Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
It’s no secret that the shortcomings of Cyberpunk 2077 upon release were an albatross CD Projekt had to carry throughout most of 2021. The game still sold well, but its many issues forced the company to put other priorities on hold to fix it up through several massive patches and updates. In CD Projekt’s Q3 2021 earnings report, the company revealed that this was part of a substantial year-over-year drop in net profit alongside the start of new, unannounced projects.
CD Projekt shared its Q3 2021 financial results on its investor relations website on November 29, 2021. According to the report, the cost of updating and fixing Cyberpunk 2077 on multiple platforms throughout the previous year played a substantial part in a 45 percent reduction in the company’s Q3 2021 net profit. Indeed, updating the game forced CDPR to shuffle a lot of its ongoing work, including delaying the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher 3 back to Q1 and Q2 2022 respectively.
While Cyberpunk 2077 was cited as a major contributor to CD Projekt’s net profit reduction in Q3 2021, it wasn’t the only factor. The company recently acquired Digital Scapes (renamed CD Projekt Vancouver) and Drake Hollow developer The Molasses Flood, and has stated that with these acquisitions in tow, it is beginning work on unannounced projects based on a CD Projekt IP. This also contributed to net profit loss year-over-year for Q3 2021.
“This year-on-year reduction in net profit is mainly due to expenses related to updating Cyberpunk and exploratory work on new projects which are at an early stage of development, where the associated costs are reported directly in our P&L statement for the current period,” the financial report reads.
Either way, it seems the rocky launch of Cyberpunk 2077 continues to haunt CD Projekt nearly a year later. Even as the company posted growth in revenue, it remains to be seen if this is the last quarter in which we will see the effects of that launch on CD Projekt’s financial reporting, especially as we await the PS5 and XSX versions of the game next year.