Cyberpunk 2077: CD Projekt Red’s total sales for 2020 were around £410m

CD Projekt Red has released some preliminary figures in teh week before its full earnings release for 2020. And while the company, in reality, had a torrid end to 2020, on paper the results are unsurprisingly impressive still.

Consolidated sales for the whole of 2020 totalled a record breaking 2.14bn PLN (£409.7m). That’s a lot of copies of Cyberpunk 2077. And from that its net profit was 1.15bn PLN (£221m). So it obviously cost a lot to finish that game as well – a cost that continues to some degree beyond the norm as CDPR attempts to fix the game’s issues.

These results are estimated, pending the final audited results, but there’s no reason to think they will change substantially.

The results smash the company’s previous record for a full year, which unsurprisingly dates back to the launch of The Witcher 3 in 2015. The company’s financial summary notes that its sales revenue for that year was 798m PLN (£152m) and profit was 421.6m PLN (£80.6m).

Although it’s worth noting that given the Witcher’s May release date, the title had a lengthy sell-in across the year compared to Cyberpunk’s end of year release. Though arguably, with its issues and removal from the PlayStation store, sales of Cyberpunk past the initial release would likely have been muted.

Furthermore, the core of what has made CDPR the success it is today, was the perennial success of The Witcher 3, a relatively slow-burn hit, supported by immensely well-received DLC, which continues to earn for the company to this day.

In order to continue its success, the company now must not only patch Cyberpunk 2077 up to excellence, but also restore consumer confidence in the brand so that it can continue to profit from it for years to come, because another release on that scale is not going to come for a long time.