CD Projekt Red has released and revealed a strategy update for the company. The update strategy includes three strategic directions of development including a transformation of the studio and a change in the way the studio develops games. The studio also wants to be better at communicating and will be making its marketing campaigns in the future smaller. Lastly, CD Projekt Red has announced the acquisition of the Canadian Digital Scapes game development studio. These three directions are enabling CD Projekt Red to work on multiple AAA games and expansions in parallel for The Witcher and Cyberpunk franchises.
“While we remain as ambitious as ever, we are also aware of areas which call for improvement. Our new Strategic Development Framework will enable us to optimize intragroup processes – especially those which concern development of videogames – and will secure the Group’s further dynamic growth,” says Adam Kicinski, CEO of CD Projekt Red.
One of the things that CD Projekt Red will be focused on in the future is to improve the studio’s RED engine technology. It will be improved and centralized. CD Projekt Red will also be reorganizing the studio as a set of interdisciplinary agile teams that will transform the way games are developed. Pawel Zawodny, CTO and Head of Production at CD Projekt Red said “we want to be sure that we can work with two global brands at the same time while ensuring top quality of our products. We emphasize technological advancements and we want to set up versatile teams which combine various specializations and competences. These teams will be further assisted by a cross-projects group of experts, who – owing to their expertise – can contribute to key aspects of development. All these changes aim to enable us to work on multiple AAA games and expansions in parallel, starting in 2022.”
“Single-player RPGs have been, are, and will remain our priority. However, we also perceive the huge potential of both The Witcher and Cyberpunk, and we want to expand their reach to include new areas, media, and content types. Our goal is to deliver an even richer supply of entertainment, introducing new target groups to our characters and imaginary worlds,” Michal Nowakowski, SVP Business Development and Board Member of CD Projekt Red.
Regarding marketing campaigns, the plan for the future is that promotional content will be released closer to the actual release of the given game. CD Projekt Red will also be doing things differently regarding announcing new projects. The company will now publish a new roadmap each year, detailing plans for the coming quarters.
To help with its new strategy, CD Projekt Red announced the signing of a term sheet that specifies the acquisition of Digital Scapes. The studio has been working with CD Projekt since 2018 and helped work on Cyberpunk 2077. The Digital Scapes team will be the foundation that will build the wider CD Projekt Red Vancouver team. CD Projekt Red Vancouver joins the other development teams based in Warsaw, Krakow, and Wroclaw who will jointly work on upcoming projects.
“We are very excited to join a studio that forges the incredibly engaging, vastly scoped experiences, such as The Witcher trilogy and Cyberpunk 2077. We believe our contribution in the area of gameplay and technology can make them even more captivating. Being a Polish Canadian, I personally take great satisfaction in building bridges between Canadian and Polish game development industries. This is a great opportunity for Canadian developers to get involved with CD PROJEKT RED’s incredible IP and for CD PROJEKT RED to tap into Canada’s deep talent pool and game-making craft,” remarks Marcin Chady, Vancouver studio head.