How Much Will Cyberpunk 2077 Earn? An Interview with Adam Kiciński, CEO of Polish studio CD Proje...

We have only released one business information so far: that players pre-ordered 8 million copies, which is many times more than with The Witcher 3, which had 1.5 million pre-orders. As for how much the game cost, what its budget was, we haven't disclosed the budget yet, neither production nor marketing. That time will come. I don't want to say, but analysts from DM BOŚ say the budget for this game is probably around 1.2 billion zlotys. That's the figure that stock market analysts mention. We definitely spent much more than on The Witcher 3, whose total budget was 306 million zlotys. This time it's significantly more, but as a public company that doesn't publish forecasts, we have to be very cautious when discussing information that hasn't been released.

Remember that The Witcher 3 is still selling well. Next year we are releasing The Witcher 3 on next-generation consoles. Also, Cyberpunk 2077 will be released in full version on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X in the next year. Plus, we will be doing other things that I cannot talk about today, but Cyberpunk is not the only product for many years to come. But let's assume there will be several billion zlotys. What to do with such money? Do you pocket it and go on a well-earned vacation in the Caribbean? No, the time is allocated to development for future games. In the first place, what we earn is allocated to next products, always. Because of course we also need to have buffers adequate to the scale of operations. Cash reserves give us independence and the ability to react flexibly to any situation. We have paid dividends twice in history, but we don't have a dividend policy, so I can't comment on whether we will pay dividends in the future. But the dividend is a potential step that we will of course consider.

As I said, next year we are releasing Cyberpunk 2077 on next-gen consoles, as well as the native next-gen version. The next games we will work on have not been announced yet, so I cannot directly comment on them. Are you expecting The Witcher 4? Unfortunately, I cannot answer that question. As for a game that is Polish, we are happy about that. But will there be a game set in Poland, about Poland in the future? Because The Witcher is not set in a Slavic world or culture. Cyberpunk is also something between Blade Runner and Johnny Mnemonic, so it's hard to say it's Polish. So are you thinking about something strictly Polish? We have two franchises, two brands: The Witcher and Cyberpunk. For now, we are focusing on them. Also, remember that besides making games, our goal is to build very long-lasting, strong brands. We will support them without limits. It seems that such creations can be made for decades. So for now, The Witcher and Cyberpunk.

It comes from the project's ambition, quality, and promotional activities, both measured and the enormous marketing campaign. If these two things work well together, then you can reach such levels. How does such a game come about? It's like composing a song. Either you have the lyrics and add everything else, or you have the melody and add the lyrics accordingly. It's the same with games. It starts with an idea, a graphical concept, or maybe it starts with the script, the story. In Cyberpunk's case, the beginning was a decision: in what world, what reality will the game take place? We have to decide. Both our games, The Witcher and Cyberpunk, are based on works that were created earlier. The Witcher is based on books, and Cyberpunk is based on a tabletop RPG created in the 80s. So first, we choose the world. Then the story appears quite early. As I said, our games tell long, complex stories for a mature, adult player. The story is developed at an early stage. We need to know what the game will be about.

I said, we tell serious stories, and you need to reach a certain age. The age of 18 is of course arbitrary, but you need to be fairly mature to understand what we really want to tell in the game, what we want to present. Younger players, even if they would have fun with the game, there is a risk they would not fully understand the content. And since it's a serious thing, albeit entertaining, it's a good Christmas present, an event. It's definitely the best, especially in these times. Reviewers who played the game before release point out that there are some bugs. Some have been fixed, but there are still some. On PC, we have a huge number of players, and there is an enormous number of PC configurations. So only now are we learning about certain conflicts between a graphics card and a motherboard. Of course, we will fix them. This is absolutely analogous to the situation with The Witcher 3, except at the beginning, the number of players is much larger, so the number of problems is proportionally larger. As I said, this is a normal situation. There will be issues, and we will solve them. However, in most cases, everything is fine.

Roughly in Warsaw, roughly 34, maybe a bit less, are Poles. Plus we have people all over the world, plus we have many partners spread around the world. So I can't tell you how Polish it is. We don't think in those categories at all. But we can say that it's a Polish game and a Polish product. It's nice, of course. It was created here in Warsaw, in Praga.