CD Projekt Red discusses The Witcher 3 sales and longevity

CD Projekt Red discusses Witcher 3 sales and longevity

CD Projekt Red discusses The Witcher 3 sales and longevity

During the company’s financial results conference, CD Projekt Red talked about the Witcher 3’s sales over time, revealing some astounding figures. First off, The Witcher 3 sold more copies in 2017 than it did in 2016, an excellent showing for a game that is now three years old, showcasing continued demand for the RPG long after the game’s initial launch period. 

While some of this additional interest is attributable to the game’s recent Xbox One X and PS4 Pro updates, the bulk of this growth doesn’t come from consoles, instead, coming from increase PC sales, with PC accounting for half of The Witcher 3’s sales last year. 
 
In both 2016 and 2017, PC was the most popular platform for The Witcher 3, accounting for 42% of the game’s sales in 2016 and 50% of its sales in 2017, though the game’s most popular sales period is still the game’s launch year of 2015. Regardless, it is undeniable that The Witcher 3 remains a huge earner for CD Projekt Red, with the studio having long earned back the game’s development costs. 

One other interesting that is that that in 2017, 74% of the Witcher 3’s sales were digital, revealing how useful the digital market is for the longevity of modern gaming titles. The Witcher 3 sold more digital copies in 2017 than it did in its launch year of 2015, which is an impressive statistic for CD Projekt Red. Reduced physical sales are partially due to the trade-in culture of consoles, which allows for the resale of games without any revenue going to CD Projekt Red. 
  
Below is a comment from Piotr Nielubowicz, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of CD Project Red. 


This diagram shows two important information. Number 1. In 2017, The Witcher 3 has sold more than in 2016. We are extremely proud of that and it had impact on total sales of all (The Witcher) games which was 33 million of copies as mentioned by Adam. The second important information is that on the year of the release, 70% of sales were sales of console copies and slightly more than 30% were PC copies. The trend has been changing over time and PCs have the longest life cycle now. In 2017 50% of sales stem from PC copies and the other half was attributed to both consoles.

CD Projekt Red discusses Witcher 3 sales and longevity


What can be seen here is that PC has provided CD Project Red with the most sales after the game’s post-launch period, showcasing the benefits of digital distribution and long-term game sales for the platform, especially when compared to PS4 and Xbox One.     

Xbox One has been outsold by PC every year since The Witcher 3 launched, offering a potential insight into why Microsoft has been so keen to release all of their exclusive titles on both platforms in recent history. 

You can join the discussion on The Witcher 3’s long-term sales on the OC3D Forums.Â