CD Projekt Red sales remain strong, but GOG revenue wavers

[Polycount]

In brief: Despite the massive controversy surrounding Cyberpunk 2077's troubled launch in December, the title was and continues to be a financial success for publisher CD Projekt. However, the company's own digital gaming storefront, GOG (formerly Good Old Games), has not been performing quite as well, according to CD Projekt's Q3 2021 financial report.

Indeed, the storefront (best known for selling DRM-free games) posted a year-to-date loss of 4.7 million PLN. That means that, between January of this year and the end of September, GOG lost CD Projekt a whopping $1.14 million.

That isn't a devastating loss by itself, especially given the financial success of CD Projekt's directly-published games, but keep the broader context in mind: last year, GOG managed to pull in a small net profit of around $31,000 (130,000 PLN). It isn't clear what changed between then and now that could have led to this loss.

Regardless, GOG's revenue downturn is not the end of the world for CD Projekt, not by a long shot. As noted previously, Cyberpunk 2077 continues to print money alongside CD Projekt Red's other games. Net profit for CD Projekt Red between January 7 and September 30 remained strong at about $5 million, which more than makes up for GOG's losses.

Unfortunately, that still wasn't enough to bring CD Projekt's overall net profit (up to Q3) on par with what it achieved during the same period in 2020. Last year, net profit for all segments of CD Projekt's business sat at $5.55 million, but when we factor in GOG's underperformance this year, that figure is only $3.94 million.

Aside from discussing general financials, CD Projekt's Q3 2021 earnings report also surfaced a few announcements of interest to gamers rather than investors. Firstly, Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 are still set to receive their next-gen versions sometime in Q1 2022, which should come as a relief to those who feared that another delay might be on the way.

Additionally, work continues on Cyberpunk 2077's first paid expansion (a la Blood & Wine or Hearts of Stone for the Witcher 3), and CD Projekt's recently-acquired studio "The Molasses Flood" is autonomously working on an unannounced project.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/92419-cd-projekt-red-sales-remain-strong-but-gog.html

 

[Tom Yum]

I'd be intrigued to find out how GoG is generating a loss, I know data hosting isn't free but still would have thought it was a high margin business. Especially when GoG has been fairly restrained with giveaways and discounts unlike Epic and Amazon, at least to my observation.

It does seem though that gaming is getting increasingly devalued now with the sheer number of giveaways in the Epic/Steam/Game Pass/Amazon knife battle for PC marketshare. If you are patient you can play some pretty amazing games without spending a dollar just by picking up the giveaways. Micro-transactions is where the money is, but GoG sells predominantly single player, non-microtransaction infested games, so maybe that is why they can't bring in enough revenue to cover costs.

 

[Dimitriid]

I did made a mistake and got a few games purchased on gog.com in the past. I might be inclined to back them up but a recent pet peeve is that they made downloading some games off their page without using the galaxy client intentionally difficult: The option its still there, but I've found out with some of my games that if I wanted to back them up I needed to go click and download something like 100 individual files one by one with no option to click "Download all" as a single file or being provided something like an SFTP site where I can just set it up to grab an entire folder.

Sorry to say but their initial mission statement, "No DRM" is pretty meaningless today if that's the experience: I rather just get all games on Steam in the future if the feature I was trying to support is so bad as to be useless now.

 

[J95qRP7]

I did made a mistake and got a few games purchased on gog.com in the past. I might be inclined to back them up but a recent pet peeve is that they made downloading some games off their page without using the galaxy client intentionally difficult: The option its still there, but I've found out with some of my games that if I wanted to back them up I needed to go click and download something like 100 individual files one by one with no option to click "Download all" as a single file or being provided something like an SFTP site where I can just set it up to grab an entire folder.

Dimitriid, when downloading the games through GOG’s website, they intentionally break the games/content into 4GB chunks. This is to ensure compatibility (32bit browsers) with various different browsers and browser versions. The reason there isn’t a “download all”, is again a compatibility issue. Downloading Cyberpunk, as an example, in 4GB chunks is 27 individual files. This isn’t reliably feasible, to my knowledge. Do you know of a service, not just gaming, that would allow that kind of instanced download, all happen simultaneously to a single client?

This limitation is overcome with their client, but that doesn’t sound like an option for you. While this is speculation, since I believe GOG is the only one to allow the offline storing of games, I’m sure others would have the same issues you’ve described. While it’s a pain, you could always download GOG Galaxy, download the games in a single file, and then uninstall the client.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Dimitriid, when downloading the games through GOG’s website, they intentionally break the games/content into 4GB chunks. This is to ensure compatibility (32bit browsers) with various different browsers and browser versions. The reason there isn’t a “download all”, is again a compatibility issue. Downloading Cyberpunk, as an example, in 4GB chunks is 27 individual files. This isn’t reliably feasible, to my knowledge. Do you know of a service, not just gaming, that would allow that kind of instanced download, all happen simultaneously to a single client?

