CD Projekt Red’s woes continue into the year of 2021. The company’s Q1 2021 earnings were revealed, showing that their NET profit expectations were well below the mark. According to the report, CD Projekt Red’s profit plummeted to more than 65%, which resulted in an $8.8 million loss. Despite this setback, the company also reported that they had “record-breaking positive cash flows.” All of this is has been attributed to the launch, and post-launch of Cyberpunk 2077, which the company is still trying to fix.
In the report CD Projekt CFO Piotr Nielubowicz states that the loss was due to all of the extra work being necessitated in order to try and resolve the Cyberpunk 2077 issues that the company has been dealing with since it launched in late 2020. This includes “development expenditures, work on updating the game, and R&D activities related to future projects.” Nielubowicz did not offeer any updated sales numbers for Cyberpunk 2077, which could be a serious indication of future profits. The title did insanely well when it launched, shipping more than 13 million units within a couple of weeks.
President and CEO Adam Kiciński stated that the company is still going to “live up to what we promised our gamers in January.” He also mentioned that they will be moving forward with development on two brand new AAA titles, neither of which have official titles. The company is also still planning on bringing Cyberpunk 2077 to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/Series X proper as opposed to being backwards compatible. They also outlined their Hotfix/Patch roadmap that has taken place thus far, and how they plan on continuing to roll out newer updates to the title.
Speaking of which, it’s important to note that the game still has not returned to the PlayStation Store. It was taken down on December 17, just seven days after it launched, due to the abysmal performance issues that plagued it. As of this writing, there’s still no notion or any sign it coming back. The delisting of Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store was the beginning of a long nightmare for CD Projekt Red, as they have been combating problem after problem ever since.
These series of unfortunate events include having a class-action lawsuit filed by their own investors, falling victim to cyber attack, and dealing with the fallout of Konrad Tomaszkiewicz leaving the company due to an investigation of workplace bullying allegations. It’s safe to say that CD Projekt Red needs a break of sorts, and the needed it yesterday. There might be a light at the end of this tunnel, but it’s more than likely going to take a long time before they ever get to it.