Shockwaves are rippling through the gaming community as it's revealed that CD Projekt Red, developer of the troubled Cyberpunk 2077, dropped a staggering $85 million on the game's only DLC, Phantom Liberty. That's almost HALF of the budget for the base game! With this amount of money, we could've bought everyone a state-of-the-art gaming chair, and still have some left over for a life supply of energy drinks!
According to CD Projekt Red's presentation to investors on October 5, Cyberpunk 2077's main story rubbed dimes together to cash in at $174 million. Now, enter Phantom Liberty, the been-there-done-that DLC, short but oh-so-expensive, siphoning off nearly half of the base game's pocket change. Call it crazy, call it bold, but CDPR is just calling it "the cost of AAA games these days."
At peak production, Phantom Liberty saw as many as 360 developers in a metaphorical cybernetic dance, pumping code, wrestling bugs, and crafting a world we'd all like to escape to (with less bugs). And if we add the support teams that handed out coffees, massaged the hamstrings, and balanced spreadsheets, we'd get a headcount of around 3,600 programming prodigies.
And what about the financial returns? You'd think dropping a cool $85 million on a DLC would yield some golden eggs. Not so fast! Phantom Liberty cash registers rang up three million copies in the first week with Chief Financial Officer, Piotr Nielubowicz, believing the game and DLC will become "long sellers" like an aging rocker that keeps touring.
But not all is lost. A big thumbs up came for CDPR's (we assume nerve-wracking) decision to not hang up their boots on Cyberpunk 2077, despite the many bumps on the road. According to one of the game leads, the hard work and effort led to the big 2.0 update, which debuted free to the sigh of relief from players and the chime of the cash register.
Bottom line: $85 million bucks poured into a DLC is a big, fat juicy steak of an investment. Whether it's the key to Cyberpunk 2077's redemption or another glitch into the matrix of game development costs, only time (or another round of investor presentations) will tell. Fingers crossed that cyberspace isn't just one big money sink after all!
You must be logged in to post a comment!
