Cyberpunk 2077 Broke CDPRs Profit Record, Triple The Witcher 3s Launch Year – Forbes

Cyberpunk 2077

While the legacy of Cyberpunk 2077 is mostly that of an unfinished game that has had so many problems it remains banned from the PlayStation store, one narrative that is sliding under the radar is justhow many copies this thing sold.

CDPR has released some preliminary numbers ahead of its full annual earnings report, and they are deeply impressive, especially considering the issues surrounding the game at launch.

The 2020 release of Cyberpunk allowed CDPR to break its all times sales record with $562 million in consolidated sales revenues.

This is about 2.5 times, nearly triple, the previous record when The Witcher 3 launched in 2015, which had $210 million in revenue that year. The profit record was also broken, and that one was triple 2015, $303 million versus $89.8 million.

Think thats crazy? Its even more significant when you remember that The Witcher 3 launched in May of that year, while Cyberpunk 2077 launched in December, with just a few weeks to sell all those copies. The last numbers we heard from CDPR were back in December with 8 million pre-orders leading to 13 million copies sold. And yes, that was after refunds at the time, which were likely less large in volume than you think.

The Witcher 3

The Witcher 3 was more of a long tail success, going on to snowball in popularity over time. Cyberpunk 2077 absolutely has had some sharp sales drop-off, given both the problems with the game and the fact that Sony, owner of the largest console gaming platform on earth, is refusing to sell a digital copy of it in its store. But its already a huge sales hit regardless.

This is where CDPR feels like theyre in limbo now, and the plans for Cyberpunk 2077 remain somewhat nebulous. They have said they are committed to fixing the game so it can sell for years to come. They are still doing free DLC this year and the next-gen release of the game probably this fall. They still say theyre doing paid DLC expansions, but theyre not talking about them yet. They have, however, cancelled a huge multiplayer game tied to Night City.

Cyberpunk is a really, really complicated situation almost unlike anything else in the industry. Massive sales at launch, but a game so broken it was pulled from a major store. But if you could get past the bugs or played on a hyper optimal system like a high-end PC, there were many elements of the game that were actually quite great. As much as I write about Cyberpunks problems, I myself quite enjoyed it, and Im not alone. But the legacy of the game is clouded by its issues and CDPRs reaction to those issues.

This is going to be a long saga, mark my words. But in the end, its unclear if CDPR will alter the current legacy of the game and change the narrative surrounding it. If not, hey, at least it sold well.

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Cyberpunk 2077 Broke CDPRs Profit Record, Triple The Witcher 3s Launch Year - Forbes