Cyberpunk 2077 had a rocky start on PS4 and Xbox One consoles. Reports of severe crashes, bugs, and poor performance plagued the game’s release. Developer CD Projekt Red apologized and even offered players refunds.
The developer admitted at a conference that the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 caused “the loss of trust and reputation of the players”. However, these issues also had a financial impact on the developer’s parent company, CD Projekt, according to a new report.
According to a report from Bloomberg, the founders of CD Projekt found that more than $ 1 billion had slashed their collective wealth, with the company’s shares falling by a third in the past six days (Cyberpunk 2077, posted Jan. November).
The cost of failure
Bloomberg reports that the combined value of the 34% stake the original four founders owned has dropped to $ 3 billion. The founders of CD Projekt are currently the CEOs Adam Kiciński and Marcin Iwiński, CFO Piotr Nielubowicz and the former CEO Michał Kiciński.
As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, CD Projekt’s share price has been falling since December 4th, as the game neared release. The share price fell by 29% from PLN 443 per share to PLN 310.6. After the game was released, this price fell another 21% from PLN 395.8 to PNL 296.
While this is a significant drop for the company, and is directly attributable to reports of widespread errors on previous generation consoles, stock prices rose again 5% following CD Projekt’s apology and refund offer.
Bloomberg analysts have estimated that the speed at which CD Projekt Red is fixing these bugs will affect the long-term impact of the Cyberpunk 2077 release on the company.
During the conference call earlier this week, CD Projekt confirmed that it intends to “fix the game,” although a schedule of when we will see some major changes remains unclear.
“Unfortunately, I can’t share the cost of extra work, but the cost of patching the game is irrelevant compared to the cost already spent,” said CFO Piotr Nielubowicz. “So there is no question – we definitely want to fix the game. We made a promise to the players and we will do everything we can to stick with it.”