in 3 days. Teams with large workstations needed special handling. We dealt with security, VPN, and slow file transfers. But we managed. We worked from home, though the final phase of Cyberpunk was very difficult. We'll never know if working from the office would have changed things.

I would avoid generalizations because it depends on how teams are organized, the character of team members, and the product. I personally believe it's easier to work together, but that's a personal view. I returned to the office at the first possible moment and work almost exclusively from the office, because I prefer it. However, that may not be a general rule. The challenge we face is fair measurement of productivity. In creative processes, it's very hard to measure productivity. Measuring time doesn't make sense. If we could measure it precisely, we could conduct experiments and reach scientific conclusions, but in our industry it's difficult. We have decided to allow home work, now that the pandemic is over. We don't test every other day anymore. We work as before the pandemic, but we allow home work. We plan to periodically conduct internal analysis to draw conclusions. For now, the model seems to work, but in the long term we don't know yet. We don't know how people who mainly work from home will feel after 10 years, what the bond with the team will be. We'll see.

It was a very difficult time for all of us. We really didn't expect it. We knew there were risks, just like with The Witcher. Such complex games are not without bugs. With The Witcher 3 we also bit our nails and were nervous about the launch. We knew certain imperfections. We counted on Cyberpunk being such a wonderful game that players would forgive some missteps. But we underestimated the scale of technical problems. Some issues only appeared when millions started playing. So from a super positive sentiment and great love surrounding the game before launch, we fell into an area of terrible hate that overshadowed everything. It was very hard. But this wasn't the first crisis in the company's history. Our reaction was obvious: from the first day after launch we focused on minimizing the impact and being fair to players. We never intended to deceive anyone with pre-orders. We believed we would deliver a phenomenal game. Right after launch we devised a full global refund policy, even though we had only a moderate idea of how to implement it. That led to some negative chain reactions, but essentially it was the first thing we did. Then we focused on fixing the game. That process took quite a long time. Now we continue working on the game, but it's more about improving an already good or very good game. The first months or quarters were focused on making Cyberpunk satisfying for the absolute majority of players.

Yes, because what can you say besides 'I'm sorry' and that we will fix it, which we said immediately. Then you have to act, and that's what we focused on. We also communicated a lot with the market and investors, because they also expected it from us.

That's true. For media directed to investors, the language is stiffer and we discuss corporate-financial matters. For media read mainly by gamers, the discussion is more focused on the product and design. Both groups matter to us.

To be honest, I don't know which is simpler. Certainly, fixes to a game that is already released must go through much more rigorous testing because every fix can break something else. There are many dependencies. You have to make sure that when you change something and put it into a patch, it doesn't break something else. That also happens when the game is not yet released, but then there is more room for further fixes. However, I won't say it's harder; it's just more rigorous. What was definitely a challenge in our case was that the team was very tired after the marathon, and right after the launch we said we wouldn't comment on anything. So the pace of work at the beginning was naturally slow, because it's hard to imagine a faster pace after such a marathon finished with a tenfold sprint. Also, when talking about Cyberpunk, people often refer to the last two, three, or four years of announcements, but the game was actually in full development from 2016. The time between the announcement in 2012 and the start of real work in 2016 was spent on conceptual work and moving the setting from 2020 to 2077. So the development time wasn't extraordinarily long.

We could probably do that, but we don't. We published the budget at the time of launch. Then we have ongoing costs for working on the game and the DLC. Maybe someday we will summarize it all after Phantom Liberty is released. But for now, we don't break it down or publish it quarterly. We don't want to emphasize how much we spend on fixing the game, because it's not small money. The most important thing is that we managed to bring the game to a completely different level. The almost two-year work of the team resulted in Cyberpunk regaining positive sentiment and higher ratings. From a business perspective, the goal is to have a product that we can sell for 10 years or more, like all Witcher games. We make games with very unusual life cycles for single-player games. The first Witcher has been selling at a similar level for 15 years year after year. I mean revenue, not units, because the price drops and more units are sold on promotion. So the business sense of our actions is to have a product that first fulfills its promise and that we are fully proud of, and also has a chance to be a solid basis for our results for many years.

The multiplayer story is quite simple. After the launch, we concluded that making a large multiplayer for Cyberpunk after everything that happened was not the best idea. We needed to focus on the game first. Then we decided we prefer to approach multiplayer step by step and only in future products, not in Cyberpunk itself, especially since we later changed the engine. That made us think about multiplayer in games we will make on Unreal Engine, not going back to Red Engine's multiplayer tech which we abandoned. As for the DLCs, the story is different. It's closely tied to what happened right after the launch. First of all, we knew that for the first months or even longer after launch, we wouldn't be able to fully focus on DLCs because most of our focus was on the game. Some work continued, but it wasn't like with The Witcher 3 where we almost seamlessly went into Hearts of Stone and then Blood and Wine. So we concluded that the DLC would be delayed. First we knew there would be none in 2021. Then it became clear that if we want to deliver a really significant DLC—the first new release after Cyberpunk's premiere, a very important moment and test—we needed time. We decided to pack most of the ideas into one product and spend as much time as needed. Then additional factors prolonged the process: we started a deep transformation in the studio, changing work methodologies. That transformation, like any reconstruction, initially slows everything down. We began it in Q2 2021. Then the switch to Unreal Engine also introduced initial disruption. Plus, Cyberpunk is structurally much more complex than The Witcher. All this combined made the DLC development quite long. So in summary, there will be one DLC, very important for us, and we are preparing for a release next year.

That's exactly right. For us, the DLC for Cyberpunk is particularly important because it will be the first new release after Cyberpunk's premiere—a very significant moment, the first test. We concluded we need time, and we will pack a lot of ideas into one product. We are spending whatever time is necessary. The transformation of the studio and the switch to Unreal Engine also contributed to the length. But the DLC will be of high quality.

If I were to generalize, I can only talk about numbers. After The Witcher 3, we had turnover at around 18% per year, nearly double the average during production, which was around 10%. That means the average tenure in the company is 8-10 years, which is quite long. Post-launch turnover is natural and in many cases not a bad phenomenon—creators sometimes need a change of environment, and sometimes it's good for them and for us if they return with new experiences. The post-launch moment is ideal for that. After Cyberpunk, we had a similar level of about 20%, which wasn't bad given the emotions in the company. However, the higher turnover extended into this year; the numbers are still quite high. That's not surprising because the transformation we are going through—a full switch to Agile—takes 3-4 years. Such transformations naturally push some people out. Additionally, we changed to Unreal Engine, which for some was a new circumstance they were less interested in. So this year's turnover is also somewhat elevated. But keep in mind we have a net addition of about 100 people this year—we are growing and want to continue growing. Turnover will always be at some level. We are also finalizing a new compensation system to be competitive globally, and we are asking shareholders to vote on a new stock option program.

I'm glad to hear that. That is our role. But we are constantly working to make working conditions in our company very competitive. We are finalizing a new pay system to be implemented next year. Since it's not yet announced, I won't go into details, but we want to offer competitive rates from a global perspective. We also ask shareholders to approve a new stock option program, different from previous ones. We have had three programs since 2011, and we are currently in the third. We are on the verge of completing it.