Watch Out, Ubisoft - Witcher Studio CD Projekt Is After Your Crown

Quality over quantity, take notes Ubisoft

Although i enjoyed some Ubisoft-games like AC, Far Cry etc, they come nowhere close to The Witcher 3 in terms of quality
But then again almost no game comes close to TW3 in terms of quality

With literally one game?

It's kinda astonishing how successful CD Projekt Red is, but that success certainly isn't undeserved.

Wanna know how Ubisoft can KEEP their crown?

Rayman 4.

Just saying.

CD Projekt also owns GOG. It's not just the 7 games they made.

I love the world, story and quests in The Witcher 3, but the combat is a bit lacking. A solid game as a whole, though.

@KoopaTheGamer the combat is good but the actual movement outside of it is kind of "fights you for no good reason." Like Geralt feels as if I'm telekinetically puppeting a big beefy man rather than like I'm playing AS him.

Not bad for a studio with one franchise so far and one that releases sporadically. Here’s hoping they won’t turn out like Blizz in the next 20 years.

@Dang69 the difference is written in the article... 9.6bi vs 8bi.

@RennanNT I literally read the article twice and somehow did not see it. GONNA delete that post.

@Syndrome To be more precise, CDP owns GoG, large part of distribution in Poland and Red, the development branch. It’s a lot bigger than Witcher.

What was the previous second largest game company in Europe? Neither this article, the Eurogamer article or the original source seem to mention that.

When u put so much love in your projects you deserve this title. Ubisoft take note.

The hype for Cyberpunk 2077 is insane, and it will sell better than pretty much any Ubisoft game ever has.

With that being said, Ubisoft publishes 5-6 major games per year, with 3-4 of them being AAA open-world action titles, compared to CDPR who has published 1 game every 5 years, so Ubisoft still generates considerably more revenue than CDPR.

However, last year's Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Breakpoint sold really poorly, which tanked Ubisoft's stock value and exposed a weakness in their strategy of obsessively shoving GAAS elements into every single one of their big AAA games.

Which is quite a feat when you consider all their success is mostly based on the Witcher 3.
Here is hoping they can diversify cause there are people ( like me ) who aren't interested in The Witcher.

@Toy_Link

Most likely Infogrames ( Atari 2000's ) or Codemasters.

Rockstar and Rare wereare subsidaries

@sandman89 and Cyberpunk 2077. And the GOG online store...

I'll say as I always do - I have my fair share of issues with Witcher 3, it's by all means not a perfect game to me as it has too many fundamental flaws which hurt my overall experience. This is coming from a person who has 100% the game and all its achievements on Steam and has owned the game on 3 different systems.

That said, it's undeniably visible just how much heart and polish (haha) went into their final product. It's really nice to see, as the Russian human I am, that overtime Slavic gaming companies and franchises are becoming more relevant as there are so many talented people working in those countries who have never seen the appreciation by masses.

Hopefully this teaches Ubisoft that their oversaturated approach to day by day release of mediocre games only hurts them as a brand. They have a lot of genuinely excellent franchises that people would love to see return and maybe news like this will kick them in the face.

On the contrary, despite all of its success, I do dearly hope CD Projekt doesn't succumb to its fame and become a nasty conglomerate like its peers have in the past. Success seemingly ruins companies and it would be a shame seeing a good one like them go rotten.

Good for them. CyberPunk is day 1 for me just like Witcher 3 years ago.

Also cant wait for Division 2 expansion from Ubi. Witcher 3 not something you play with friends and co-workers. Both studios fill a slot on the schedule depending on the year.

For all the Witcher 3 being great - I not been playing it for the last 4 years straight 😂

So who did they overtake for #2? Team17?

It's amazing how much of their reputation and wealth is built on the back of one (extremely decent) game. Hopefully Cyberpunk doesn't disappoint!

@Ralizah Cyberpunk will disappoint terribly. Not because it won't be a well made game, but because the hype engine is is such overdrive it's to the point of expecting Half-Life 3 to be an N64 exclusive. It doesn't matter if Cyberpunk is objectively the best video game ever made, the internet is going to burn it at the stake day 1 for failing to live up to absurd expectations.

@NEStalgia I mean by realistic standards. And, even if hype is high, it could very well live up to expectations. BotW certainly did for most of us.

