With over $303M in profit, CD Projekt boasts best-ever year following Cyberpunk 2077

CD Projekt Red parent CD Projekt is reporting results for its financial year ending December 31, 2020, and in doing so offering a wider look at both the company's overall performance and how its controversial launch of Cyberpunk 2077 fared in December 2020.

CD Projekt says that it sold over 13.7 million copies of Cyberpunk 2077 between the game's December 10 launch and the end of both the calendar year and its fiscal year weeks later on December 31.

That presumably includes the 8 million preorders CD Projekt boasted on launch day, but it's unclear how (if at all) a wave of refunds issued for both physical and digital versions of the game over significant performance issues and bugs impacted that final 13.7 million figure.

Sides shared by CD Projekt ahead of its full report today show that the bulk of those 13.7 million sales were digital (roughly 73 percent) and most purchases were for the PC or Stadia version of the game, followed by PlayStation and Xbox One.

CD Projekt CFO Piotr Nielubowicz adds in a statement that the studio is determined to listen to and address negative feedback over Cyberpunk 2077 and turn it around, something he says is made evident by its own help with refunds and ongoing fixes in development for the game.

"Cyberpunk is the most complex project in the Studio's history and the fruit of five years of hard work. We believe that, next to The Witcher, [Cyberpunk 2077] will represent a pillar upon which to build our Group's future," says Nielubowicz, echoing a sentiment shared by CDP joint CEO Adam Kicinski earlier this month.

Cyberpunk is certainly the pillar on which CD Projekt's 2020 financials are built already. The Group as a whole reported 2.13 billion PLN (~$563.5 million) in revenue and 1.15 billion PLN (~$303 million) in consolidated net profit, most of which came from Cyberpunk and The Witcher developer CD Projekt Red.

For comparison's sake, CD Projekt reported 521.3 million PLN in revenue and 180 million PLN in profit for all of 2019.

Though now eclipsed by Cyberpunk 2077's launch, The Witcher franchise continued to be a strong force for the company. The trilogy has now sold over 50 million copies to date, including over 30 million copies of The Witcher 3. Revenue from Gwent, The Witcher's standalone digital card game, are also up year-over-year.

Outside of CD Projekt Red, Nielubowicz adds that GOG also posted a record year with around 1,000 new games added to its store, 343 million PLN in revenue for the year, and 20 million PLN in net profit.

"This result provides a sound financial backbone, securing future development of our Group. In addition to further updates and free DLCs for Cyberpunk, in the latter half of the year we plan to release the game's dedicated next-gen edition," adds Nielubowicz. "The second half of 2021 will also see a next-gen release of The Witcher 3--and of course we are working on other projects which will bear fruit in later years."