There’s a difference between releasing many video games and releasing quality video games. We can all point to game developers who try to “push out games as fast as possible” in an attempt to rake in cash, only to forget that the games need to be at a certain level of quality to ensure great sales and reception. To that end, CD Projekt Red was a developer that, for a long time, wasn’t one of the teams that gamers had to worry about. However, with the arrival of a certain title, things changed, and now the company is trying to win gamers back.
That desire, however, is ironic given what was said at the quarterly earnings call that was reported on by VGC. The team was asked about working on multiple projects at once, and CD Projekt Red joint CEO Michał Nowakowski replied that they were not only doing that, but they are attempting to have a less “lumpy” release schedule:
“We already worked on two projects at the same time when we worked on [Cyberpunk 2077 DLC] Phantom Liberty because that was a game-sized project with almost 300 people working on it, and at the same time we have already been working on Polaris, so we’ve had an experience of working on more than one project.”
He wasn’t done, citing other projects that are in the works:
“And there is The Witcher 1 remake done in cooperation with Canis Majoris, so you can definitely expect us to release more titles, and the cadence of launches is something we definitely plan to increase, although I will obviously not comment on what is the space between the projects time wise.”
That’s a wise tactic to use because the last thing they want to do is promise a release time, only for it to get delayed. They’ve done that plenty with Cyberpunk 2077 and its content over the years of its development.
On the one hand, it’s not to see that CD Projekt Red is attempting to make multiple things happen at once. The problem is that if they get stretched too thin, things might end up with mixed quality like with its most recent title.
Furthermore, while the DLC they released last year was a hit, they literally threw everything and everyone they had at it to make it work. Putting 300 people on a DLC is not standard, and it highlighted how the company was trying to ensure their IP didn’t die right then and there.
Only time will tell if their “increased release schedule” pans out.