This limitation is overcome with their client, but that doesn’t sound like an option for you. While this is speculation, since I believe GOG is the only one to allow the offline storing of games, I’m sure others would have the same issues you’ve described. While it’s a pain, you could always download GOG Galaxy, download the games in a single file, and then uninstall the client.

It's not a compatibility issue though, they used to offer the GOG downloader, which was a lighweight application that could easily download all the applicable BIN files and place them in a single folder for your use. It was very convenient. GOG eliminated it to promote the bloated galaxy client.

This is also an easily solvable problem provider side. Sites like GitHub offer the ability to download all applicable files for an archive without having to individually click each one. No reason Gog couldnt offer the same thing.

I'd be intrigued to find out how GoG is generating a loss, I know data hosting isn't free but still would have thought it was a high margin business. Especially when GoG has been fairly restrained with giveaways and discounts unlike Epic and Amazon, at least to my observation.

It does seem though that gaming is getting increasingly devalued now with the sheer number of giveaways in the Epic/Steam/Game Pass/Amazon knife battle for PC marketshare. If you are patient you can play some pretty amazing games without spending a dollar just by picking up the giveaways. Micro-transactions is where the money is, but GoG sells predominantly single player, non-microtransaction infested games, so maybe that is why they can't bring in enough revenue to cover costs.

I have no idea how they are losing that much money. Valve never had this issue, even when they were much smaller. Epic loses money, but thats because tim sweeny is bribing anyone he can to be a platform exclusive. EA and ubisoft sell only their games on their stores and absolutely dont lose money.

So why is GOG losing money? Do they have debts they are servicing? Trying to finance more games after CP2077? It's very curious.

 

[Dimitriid]

Dimitriid, when downloading the games through GOG’s website, they intentionally break the games/content into 4GB chunks. This is to ensure compatibility (32bit browsers) with various different browsers and browser versions. The reason there isn’t a “download all”, is again a compatibility issue. Downloading Cyberpunk, as an example, in 4GB chunks is 27 individual files. This isn’t reliably feasible, to my knowledge. Do you know of a service, not just gaming, that would allow that kind of instanced download, all happen simultaneously to a single client?

This limitation is overcome with their client, but that doesn’t sound like an option for you. While this is speculation, since I believe GOG is the only one to allow the offline storing of games, I’m sure others would have the same issues you’ve described. While it’s a pain, you could always download GOG Galaxy, download the games in a single file, and then uninstall the client.

There's a difference between a "service" and a "protocol" in this case: Yes a browser file is a lousy platform for download because of the aforementioned limitations.

But who said it has to be browsed based downloads though? We've had better transfer protocols for what, 30 years now? More probably? I even mentioned one plausible solution in the post you've quoted: S-FTP.

Now while I can see that providing an API or instructions for an S-FTP connection might be a bit much for most users, truth of the matter is most users won't ever use the backup feature so it's a case of if you know you want it you probably know how to install and use an S-FTP client, if you even need one. Rest API, S-FTP, some variation of bit torrent, etc. We've been coming up with ways to deliver large files for decades each with pros and cons.

If they can only offer web based, in browser downloads that's not really my problem, that's theirs: It goes to my point that they really don't care about the feature they publicize (Or used to) about being able to back up your no-drm copies of your games. You technically can but is very annoying to use in it's current form as to not bothering for most games that are worth 5 to 10 USD anyway on average.

 

[dangh]

Gog still is my first place to go for shopping. Nothing is better than drm free content and proper ownership of bought titles.

 

[Dalunar]

I could be wrong but I wonder if it has to do with their low release levels of games. While there are still some games I would like to buy from gog I've bought many of the games I wanted from them already. Many of the new games coming out that I want to play are not coming to gog so I have to buy them elsewhere.

 

[Daniel Sims]

I did made a mistake and got a few games purchased on gog.com in the past. I might be inclined to back them up but a recent pet peeve is that they made downloading some games off their page without using the galaxy client intentionally difficult: The option its still there, but I've found out with some of my games that if I wanted to back them up I needed to go click and download something like 100 individual files one by one with no option to click "Download all" as a single file or being provided something like an SFTP site where I can just set it up to grab an entire folder.

Sorry to say but their initial mission statement, "No DRM" is pretty meaningless today if that's the experience: I rather just get all games on Steam in the future if the feature I was trying to support is so bad as to be useless now.

Dimitriid, when downloading the games through GOG’s website, they intentionally break the games/content into 4GB chunks. This is to ensure compatibility (32bit browsers) with various different browsers and browser versions. The reason there isn’t a “download all”, is again a compatibility issue. Downloading Cyberpunk, as an example, in 4GB chunks is 27 individual files. This isn’t reliably feasible, to my knowledge. Do you know of a service, not just gaming, that would allow that kind of instanced download, all happen simultaneously to a single client?