@NEStalgia I dunno, their announcement today that owners of the current gen version of Cyberpunk will get a free downloadable upgrade to the next gen version when they play it on Xbox Series X or PS5, should buy them a lot of online goodwill.

@sanderev I’ve never heard of GOG store. Do they sell different games like steam?

@Syndrome And ubisoft has uplay.

Funnily enough, playing Witcher 3 reminds me of playing Assassin's Creed.

Don't @ me.

@Syndrome I was about to comment on how ridiculous the valuation of the company is based on effectively 1 game, but owning GoG makes it a bit more realistic (valuations are always massively overinflated IMO)...and also explains why the top 2 quick links grouped with the main site result when Googling GoG are Witcher and Cyberpunk.

@raven89 I know. I'm just pointing out why CDP has that kind of market value. It's not just because of Witcher.

@mariomaster96 Well, Ubisoft has some quality games over the last years... Instead I think about EA... Same "meh" games in the last two decades -.-"

@sandman89 they sell thousands of newer and older games. All DRM free. They also have an optional launcher.

It’s by far my favorite PC game store.

@sanderev what actually is DRM? Why is that a problem and why would a launcher be optional? I do game a lot on pc but tend to stick with steam uplay and origin. Uplay seems the most unreliable.

@sandman89
DRM = Digital Rights Management
Basically anti-piracy measures. I think a suitable example would be NES/SNES online requiring the console to be connected to the internet every 7 days to maintain access to the games.

Because GOG sells games without these measures, you could buy a game, download it and that file would be guaranteed to work as long as there is a PC to install it on. The company could go bust or be bought out and it wouldn't impact your ability to play it.

@sandman89
Also, if you like steam, GOG occasionally offer the ability to obtain Steam games (that you own) for free on their store:
https://www.gog.com/connect
At the moment "Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown" is currently redeemable.

@Gwynbleidd Pretty much everyone who is an adult remembers that.

Pretty wild, considering how they started out as a band of merry software pirates!

I want to see a Cirilla game!

@Syndrome Ah thought so! Ok!

CD Projeckt Red has it's name because it began as a games distribution company in Poland, securing and releasing games no one else could in the region back in the days of CDs. Good Old Games (GoG) brought this expertise to Western audiences by publishing and supporting old games that were difficult to find and/or run on modern systems. This morphed into a full-blown game distribution platform, their own game studio, and now the only working unified PC games platform in the GoG Galaxy 2.0. beta. GoG has games no one else has, it even has Blizzard games Blizzard doesn't offer (Warcraft 1&2 and Diablo), and GoG does the work to ensure these games run. The Witcher 3 is an astounding success, but the premise of this article is like saying Valve only made it's money on Half-life 2. In many fields, you don't make money on production, it's all in distribution.

@sandman89 Digital Rights Management describes a whole class of software protection systems. The main problem is over time agreements, licenses, and services expire and games may become unplayable or degraded simply because of the DRM. For example, Fallout 3 required Games For Windows Live, which is now defunct, so a manual patch is required to get the game to run on Steam. If Windows had not made those files available the game simply would not run under any circumstances. Some other DRM systems require an internet connection to play, which is not only an annoyance, but also requires the servers work to operate. For example, Mercenaries 2 has a 2-player drop-in, drop-out coop. It was tons of fun and worked well, but now the EA servers have been long gone so it is no longer a coop game.

GoG fixes some of these issues, which make some games playable again and/or restores features, but it also ensures you won't be locked out of a game in the future because of DRM issues. GoG also adds quality of life features to some games as well.

@shaneoh GoG connect is pretty cool, but has a pretty slow pace. I don't know if they are going to abandon it for their newest project. GoG Galaxy 2.0 is in beta right now and it pulls in all the games you own from multiple launchers and puts them all in one place with tracking, Metadata, and social features. It even lets you find and link games installed directly on your PC like MMOs or older games off CDs. It automatically launches the host launcher when you want to play a game. I have been using it for a few months and it is the best thing since Steam.

Quality over quantity and awesome customer friendliness prevails. I wish nintendo would do the same - so many wii u games - not gonna buy them again on switch

@sandman89 If Valve, EA or Ubisoft would ever go out of business you would lose access to all of those games. If CD Project Red would go out of business you would still be able to play the games you downloaded from their store. And you can download full installers for each game.

@Krazzar @sanderev very interesting 🤔 thanks for that.