Cyberpunk 2077 sold 8 million copies before it even launched

While Cyberpunk 2077 is now live and available to purchase worldwide, developer CD Projekt Red has revealed that the game sold 8 million copies before it even launched.

Senior Analyst for Niko Partners Daniel Ahmad pointed out that this equates to $500 million in revenue before December 10, 2020. As a reference point, he added that GTA V’s pre-orders and day one sales for PS3 and Xbox 360 only generated $800 million combined.

Breaking these pre-orders down, 74% of them were sold via digital download, showing an obvious preference in how consumers chose to buy the game. This is good news for CD Projekt Red since they stand to profit more from digital storefronts than they do through retail sales.

Retail purchases only offer 55% profit, while digital storefronts have a much better profit margin.

• GOG provides a 95% profit margin.
• Epic Game Store provides an 88% profit margin.
• Steam provides a 70% profit margin, increasing to 80% after $50 million.
• The PlayStation and Microsoft Stores provide a 70% profit margin.

PC pre-orders accounted for 59% of those 8 million sold, with consoles making up the remaining 41%. According to Gamesindustry.biz, this makes Cyberpunk 2077 the fastest-selling PC game since World of Warcraft’s Shadowlands expansion released. 

Daniel Ahmed also reminded us about the development costs of Cyberpunk 2077. So it’s possible to see roughly how much profit the company has made on the game within this first day of launching it.

CD Projekt Red has spent approximately $135 million developing Cyberpunk 2077 as of September 30, 2020. However, some of that cost will be for the multiplayer element, which hasn’t been launched yet. This figure also excludes any marketing costs, which could be substantial, given how prevalent the game’s advertising has been over the last few weeks.

Late last month, CD Projekt Red revealed that pre-orders for Cyberpunk 2077 were “visibly higher” than those for any game in The Witcher franchise. This game could have even set a new record for pre-orders on games the developer has released.