Let's Get Sirius
E118: CD Projekt Red releases their 2022 earnings report.
Good morning gamers! CD Projekt Red released their 2022 earnings report and it turns out that last year was their second-highest earnings year ever, despite not releasing any new games. The studio earned $221.8m in revenue (+7.2% YoY) and $80.8m in net profit (+66.1% YoY). They attributed a lot of this success to their ongoing efforts of improving Cyberpunk 2077, and have reinvested $47m towards their future projects.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty will start its marketing push in June, according to CD Projekt Red’s Global PR Director Radek Grabowski. More details about the expansion itself will also be revealed in June.
Project Sirius is a Witcher spin-off game by The Molasses Flood. CDPR announced that the project’s “scope and commercial potential of the original concept” is being re-evaluated and costs were cut before they got too deep (roughly $35m has been spent developing the game so far). CDPR is basically saying that development didn’t align with their goals and that they’ve restarted.
The current rumor is that Project Sirius will take The Witcher to a Japanese setting in Edo (Tokyo), Japan and is inspired by The Witcher: Ronin manga. It’s planned as an open-world game but may go semi open-world depending on time and budget constraints. The game’s multiplayer component was reportedly canceled so the full focus will be on single-player.
The Last of Us
HBO’s The Last of Us Season 2 will be filmed in Vancouver, Canada with Bella Ramsey (Ellie) and Pedro Pascal (Joel) expected to resume filming later in 2023. The creators of the show Neil Druckmann (Co-President of Naughty Dog) and Craig Mazin are currently in the pre-production phase for Season 2. The Last of Us had the second-largest premiere since Boardwalk Empire was released in 2010.
The Last of Us Part I, the remake of the 2013 hit was finally released on PC last week. Naughty Dog says that the PC release is about maintaining the equally high-quality bar for both PC and PlayStation. The studio has embraced PC and they will continue to share their stories on PC going forward. Naughty Dog said that the purpose of this release is about bringing the game “not just to PC, but for PC”.
Trouble arose for Naughty Dog upon the PC release as players began to report several bugs resulting in negative gaming experiences. In response, Naughty Dog announced that they will be releasing both a hotfix and a larger patch to address these issues. They also encouraged players to use the latest Nvidia, AMD and Intel graphics drivers.
Esports Corner
Esports event organizer PGL is officially hosting the inaugural Counter-Strike 2 tournament in Denmark. The PGL CS2 Major Copenhagen 2024 will take place at the Royal Arena between March 17-31, where 24 CS2 teams will compete for the $1.25M prize pool. Counter-Strike 2 will replace CS:GO as the game’s official version as soon as it releases later this summer meaning that the Paris Major will be the final CS:GO event.
Bandai Namco has announced that the Tekken World Tour will be returning to in-person events this season. There’s a total of nine Master events (global tournaments) and five Challenger events (regional tournaments). The first Master event happened this past weekend at EVO Japan followed by the USA’s CEO in June, and a Master+ event at EVO Las Vegas in August. The Tekken World Tour 2023 Global Finals will be the season's biggest event.
The esports industry had a rough week leaving the future of some organizations up in the air.
FaZe Clan reported a net loss of $53.2m for 2022 (+ the $115.3m cost of going public in July). Their revenue for 2022 surpassed $70m mainly due to an increase in brand sponsorships.
Astralis’ Board of Directors have initiated a “strategic review” due to its falling stock price. This review will decide the organizations future and they’re considering four options; delisting the company shares, merging with another company, issuing new shares and/or a potential sale of company shares/assets.
TSM is reportedly pausing most of their esports operations and could sell their League of Legends spot. This is likely due to the financial hit from the $250m naming deal with FTX that essentially disappeared.
Heroic has raised ~$1m by selling new shares in the company. This should be enough to keep their operations afloat for the rest of the year. The team needs to raise $10m to stay operational through 2025.
Gaming Roundup
E3 2023, the Electronic Entertainment Expo has canceled both their digital and in-person events. There’s speculation that this marks the end of the E3 events.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is being adapted as an anime series with the original cast reprising their roles, including Michael Cera and Chris Evans.
Electronic Arts has laid off 6% of their workforce. Despite the layoffs, CEO Andrew Wilson says EA "is operating from a position of strength".
Ark 2, the sequel to the 2015 action-adventure survival game has been delayed until “the end of 2024”, there will be no gameplay reveal this year.
Redfall production director Ben Horne says the game will support all play styles. The game can be a fast-paced action game or a stealth game.
Turtle Beach has filed a patent for an Xbox controller with a touchscreen. The screen will allow players to access saved loadouts and social media.
Resident Evil 4 Remake sold over 3 million units in its first two days. The Resident Evil game series has now sold over 135 million units.
Metal Gear Solid 3 reportedly has a remake coming in 2024. Last year, the producer of the franchise said there would be announcements in 2023.
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