When is the next patch coming

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@Kondaru wrote:

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@hedop85 wrote:

Well the production cost is determined by several factors. Firstly I'm not exactly sure that the Witcher 3 cost 72 Mio, I would need a source for that. That seems pretty excessive tbh especially if you consider that CDPR is basically a one trick pony in that their only game is the Witcher Franchise and they have never had sales as big as that so I wouldn't even know where they could get the capital from... nevertheless if that is true you also have to consider things like: how long did EA actually spend on that game? TW3 was in developement for ages and it showed. Secondly how much do they pay? That also effects the quality of the work.

There are other factors but I agree with panda... it's how you spend that money and tbh to me it's still surprising that a small time company like CDPR managed to spend their money on their first project of this scale so much better than EA with years and years of experience. It's a testament to their lack of professionalism and knowledge.

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Just the basic pre-DLC Witcher 3 costed about 81M$, and was in development for 3.5 years. CDPR was very open with the development process as You can read e.g. here: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/this-is-how-much-the-witcher-3-cost-to-make/1100-6430409/

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CDPR originated as CDP, which was a publisher for a huge number of games in Poland (like original Baldur's Gate for example, but also Mass Effect 1), and was actually quite famous for their fantastic localizations. They were also responsible for GOG, which while not the biggest digital game distributor (that would be Steam, right?) is growing in significance for many year, and started with a nice premise of no DMR, and with idea of bringing back many old titles adapted to modern machines. Eventually, while Witcher 1 was not as famous world-wide it was absolutely adored in Poland, and CDPR immediately gained huge number of fans with the game and with their very open and pro-gamers approach (e.g. when they released Enhanced Edition for W1 they offered it for free to all the people who had previously bought the original game - and please note that at that time those games were mainly offered on CDs rather than with digital copies). Witcher 2 was even greater hit since the engine CDPR developed was recognized globally as limit-breaking (or computer requirements breaking...), almost-state-of-the-art at that time. Both Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 were moddable, and actually there are quite a few mini-adventures for Witcher 1 created by fans and other parties, some of them even incorporated in the current digital releases. With Witcher 3 CDPR proved that they are always eager to change and grow better with each successive game - W3 is a masterpiece comparable to some past breakthrough-cRPGs like Fallout 1 and 2 or Plansescape: Torment. Sure, W3 is not *perfect*, and there are some issues with it that many people are unhappy with, but there is no denying that both the game and Devs set some new standards for the genre, and that many AAA competitors are not even *hoping* to meet those standards with their current titles...

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So yes, CDPR is not as "fresh" and "poor" and "out of nowhere" as some would assume, but still it is surprising that so few other companies are *truly* interested in learning by the good example...   :-(

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Of course they were fresh. Witcher 1 was an absolute niche game, even though it was critically acclaimed. Witcher 2 was not as acclaimed but sold better due to way better graphics and some major improvements (Witcher 1 is basically unplayable these days from the looks department... it gives you eye cancer, even though I love the game, and it had tons and tons and tons of loading screns). None of these games sold extremely well. The Witcher 3 outsold both combined games which had been around for quite some time handily within the first 3 months... So yes comapre TW3 in size and scope and sophistication and compared to any other company that produced games this size Bioware/EA, Obsidian, Rockstar, 2k, Ubisoft etc. they were absolute fresh kids on the block. Especially since this was the first time that they undertook to port their games to consoles straight away and not with delay. It was their biggest launch to date. Sure they have been around for some time but that's just absolutely not comparable in scope, especially if you consider the numbers they shipped before or the "impact" of their games to that point.

Furthermore, yes they were poor. Again comparibly so. CDP/CDPR wasn't really the publisher per se. They were more or less the distributor of those games as they weren't available in Poland or the Eastern European market and neither was a proper translation. So those guys took a gamble, asked for the rights to publish those games in these markets with a high risk/high reward deal and came up "big" again for POLAND. We aren't talking about 20 mio sold copies of Baldurs Gate in Poland here. We aren't even talking about the size of the German market. Poland was much poorer back in those days, much less developed. When the US and most of the western European states had the internet the Polish didn't in large parts. They were lagging behind around 5-10 years in that department and the market was not well served because of that. So a big and well known game in the gamers community like Baldurs Gate sold like hot potatoes. But you have to put that in perspective. They made a few 10.000 Dollars with those deals each. We aren't talking about them raking in millions. TW1 sold fairly decently for what it was. Again: we aren't talking 10 or 20 mio sales. TW2 sold decently: again no 20 Mio Sales. Both combined eventually sold around 15-20 Mio copies. Numbers vary but that includes deals like get one for free and what not or get the games basically dirt cheap. So we are not talking about a company that had assets of several millions or even hundreds of millions. Again they made a risky deal because they believed in their product and worked very hard for it to succeed. They went partially public to get some more more financial basis but still, I would figure they probably had to get loans ans security of maybe 20-40 mio to make the game. It paid off massively.

All that said: of course they weren't some backwater village nerd and his friend. Compared to some German game developers like BlueByte and Ascaron or JoWood from Austria or others who reached their zenith in the 90's they are huge. But compared to EA? Rockstar? 2k? Ubisoft? Sony? Nintendo? compared to them they are a * joke and green behind the ears. Hell CDPR tried to buy back their own shares because they feared a company like EA could swoop in and simply buy them out. So please, we might disagree, but do not make the mistake of putting them in the same category as those guys because they are not and that would undersell their achievement as well.