The Witcher 3 has made over $50 million on Steam, giving CD Projekt Red a larger cut of...

midian182

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In context: The Witcher 3 is undoubtedly one of the best games ever made, and, thanks to Netflix's TV show, its popularity has increased recently. The massive success of CD Projekt Red’s title means the studio is now getting a larger cut of its Steam sales.

In a recent tweet, CD Projekt Red revealed that since October 1, 2018, The Witcher 3 has generated over $50 million on the Steam platform. The achievement was doubtlessly helped by the Henry Cavill-starring show, which prompted a spike in players.

According to Steam Chart Analytics, the game’s average number of players for January hit over 48,000—the second-highest it’s been since the 51,000 average at launch in May 2015. The peak player count, meanwhile, exceeded 103,000 last month, marking the first time it’s hit six figures.

In addition to players returning to the brilliant RPG, sales of The Witcher 3 were up 554 percent in December.

As noted by CD Projekt Red, the company will now be getting 80 percent of any subsequent sales of TW3 on Steam. The amount of revenue a developer gets for their Steam titles is based on the revenue they generate. Valve usually takes 30 percent, but that drops to 25 percent if a game makes $10 million, and falls by another 5 percent if it manages $50 million, like The Witcher 3.

We also heard last month that The Witcher is set to become Netflix’s biggest debut season ever. The streaming service said 76 million households “chose to watch” the fantasy in its first four weeks of launch, though Netflix does now register a view of an episode or movie after just two minutes of content has been watched.

A second season of the Witcher was confirmed before the first arrived. It’s reported that Kristofer Hivju, who played Tormund Giantsbane in Game of Thrones, will star as Nivellin. We’ve also heard reports that Mark Hamill has been offered the role of Vesemir.

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Wow, considering the game originally released in 2015 that's very strong sales 3 years after the game released. Only a couple of game does that, like PUBG or GTA V. God damn GTA V.
 
CDPR is now the 2nd most valuable game company in Europe, behind Ubisoft, and they had only been making 6 games so far (TW series, 2 gwent card games and CP2077). Quality over quantity anytime, just hope those other big developers learn to do the same.
 
The graphics also play a big role here, too. Probably is one of the reason why developers keep pushing graphics and spoil us with such treats. Your title will look good later on in the years, take TW3 for example which does good.
 
Bought TW3 on GOG, too. The one and only company I'll ever preorder from until I'll quit gaming is CDProjektRed. I really love their passion, the storyline and they're the only ones which do love their community as much as Blizzard did back in the days of Diablo, Starcraft or Warcraft.
Pre-ordered CyberPunk 2077, I'll get the collector' edition just to give them money, comparing to EA, Activision or Ubisoft these guys don't have mictrotransactions, dishonest marketing (W3: Refunded and so on).
Another good game (but I'll pay a max of 30 Euro for it) is the Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. No microtransactions (cosmetic or not) is the first criteria when choosing a AAA game for me nowadays.
 
No microtransactions (cosmetic or not) is the first criteria when choosing a AAA game for me nowadays.

This.

Any chance the gaming industry had of getting blind impulse buys from me died when micro-transactions became so prevalent. Even if I've seen or tried the game already and it seems really fun to me, I refuse to purchase it out of principle. I will admit I don't quite stick to literally "no" micros. But that's only if well over 90% of the cosmetics are still available without micros, and all gameplay is available of course (or has actual large expansions worth buying). I'm also much more lenient of "pay to skip" micros, as long as it's not an actual pay gate I can agree with it.

One exception to that principle would be Warframe. But it's free, all gameplay is free. However there are some cosmetics that are pay gated. I'd say that's a fair trade for never having to pay for its expansions ever though lol, especially since there are plenty of free good looking cosmetics already.
 
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This.

Any chance the gaming industry had of getting blind impulse buys from me died when micro-transactions became so prevalent. Even if I've seen or tried the game already and it seems really fun to me, I refuse to purchase it out of principle. I will admit I don't quite stick to literally "no" micros. But that's only if well over 90% of the cosmetics are still available without micros, and all gameplay is available of course (or has actual large expansions worth buying). I'm also much more lenient of "pay to skip" micros, as long as it's not an actual pay gate I can agree with it.

One exception to that principle would be Warframe. But it's free, all gameplay is free. However there are some cosmetics that are pay gated. I'd say that's a fair trade for never having to pay for its expansions ever though lol, especially since there are plenty of free good looking cosmetics already.
Warframe, LoL, DOTA2: not a big fan of either, but for a FREE TO PLAY game, I'll buy into the MTX: if the base game is free, Ok, but any chance of me buying the next "microtransaction filled" Far Cry, Assassin's Creed Woke Edition or Diablo 4 are close to 0.
 
I don't get this game, the mechanics are wooden and simply not fun, the story is 'Find Ciri' and the side quests are nothing special. Visuals are too dark, I had to increase the gamma a few times, and the constantly swinging bushes and branches in strong wind look stupid.
 
I don't get this game, the mechanics are wooden and simply not fun, the story is 'Find Ciri' and the side quests are nothing special. Visuals are too dark, I had to increase the gamma a few times, and the constantly swinging bushes and branches in strong wind look stupid.
An unusual perspective but ok. Personally I preferred the Mass Effect trilogy to the Witcher trilogy. But I found the Witcher 3 to be a beautiful game with good stories, excellent graphics and incredibly good characters and voice acting.
 
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