As part of its first-quarter earnings announcement, CD Projekt Red (CDPR) revealed a fresh batch of sales data for its long-running role-playing game series, The Witcher, based on the books by Andrzej Sapkowski. The Witcher 3 has now eclipsed 50 million units sold to date, bolstering lifetime sales of the entire franchise to more than 75 million units.
Fans of the franchise are clearly looking to play more, and in the meantime, interest in The Witcher is being driven by the newest season of the Netflix show. Interpret’s New Media Measure® shows that fanship for The Witcher continued to rise during 2022, peaking at nearly 15% of the US gaming population.
CDPR has allocated a good portion of its development resources to “Project Polaris,” the next installment in The Witcher franchise, which is meant to establish the next trilogy in the series. The goal is to release all three new games within roughly six years once the first game ships – although there’s no concrete release date for the first game yet.
The series will continue to benefit from the large push surrounding the Netflix show. Forbes recently reported that the streaming giant spent $318.7 million on making the first two seasons of the show, which is more than triple the cost of HBO’s season eight of Game of Thrones. That said, there could be some turbulence ahead for the Netflix show, as season four will see Henry Cavill replaced with Liam Hemsworth for the Geralt of Rivia role. Even with the replacement of the lead role, Netflix has already renewed the popular show for a fifth season.
Moreover, the streaming firm has doubled down on marketing, teaming up with nonalcoholic beverage company Athletic Brewing to release “Geralt’s Gold,” a nonalcoholic hoppy helles beer described as “the perfect opportunity to bring Geralt’s favorite taverns to life.”
It’s clear that The Witcher will continue to appeal to its diehard base, but with the Netflix series and activations like the one offered in partnership with Athletic Brewing, CDPR has an opportunity to further broaden the appeal of a franchise that’s already seen plenty of coin.
