I am little bit surprised by all the hatred CD Projekt Red has been receiving over a smart business move.
Lets look at it from their point of view. When The Witcher came out not many people knew about it so the money they made could have never rivalled someone like EA, but to make matters worse they lost money from the sales "The money from the first game had been burned trying to clear up the mess of The Witcher: White Wolf, the console game that never was" (Purchese, 2013).
Further to this "The Witcher 1, the game CD Projekt Red initially predicted would take 15 people to make, would end up taking 100 people five years to make, and cost an unprecedented 20 million Polish Złoty (the equivalent of around £12-£16 million in today's money, Iwiński believes). More importantly, adds Iwiński, "That was all the money we had. Plus some.""(Purchese, 2013).
Despite all of this DLC for Enhanced Edition of Witcher 1 was free.
The Witcher 2 also has its ups and downs "The Witcher 2 was very nearly canned, and the entire company almost collapsed." (Purchese, 2013). By trying to stick to their DRM free policy "The result is roughly 4.5 million illegal downloads. This is only an estimation, and I would say that’s rather on the optimistic side of things; as of today we have sold over 1M legal copies, so having only 4.5-5 illegal copies for each legal one would be not a bad ratio. The reality is probably way worse." (Iwinski, Grayson, 2011).
Despite all of this DLC for Enhanced Edition of Witcher 2 was also free plus the REDKit
Lets not forget that for Witcher 3 their company needed to employ more people to meet the needs and demands for the game."The company employs over 230 world-class GFX artists, animators, programmers and designers, both Polish and foreign." (CD Projekt, n.d). Everyone needs to be paid which includes investors.
"Plans for 2014-2016:
Releasing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2014) and Cyberpunk 2077. Both are triple-A titles with extensive development budgets, top-of-the-line production values and excellent marketing potential." (CD Projekt, n.d)
To get more exposure they got a stand at E3 with Microsoft, both 2013 and 2014. They succeeded, because on many YouTube videos (since the first The Witcher 3 trailer) you can see/read many comments from people that have for the first time heard of the game and/or never played previous two.
Of course Microsoft would have tried to get something unique for their console to boost their sales, I don't think Sony is any different for that matter. The overwhelming positive reaction CDPR got from their trailers made them attractive business agenda for Microsoft. Adding additional two items does not make them sell outs. Everyone will still have same game content.
CD Projekt Red is a business, without money they do not exist. A business has employees, assets, marketing... for all of that you need money.
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I respect CDPR and wish them great success.
I am in no way affiliated with CDPR, just a huge fan of The Witcher games
CD Projekt (n.d.).
Business profile. Retrieved from
https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/Capital_group/Business_profile
CD Projekt (n.d.).
Market strategy. Retrieved from
https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/Capital_group/Strategia_rozwoju
Grayson, N. (2011).
Interview: CD Projekt's CEO on Witcher 2 piracy, why DRM's still not worth it. PC Gamer. Retrieved from
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/29/interview-cd-projekts-ceo-on-witcher-2-piracy-why-drms-still-not-worth-it/
Purchese, R. (2013).
Seeing Red: The story of CD Projekt. Eurogamer. Retreived from
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-06-seeing-red-the-story-of-cd-projekt
No need to say who is he, right?
