The Witcher 2 - Sold Near a Million Copies

According to the Warsaw Business Journal, CD Project Red has sold about 940,000 copies of Witcher 2, helping CD Project RED to earn a lot of money. A most relevant quote:

CD Projekt Red (previously Optimus), producer of the record-breaking “The Witcher” and “The Witcher 2” computer games, reported a net profit of z³.20.4 million and generated z³.80.3 million in revenue for the first half of 2011, Parkiet reported.
Of the group’s many areas of operation, the gaming division provided the largest contribution to the result. In particular, The Witcher 2 game, released on May 17, proved a great success, with sales of 940,000 copies, out of which 200,000 were downloaded online by gamers.

More information.

Well-deserved! One of the best CRPGs I've played in quite a while.

Grats to CD Project. If I remember right The Witcher 1 sold 1 million in its first year, then another 500,000 since the first year. So 940,000 in the first 3.5 months sounds like a spectacular hit.

imagine after the console versions are released?

Important and well-deserved success for a game that only for PC (yet).

does anyone knows what was the budget for this game?
btw, i didn't like the first witcher because of the combat system.. did anyone had this too and still enjoyed the 2nd?

Grats CD project. I hope for even more sales in the future.

And yes…next Witcher in work

very good news! Hopefully more Witchers to come.

How many copies other RPG sell please for PC? I would like to know for example DA, ME, Oblivion etc

Close to 1M is a lot, especially because the game is still sold for full price.

For big budget games with huge marketing you can generally expect north of 75% on consoles. Sometimes even close to 90%. This explains why the Xbox is often the lead platform and then the game is ported back to PC.

In different news:

CDP lost the suit against Namco Bandai over the European XBox rights for TW2. So their contract with THQ was illegal. At least until the appeal in late Sept.

What does this mean for them - and for distribution ?

I'm surprised that only about a fifth of the sales were online sales. Given the heavy online promotion with GoG, I would have thought that online sales would have made up a larger portion.

Originally Posted by Zborno
I'm surprised that only about a fifth of the sales were online sales. Given the heavy online promotion with GoG, I would have thought that online sales would have made up a larger portion.

Yeah.. even without the GOG advertising, I would have expected more online sales than that.

Digital distribution isn't that big in half of Europe. 20% sounds like a lot to me. I don't know comparison numbers though.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
What does this mean for them - and for distribution ?

CDP has to negotiate with Namco Bandai. Either about XBox distribution or about allowing them to go to THQ for a certain amount of money. Or they can try to convince the next judge.

Doesn't sound like what it deserved but I'm used to seeing figures about multi-platform releases. The amount of online sales impressed me since a good percentage of those should have been done through GOG.

Originally Posted by Eisberg
So 940,000 in the first 3.5 months sounds like a spectacular hit.

It looks like it's actually even better. The article states 'first six months of 2011'* which is roughly six weeks (May 17 to June 30th) of sales for TW2, not the 3.5 months to the present date.

*They could be meaning 'first half fiscal 2011' from say Feb-Jul but August would almost certainly be excluded whatever the case.

It looks like not having DRM on the GOG version didn't effect sales and the game is likely going to surpass the sales of the first game. This is actually good evidence towards whether or not the lack of DRM is a factor in decreased sales of a game.

Originally Posted by rikus
btw, i didn't like the first witcher because of the combat system.. did anyone had this too and still enjoyed the 2nd?

TW2's combat system has nothing to do with its predecessor.

Originally Posted by guenthar
It looks like not having DRM on the GOG version didn't effect sales and the game is likely going to surpass the sales of the first game. This is actually good evidence towards whether or not the lack of DRM is a factor in decreased sales of a game.

They removed DRM few weeks after release with a patch , many people wait to read gamer reviews before buying ….

Originally Posted by KapitanUnterhosen
TW2's combat system has nothing to do with its predecessor.

Which is a shame, actually.