Before the release of Cyberpunk 2077, the game was predicted to have some of the best initial sales in history. After a series of scandals, analysts’ expectations have fallen sharply. But it turned out that the title could not justify even the worst of them. And it’s not about large-scale returns.
As the Polish holding CD Projekt wrote in its latest financial report, 13.7 million copies of Cyberpunk 2077 were sold in 2020.
At the same time, according to the Bankier business publication, on average, the game was predicted to have a circulation of 14.7 million copies sold. Only the most pessimistic analysts called the figure of 13.8 million copies — 100 thousand more than the actual sales of Cyberpunk 2077.
Note that the lion’s share of copies of the game (13 million) was sold in the first 10 days after the release, which took place on December 10. As a result, for the rest of the month CD Projekt managed to ship only 700 thousand copies of Cyberpunk 2077. Most likely, such a sharp drop in sales is explained by the many scandals that accompanied the launch of the title.
But the refunds that the Polish studio offered to issue to gamers dissatisfied with the quality of the game had little effect on the performance of Cyberpunk 2077.
During a conversation with investors, CD Projekt announced that it had approved about 30 thousand requests for refunds, and the refund program itself cost the company zł8.46 million ($2.23 million). Important: the statistics took into account only those requests that the studio received by email. CD Projekt did not count the refunds issued by retailers.
It is still unknown what the sales of Cyberpunk 2077 turned out to be in the first quarter of 2021 (ended March 31). But recall that a number of analysts are waiting for record low results — 500 thousand copies of the game sold in three months. Nevertheless, they do not exclude that in the future, especially after the release of the next version, sales may begin to grow.
The publication of the CD Projekt report had almost no effect on the value of the holding’s shares. At the time of writing the news, the shares are trading at a price of zł170 ($44.91), which is only 1.86% lower than it was yesterday. According to Bankier, it was possible to keep the price tag thanks to two things: CD Projekt’s record earnings in 2020 and the announcement of the payment of the highest dividends in the company’s history.