“We are overstaffed.“ Polish CD Projekt to lay off about 9% of its studio

CD Projekt, Polish producer of video games, such as of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher saga, plans to lay off about 9% of its CD Projekt RED studio personnel. The reduction process is planned in the first quarter of next year, Adam Kiciński, CEO of CD Project, wrote in his letter to employees.

• Established in 2002, CD Projekt is a video game development studio focused on storytelling ingenuity, technical innovation, and quality. The company is headquartered in Warsaw with offices in Cracow, Wrocław, Los Angeles, and Vancouver, with presence in 8 countries. 
• Interestingly, CD Projekt RED studio has recently become the biggest European publisher. Its total market capitalization exceeds $3.5 billion.

• CD Projekt RED is currently working on a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 (Orion), the first game in a new trilogy of The Witcher (Polaris), and a completely new franchise code-named Hadar. Among its works is a remake of the original The Witcher and a spin-off franchise called Sirius.
• Around 100 people will leave the company in the first quarter of next year. The decision was caused by a strong wage inflation for developers and an expected drop in activity post the release of Phantom Liberty, the first and only expansion to the company’s Cyberpunk 2077 which is due to premier in late September.

We’ve carefully assessed all teams in the company in terms of their expected contribution to the delivery of our strategy. There’s no easy way to say this, but today we are overstaffed. We have talented people on board who are finishing their tasks and — based on current and expected project needs — we already know we don’t have other opportunities for them in the next year,

the letter says.

• The game-developer expects that provision created for costs related to redundancies will amount to about $1.13 million and will impact its third-quarter financial results.