The besieged Cyberpunk 2077 sold 13 million copies, but the founders of developer CD Projekt Red lost $ 1 billion.
Bloomberg reports that (as of December 15 – five days after the game’s release) the founders of CD Projekt Red lost about $ 1 billion. The developer was founded by Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński. Kiciński left the company in 2013 and Iwiński is the joint CEO of the company with Adam Kiciński (who is also the company president).
Previously, we reported how, just three days after the game’s release, CD Projekt Red’s stock price fell 29%. Bloomberg reported that the total shares fell by a third.
According to Business Insider, the stock closed at € 98.80 EUR per share on 4 December and closed at € 60.72 EUR on 30 December – the first time the stock price started to rise again since the fall. The company’s shares had dropped to € 73.80 EUR per share on 30 October (shortly after announcing the final delay for the game), and € 50.00 EUR per share on 12 March.
Bloomberg also reported that analysts’ estimates for Cyberpunk 2077The company’s 12-month sales fell from 30 million to 25.6 million after the game’s launch. However, CD Projekt revealed that on December 20 the game sold more than 13 million copies. This amount is after considering refund requests via email directly to the developer.
CD Projekt Red had previously announced that the game had been sold 8 million copies through orders; made of 59% PC and 41% consoles, with 74% digitally and 26% physically.
As previously reported, the numerous game delays and leaked footage were not the end of the problems for CD Projekt Red. A reviewer suffered a major epileptic seizure and accused the developer of basing the Braindance headset on a medical device designed to intentionally induce to seizures.
Despite high praise from the initial reviews, the Metacritic user score was much lower. Currently, the Metascore for the PC version of the game is 86, with a user score of 7.2 (out of 10). Meanwhile, the game user’s scores for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are 3.4 and 4.7 respectively (with Metascores of 54 and 61 respectively).
It should be noted that those who have not played the game can also send user reviews, as Metacritic does not check whether a user has completed or played a game. In February, for example, a Reset Era user orchestrated the AI: The Somnium Files.
Metacritic put a 36-hour grace period in user reviews for video games in July this year. Later, Metacritic would insist that this decision was not motivated by reactions to any particular game. That year also said low user review score for Warcraft III: Reforgedand The Last of Us Part II.
Users complained about Cyberpunk 2077numerous glitches and bugs, along with poor optimization, and the console version with inferior graphics. CD Projekt Red recommended that fans complete the game quickly and avoid creating too many items to avoid corrupting the saved file, which was later fixed. Even the reviews that praised the game also discussed these issues.
CD Projekt Red apologized for the publicity and launch of the game and offered a full refund. However, two lawsuits have been initiated by investors – one in Poland is also a lawyer.
A question and answer investor call allegedly caused CD Projekt Red to deny that it had any special Cyberpunk 2077 on consoles, and who were working on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game “until the last minute. ”
Both Sony and Microsoft said they would offer a full refund for the game. Sony would remove the game from the PlayStation Store, but there were “no conversations”From Microsoft removing it from them.
Although it was stated in the investor’s question and answer call mentioned above that the team was focused on fixing the game before any discussion of the game’s free multiplayer or DLC, a web page was recently discovered, stating that the first free DLC would be launched in early 2021.
Cyberpunk 2077 is available on Windows PC (via Epic Games, GOG and Steam), PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Google Stadia. The game will also arrive on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X | S in 2021, and PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players, respectively, will be able to upgrade to the next generation for free.
In case you missed it, you can find our review here.
Image: Previously released press release.