CD Projekt Red Manages to Hold on to a Sizeable Player Base
In a Forbes article, Paul Tassi delves into the attach rate of Cyberpunk 2077 and compares it to CD Projekt Red’s acclaimed title, The Witcher 3. With Phantom Liberty boasting five million sales, Tassi speculates that the DLC’s attach rate is approximately 20%. The ‘attach rate’ measures the percentage of individuals who purchased the primary product, Cyberpunk 2077 in this context, and subsequently invested in the associated secondary product, Phantom Liberty. CD Projekt Red’s co-CEO, MichaĆ Nowakowski, has validated Tassi’s estimations through official figures shared on Twitter.
To be honest, it seemed a little strange to proceed with the expansion so soon after the single-player game’s release. However, what transpired shows us that creating content that people find engaging is the best course of action. (2/2) 8 January 2024
Nowakowski explains that three months after the release of both The Witcher 3 Heart of Stone and The Witcher 3 Blood and Wine, the two DLCs’ attach rates “were at 22% and 24%”. This makes a lot of sense considering the first of the two expansions was released a few months after the main RPG and the second just a year later than the base game.
What’s noteworthy is that, according to Nowakowski, Phantom Liberty managed to land “between these values” in the same 3 – 4 month window after the DLC’s release. Unlike The Witcher 3, CDPR didn’t launch the Cyberpunk 2077 expansion until almost a full three years after release – which isn’t when you’d usually expect to see a game’s DLC.
This worked out in the studio’s favor though, as it gave CD Projekt Red time to win players back after Cyberpunk 2077’s disastrous initial launch. “The decision to go through with the expansion so long after [the] launch of the single-player game was a bit counterintuitive,” the developer adds in a follow-up tweet. “But what happened is proof to us that solid content that people are happy with is the way to go.”