Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty hits 4.3 million copies sold, as CD Projekt reports best Q3 in its history

Financial highlights

• According to its latest earnings release, CD Projekt reached PLN 442.6 million ($112.6 million) in revenue, up 80% year-over-year.
• Game sales accounted for 88% of the total, and nearly 97% of product sales came from digital copies.
• GOG.com reached PLN 83.7 million ($21.2 million) in revenue, up 90% compared to the same period last year.
• North America remained the top region by revenue, accounting for 74.51% of total sales in the third quarter. It is followed by Europe (17.24%), and Asia (5.03%). Domestic sales (Poland) had a 2.12% share.
• Net profit for the period was PLN 202.8 million ($51.6 million), up 105% compared to the third quarter of 2022.
• According to CD Projekt CFO Piotr Nielubowicz, “this was the best Q3 period in the entire history of CD Projek Group.”

Development costs, team structure, and sales of Phantom Liberty

• As of September 30, CD Projekt’s expenditures subject to amortization amounted to PLN 451 million ($114.7 million), including the previously disclosed production budget of Phantom Liberty and PLN 178 million ($45.2 million) in development costs for Cyberpunk 2077 that haven’t yet been depreciated.
• 40% of the total will be depreciated by the end of this year (Q3-Q4), and the company plans to continue the process on a quarterly basis until December 31, 2028 using the reducing balance method of amortization (see the image below).

• In Q3, CD Projekt’s expenditure on development projects amounted to PLN 64.8 million ($16.4 million), and since the beginning of 2023, this expense item has totaled PLN 227.4 million ($57.8 million) — up 56% year-over-year.
• As can be seen in the graph below, the company has also increased its investment in research costs, which it defines as “costs of work on the future games incurred at an initial stage” preceding the development phase.

• CD Projekt, which still has several games at different stages of development, has started transfering developers who previously worked on Cyberpunk 2077, its Ultimate Edition, and Phantom Liberty to other projects.
• As of October 31, roughly half of its entire team is working on the next Witcher title (Project Polaris), which is a solid increase compared to previous periods.
• A small team at The Molasses Flood, which was hit with layoffs earlier this year, continues to work on The Witcher’s spin-off Project Sirius.
• Other titles are still at early (research) stages, including Cyberpunk 2077’s sequel Project Orion (currently at the conceptualization stage), the remake of the first Witcher codenamed Canis Majoris (in development by Fool’s Theory), and the brand new IP codenamed Project Hadar.

• Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty has reached 4.3 million copies sold in two months. This means the expansion has sold another 1.3 million units since the 3 million milestone announced on October 5.
• CD Projekt also noted that Cyberpunk 2077’s rating on Steam continues to improve thanks to the release of version 2.0 — 92% of more than 10k user reviews in the last 30 days are positive.