FILE PHOTO: Karolina Kaluzynska, 28, plays CD Projekt's game Cyberpunk 2077 in Warsaw, Poland, December 14, 2020. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/File Photo
GDANSK (Reuters) -Poland's biggest video game maker CD Projekt said on Thursday it had sold more than 3 million copies of "Phantom Liberty", its long-awaited expansion to flagship game "Cyberpunk 2077", by Oct. 3.
Pointing to the successful release, CD Projekt CEO Adam Kicinski said he had the peace of mind to plan his next professional step, with the company saying he will act as its chief strategy officer from Jan. 1. His current role will be jointly filled by Adam Badowski and Michal Nowakowski.
"Phantom Liberty", released just over a week ago, is CD Projekt's first major game premiere since the bug-ridden launch of "Cyberpunk 2077" in December 2020, which has now sold 25 million copies.
While the release is seen boosting CD Projekt's earnings this year, it has no other major new games planned for the next couple of years as it is works on new projects.
The market consensus is for CD Projekt to this year sell 3 million to 4.5 million copies of "Phantom Liberty".
The company estimates total production expenditure on the game of around 275 million zlotys ($62.8 million), something Erste Group analyst Piotr Bogusz called a negative surprise.
"The high cost of add-on production indicates that our assumptions regarding production budgets for future games may be too conservative," he said.
At the end of its investor day on Thursday, CD Projekt shares fell nearly 5% in the last hour of trading and were down 6.2% at the market close.
JP Morgan said the day did not bring any positive surprises and could trigger further short positions in the company's shares.
"We believe company is on track to report 4 million unit sales by end 2023. This is tracking below our expectations for 5 million and seems to be at the lower end of consensus expectations", it said.
It added that the development budget for "Phantom Liberty" and modification of the core "Cyberpunk 2077" game had come in 40% above its expectations and "should trigger earnings downgrades".
On Steam platform, which sells digital copies of games for PCs, "Phantom Liberty" is rated "very positive" with 88% of 6,353 user reviews positive.
Kicinski also plans to resign from his position on the company's management board at end of 2024 and run for the supervisory board in 2025, CD Projekt said.
($1 = 4.3784 zlotys)
(Reporting by Adrianna Ebert; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
