Cyberpunk 2077 preorders are ‘higher’ than any The Witcher Games

Gaming By Mark Grantt November 30, 2020

CD Projekt Red just had their Q3 2020 earnings meeting call, this one was very important because the company wanted to assure shareholders that the game was really going to release on December 10.

Piotr Nielubowicz, the company’s chief financial officer revealed an interesting fact about the volume of Cyberpunk 2077 preorders, calling them “visibly higher” than any Witcher title, referring to a slide that was shown during the earnings call.

“All the revenues we generate on Cyberpunk are not booked directly into our profit and loss account – all of them are presented in our balance sheet as deferred revenues, and we will show them upon release of the game,” he said.

The protracted revenue for Q3 2020 increased by PLN 77.7 million (approx. $20.7 million dollars).

Nielubowicz continued and stated that This is “the biggest increase of deferred revenues we ever experienced,” and directly linked to Cyberpunk 2077 preorders. Overall, the third quarter of 2020 was the best performing in recent years for CD Projekt Red.

CD Projekt Red CFO said that the game has seen significant digital preorders.

“The expected ratio between digital and physical on our sales, as we see it on preorders, digital is very strong,” he said. “How far we’ll go? We honestly speaking do not know, definitely farther than we had on The Witcher 3 and definitely more than 50% should come from the digital channel.”

He also put that number in context by comparing it to the split between digital and physical sales for The Witcher games.

“The history of Witcher 3 shows the longer the game is on the markets, the more the split shifts towards digital again. On Witcher 3, it’s [the] vast majority. And on Witcher 2 and 1 it’s, let’s say, 99% of the revenues we generate are digital. So, this is the only direction that can be expected in that near and longer-term.”

Digital sales are becoming more prominent and normal with the time and this is expected, especially this year that people are staying home more than ever.

The Witcher franchise likely isn’t going to lose popularity any time soon, as “despite being focused on Cyberpunk, we maintained popularity of the Witcher franchise during the typically dry summer season.”