The troubled launch of Cyberpunk 2077 has hit the Polish video game development and publishing house, Cyberpunk 2077 massively. Before the launch of what was supposed to be the biggest game of the decade, CD Projekt Red was worth over 40 billion Polish złoty. According to a recent business report, the game development studio is currently worth less zł 10 billion.
This drop in total worth also means that CD Projekt Red is no longer the most valuable games company in Europe, a title the company hold for almost five years since 2017. According to updated charts, the title has slipped to Techland, the developers of the critically acclaimed Dying Light series.
In December 2020, CDPR shares were around zł 400 each. On December 4th, they hit an all-time high of zł 443. Since the peak, their shares and market cap halved within the first two quarters of 2021. Their stock has halved yet again since March 2022.
The falling share value and the market cap of CDPR come as a surprise as Cyberpunk 2077 did exceptionally well in terms of sales. The game sold 14 million copies in 2020 alone. The number reached the 18 million mark in April 2022. The developers were busy fixing all of the problems with the title and it is in a rather playable form at the moment. But, the much-hyped title has hit investor faith and jeopardized the developers in ways it can never recover from.
Currently, the most valuable video games company in Europe is Techland. The Wroclaw-based company has a market cap of around zł 10.6 billion. Techland, however, is not listed on any stock exchange. Thus, Puls Biznesu, a Polish business daily, had to guess how much a Techland share would be worth. This does leave some grey areas in the claim.
CD Projekt released The Witcher 3 in 2015 and a well-received DLC to the game in 2016. Thus, in 2017, the company was well afloat. Five years after, when the Polish developers returned to the same state, we cannot say they are in a mood of shutting down. CDPR has a bright future moving forward. The company is due to launch the next-gen version of The Witcher 3 later this year and has the next Witcher and Cyberpunk games in development.