Cyberpunk 2077 was no flop, however it definitely disrupted CD Projekt’s ahead momentum, inflicting it to postpone Cyberpunk DLC in favor of fixes, and hurting its share value. However the previous 12 months of Cyberpunk launch atonement just isn’t a part of a long-term scaling again, we realized final week. If something, CD Projekt’s ambition has multiplied: The corporate says it’ll make a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, launch three new Witcher RPGs over the course of simply six years, make a brand new recreation set in a brand new world, and extra.
On the similar time, joint CEO Marcin Iwiński mentioned he’d be stepping down and taking a brand new position on the CD Projekt supervisory board. These bulletins inevitably led to hypothesis that CD Projekt is perhaps an acquisition goal. The speculation goes that its super-ambitious roadmap is both an try to draw massive traders, or a option to deter a takeover by growing its share value.
It seems like something is feasible with all the sport studio procuring massive firms like Microsoft have been doing, however trade analyst Rhys Elliott, who works for gaming analysis agency Newzoo (opens in new tab), does not assume CD Projekt’s daring roadmap justifies any speedy conclusions about its present or future possession.
“Expansive roadmaps should not a particular signal of an organization anticipating an acquisition, and we might not need to speculate about the opportunity of CD Projekt getting acquired,” Elliott informed PC Gamer.
In response to Elliott, it’s normal for mid-sized builders to have bold inside roadmaps for the aim of forecasting income and setting deadlines. What is not typical is telling the world about these roadmaps, as CD Projekt has. Elliott thinks the corporate seen that its standing was enhancing—significantly after the success of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners on Netflix—and wished to grab the second.
“If [CD Projekt] revealed this roadmap earlier than fixing the state of Cyberpunk 2077, there would have been an outcry from the general public and traders, additional growing unfavorable sentiment across the firm,” Elliot says. “Now that public sentiment across the firm is changing into extra constructive, CD Projekt is hoping to leverage that sentiment and construct off it to utterly flip the unfavorable narrative. The inventory market additionally responded positively to the bulletins.”
That is music to the ears of traders.
Rhys Elliott, Newzoo
The CD Projekt share value has risen by about 28% over the previous month. Elliott thinks traders particularly appreciated the announcement of a non-licensed recreation—one CD Projekt will absolutely personal, in contrast to the Cyberpunk and Witcher video games—in addition to the information from earlier this 12 months that CD Projekt is switching to Unreal Engine 5.
“The corporate desires all to understand it has realized from its errors, is doubling down on its most profitable methods, and has many initiatives within the pipeline,” says Elliott. “That is music to the ears of traders.”
One other analyst, David Cole of DFC Intelligence (opens in new tab), had an analogous outlook.
“From my perspective, it looks as if the announcement was made to offer present and potential traders confidence that there are a lot of thrilling issues within the works,” mentioned Cole.
However may any of these potential traders be eyeing a controlling curiosity within the firm? Elliott does be aware that Tencent and Savvy Video games Group have each mentioned they need to make massive acquisitions in Europe.
Savvy Video games Group, which is funded by Saudi Arabia, particularly mentioned it was concerned with spending $13 billion on a “main recreation writer.” CD Projekt would not value $13 billion, though the fund might be planning a number of acquisitions. It is not too onerous to think about CD Projekt underneath the Xbox banner as a substitute, or experiencing the embrace of Embracer, or changing into a Sony studio, however none of those eventualities are even rumors we’re listening to. In reality, all we have heard on the subject not too long ago is the opposite joint CEO, Adam Kiciński, saying in a 2021 interview (opens in new tab): “We’ve been repeating for years that we plan to stay impartial and don’t plan to turn out to be half of a bigger entity.” (Machine translated from Polish by Google.)
We did not see Microsoft’s Bethesda or Activision Blizzard acquisitions coming, so we’re not ruling something out, however the analysts do not assume a bunch of recreation bulletins is sufficient to go on. Past that, the one hypothesis gas is CD Projekt’s depressed share value (it is up within the brief time period, however has dropped since 2020) and the truth that plenty of gaming firms have been acquired not too long ago.
At the moment, CD Projekt’s largest single shareholder is Marcin Iwiński, the outgoing co-CEO, who owns 12.78% of the corporate. Adam Kiciński, the opposite CEO, owns 4.02%. The opposite main particular person house owners are Michał Kiciński and Piotr Nielubowicz. The remainder of the shares, 66.04%, are publicly traded.
