The Witcher Sells One Million Copies In A Year

Developer CD Projekt Red announced that PC RPG The Witcher sold over one million copies since its release in October 2007, a feat that the company claims is especially impressive for a title based on an unfamiliar IP from an unknown studio. As the company's official statement spells out, "Scientific research has proven that those sales numbers are quite good for a debut game based on a relatively unfamiliar IP from an unknown studio on a 'dead' platform," making light of frequent claims regarding the health of PC gaming. The announcement comes several weeks after the release of The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, a free 2GB update with improvements and new content developed according to fan feedback. The expansion also saw a retail release with several extras, such as music CDs, making-of videos, an official game guide, and a map of The Witcher's world. The Polish publisher and developer also recently debuted GOG.com, or Good Old Games, a digital download platform offering DRM-free vintage titles, such as Black Isle's Fallout 2, Piranha Bytes's Freespace 2, and Bohemia Interactive's Operation Flashpoint. Furthermore, the company intends to formally announce a multi-platform project with Metropolis Software (Infernal, They), which is also based in Poland and which CD Projekt acquired earlier this year. Says CD-Projekt RED CEO Adam Kicinski, "We created The Witcher with the intent of becoming an acclaimed and successful development studio that always made games for its fans; we spent more than $11 million developing The Witcher and the Enhanced Edition, and it sure is nice to make some of that money back!" He continues, "The success of The Witcher has ensured that we’ll be able to make the games we want – and the games that fans want – for the foreseeable future, and the amazing response we had from the gaming community to the Enhanced Edition really reinforced that we’re on the right track with our development philosophy."