Cyberpunk 2077 Enjoys Biggest Digital Game Launch in History: 10.2 Million Copies Sold, 80 Percent of Which Were on PC

[Tsing]

Image: CD PROJEKT RED



CD PROJEKT RED may be drowning in controversy over its handling of Cyberpunk 2077, but that hasn’t stopped the game from being a massive financial success. That sentiment was echoed by a report shared by market intelligence company SuperData today, which confirmed that the sci-fi RPG managed to sell as many as 10.2 million digital copies in the month of December 2020. This makes Cyberpunk 2077 the biggest game launch of all time based on digital revenue and digital units sold.



“A successful marketing campaign and the reputation of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt provided the hype necessary for the CD Projekt Red title to break records despite issues including performance problems on consoles...

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[Paul_Johnson]

Net or gross?

 

[Brian_B]

Is there a net/gross distinction on # of units?

 

[hubaduba]

Is there a net/gross distinction on # of units?

Before or after refunds.

 

[Paul_Johnson]

Before or after refunds.

Exactly.

 

[Brian_B]

Exactly.

Thanks - it went over my head.

 

[Armenius]

Before or after refunds.

Before, but bullet point on the bottom notes that they didn't see any substantial effect on aggregate sales after refunds. It would not surprise me in the least that the majority of people who had the option to refund simply did not. Remember that the internet is nothing but the loudest complainers when it comes to this kind of stuff.

 

[Dan_D]

Before, but bullet point on the bottom notes that they didn't see any substantial effect on aggregate sales after refunds. It would not surprise me in the least that the majority of people who had the option to refund simply did not. Remember that the internet is nothing but the loudest complainers when it comes to this kind of stuff.

I think the vast majority of people are probably enjoying the game. I know I certainly have.

 

[MadMummy76]

I think the vast majority of people are probably enjoying the game. I know I certainly have.

And the rest enjoys complaining about it and trying to prove that it is the worst thing ever to those enjoying it

 

[Dan_D]

And the rest enjoys complaining about it and trying to prove that it is the worst thing ever to those enjoying it

Well, there are some people in denial about the game's issues. Frankly, there are a lot of them. More than there should be. It's also not as good as it could have been had CDPR delivered on just a few of the things they claimed they would even two years ago. That being said, I think people also had unrealistic expectations concerning what the game would be like, even going so far as to expecting things CDPR never directly stated they would get.

 

[MadMummy76]

Well, there are some people in denial about the game's issues. Frankly, there are a lot of them. More than there should be. It's also not as good as it could have been had CDPR delivered on just a few of the things they claimed they would even two years ago.

And I was the first to admit that it's not as good as I hoped. That said I still got over 100 hours of entertainment out of it. No other game had that in 2020. Even if some games were more solid they only offered a quarter of that or less. Of course quantity is not a substitute for quality, but if the quality of the entertainment cyberpunk offers were really that bad I'd have quit playing it after a few hours and not come back for seconds.

That being said, I think people also had unrealistic expectations concerning what the game would be like, even going so far as to expecting things CDPR never directly stated they would get.

Things they never said, and things they misconstrued. And then there are things they simply can't appreciate. Like I've seen people complain about RPG mechanics, while there are others complaining that the game is not RPG enough. They can't be both right.

 

[Dan_D]

And I was the first to admit that it's not as good as I hoped. That said I still got over 100 hours of entertainment out of it. No other game had that in 2020. Even if some games were more solid they only offered a quarter of that or less. Of course quantity is not a substitute for quality, but if the quality of the entertainment cyberpunk offers were really that bad I'd have quit playing it after a few hours and not come back for seconds.
Things they never said, and things they misconstrued. And then there are things they simply can't appreciate. Like I've seen people complain about RPG mechanics, while there are others complaining that the game is not RPG enough. They can't be both right.

Agreed. I had hoped for things like eating and drinking to be animated the way they are in the story missions, being able to go to a strip club like in GTA V and a few other minor things. My biggest disappointment comes from the lack of branching story arcs and to a lesser extent, the grim nature of most of the endings.

That being said, I got a couple hundred hours out of it and enjoyed it thoroughly. Played through it to 100% completion twice. Besides Destiny 2, the only game that I've got those kinds of hours in is Ghost Recon Breakpoint. I didn't touch that most of the first year it was out, but after some major changes and content updates I gave it a whirl and with friends, I've had an amazing time with it. I've got 490 hours in that since it launched with most of it being in 2020.

 

[MadMummy76]

Agreed. I had hoped for things like eating and drinking to be animated the way they are in the story missions, being able to go to a strip club like in GTA V and a few other minor things. My biggest disappointment comes from the lack of branching story arcs and to a lesser extent, the grim nature of most of the endings.

I have not even thought about the need to animate drinking and eating. I could let that slide. What I had hoped is that there would be a realistic / hardcore mode, where you need to eat / drink / sleep beyond that of just replenishing health, maybe even the need to shower.

Also a realistic difficulty setting is sorely missed. As it stands now on hard the enemies are bullet sponges, which is bad for immersion. While on easy you are almost indestructible, which is also kind of immersion breaking, but not as much as the bullet sponge enemies, so I chose to play on easy.

I also agree about the nature of the endings. It felt like all my efforts during the game were in vain. There are a lot of people on the official forums who speculate that they'll fix the ending in a DLC by offering some kind of redemption, but I'm highly skeptical of that. The endings are just too incompatible with each other for that to make sense, they'd need to exclude players who didn't get one of the endings where V still lives, which makes zero sense. But even among those endings there are major differences connecting all of them into a single continuation story would be as bad if not worse than the way the three origin stories are tied (more like forced) together.