This limitation is overcome with their client, but that doesn’t sound like an option for you. While this is speculation, since I believe GOG is the only one to allow the offline storing of games, I’m sure others would have the same issues you’ve described. While it’s a pain, you could always download GOG Galaxy, download the games in a single file, and then uninstall the client.

The GOG Galaxy client has a way to automatically download the offline installers one after another. It's just a bit tricky to find, took me a few minutes to remember where it was just now.

In your library in the client, click on a game to go to its page. Then, click "Extras" at the top of that page which should bring you to a list of things like the manual and artwork. At the bottom of that page are the offline installers. Clicking on that will automatically download all the installers into a folder in the GOG Galaxy system files, wherever you have those installed.

 

[Sausagemeat]

GOG has been too friendly, if you can buy the same game on steam for the same money people will do that. It needs to be more aggressive and push more exclusives if it wants to become profitable. Currently I only buy games on GOG if it’s cheaper on there and so I have about 3 games as their sales typically aren’t much to write home about.

 

[Dimitriid]

The GOG Galaxy client has a way to automatically download the offline installers one after another. It's just a bit tricky to find, took me a few minutes to remember where it was just now.

In your library in the client, click on a game to go to its page. Then, click "Extras" at the top of that page which should bring you to a list of things like the manual and artwork. At the bottom of that page are the offline installers. Clicking on that will automatically download all the installers into a folder in the GOG Galaxy system files, wherever you have those installed.

That's actually fairly useful, thanks for the tip.

I'll test it out as it would reduce my complain to basically just a hard-to-find feature so more minor for sure.

 

[defaultluser]

I could be wrong but I wonder if it has to do with their low release levels of games. While there are still some games I would like to buy from gog I've bought many of the games I wanted from them already. Many of the new games coming out that I want to play are not coming to gog so I have to buy them elsewhere.

And the ones they do offer now require you to call home by launching the Galaxy client every time you run the game,

DRM-free titles on Steam don't require you to run the client automatically.

I've given-up on buying anything new on the service.

 

[Lew Zealand]

And the ones they do offer now require you to call home by launching the Galaxy client every time you run the game,

DRM-free titles on Steam don't require you to run the client automatically.

I've given-up on buying anything new on the service.

I just download the standalone installers and zero GOG games ask for or do any "calling home." I make a point of buying anything I can at GOG for precisely this purpose. The only things I get on Steam (or Epic or Origin, bleah) are either not available on GOG (many new AAA releases) or the occasional game my kid wants to MP with friends who use Steam.

 

[J95qRP7]

But who said it has to be browsed based downloads though? We've had better transfer protocols for what, 30 years now? More probably? I even mentioned one plausible solution in the post you've quoted: S-FTP.

No one said it must be browser based, but it's there as a choice and that choice is widely available, simple to use, but has limitations. Why go to the trouble of implementing FTP, when their Galaxy client is available, easy to use and does exactly what S-FTP would do.

Like Daniel Sims said, and I hinted at, downloading the single zip file through the Extras page in Galaxy is simple and easy. I hope it fits your needs.

 

[Dimitriid]

No one said it must be browser based, but it's there as a choice and that choice is widely available, simple to use, but has limitations. Why go to the trouble of implementing FTP, when their Galaxy client is available, easy to use and does exactly what S-FTP would do.

Like Daniel Sims said, and I hinted at, downloading the single zip file through the Extras page in Galaxy is simple and easy. I hope it fits your needs.

For clarification I wasn't aware of that on the previous post, the galaxy client to download backups it's an ok solution so it becomes a very minor pet peeve.

I don't agree that implementing S-FTP is any kind of "trouble" as it is in fact, veeeery likely to already be implemented on the server to facilitate dev access it's a basic feature available by any hosting service, the only real coding would be enabling the S-FTP session to be routed only to the user instance that has only it's validated library of games but again: the instance is probably already done for the http it's just a matter of enabling another widely used protocol, one that's even older than http even.

 

[Lew Zealand]

The GOG Galaxy client has a way to automatically download the offline installers one after another. It's just a bit tricky to find, took me a few minutes to remember where it was just now.

In your library in the client, click on a game to go to its page. Then, click "Extras" at the top of that page which should bring you to a list of things like the manual and artwork. At the bottom of that page are the offline installers. Clicking on that will automatically download all the installers into a folder in the GOG Galaxy system files, wherever you have those installed.

Thanks for this, I just bought CP2077 and was dreading 100GB of 4GB files and this fixes all that hassle. Super useful info!

 

[ZedRM]

Well, that's a thing isn't it. I'm not spending any more money on Steam or elsewhere. GOG get's my money exclusively until things improve.