WARSAW,
FEBRUARY, 2008 – CD Projekt and Metropolis Software announced that
they have signed an investment agreement, under which CD Projekt will become
the majority owner of Metropolis Software. Combining the strengths of both
companies is a very important step in realisation of CD Projekt’s
strategy, which includes becoming a leading publisher delivering high-budget,
ambitious and creative projects that ready to compete with the world’s
biggest productions.
To date, CD Projekt has developed one title, the hit
PC role-playing game, The Witcher. Fusing with Metropolis and dividing the CD
Projekt RED team into two units, CD Projekt now has are three development teams
working on new AAA game projects.
CD Projekt’s debut game, The Witcher, has been
a worldwide success. After several years of development by dozens of people at
the CD Projekt RED studio, as well as a record budget for a Polish media
product, The Witcher launched to much critical and commercial success. To date,
The Witcher has earned more than 40 awards, including prestigious awards like Best
PC RPG of the Year at IGN.com, GameSpy and the US edition of PC Gamer, as well as Gamespot’s
Readers’ Choice award for Best RPG. Rave reviews from fans and media have
translated into excellent sales results, as the game has sold more than 600,000
copies around the world.
Metropolis Software has been a leading Polish game
developer for years and is the longest operating game-development studio in the
country. Its catalog includes Gorky
17 and last year’s Infernal. The latest Metropolis production is THEY, a
next-generation mystery first-person shooter set on a near-future Earth that
has been ruined by war. What makes THEY unique is that it combines an involving
story with the best characteristics of action games. Thanks to the emphasis on
an engaging plot, THEY has a chance to join the small and elite circle of FPS
games whose involving story is the key element driving the player to keep
playing for hours on end. The game’s world is developed on the basis of
Metropolis’ new proprietary game engine, benefiting from all the latest
technologies used in video games software. The game is designed for PC and
next-gen consoles, and is scheduled for release in 2009.
The fusion of the two companies was commented on by
Michal Kicinski, CD Projekt Joint CEO: “I’m very happy
that we managed to combine the strengths of two key development teams in Poland.
Metropolis and CD Projekt have many values in common: we believe that the
success of our products depends on innovative character and atmosphere, as well
as uncompromising care of the highest quality. In the games business, this
latter element is particularly difficult to achieve by independent teams. It is
often the case that finance — and not the developers’ vision
— that determines the final shape and quality of the project. CD Projekt
was an atypical company from the very beginning – the realisation of our plans
is preferred to simply earning a profit. Now, thanks to our financial reserves
from the success of The Witcher and CD Projekt’s publishing business,
Metropolis will have much more creative freedom. I’m sure that thanks to
that, Metropolis will develop their dream game and will soon join the upper
echelon of game developers.”
Grzegorz Miechowski, Metropolis Software Joint CEO: “This
deal is great news for Metropolis. Thanks to this fusion, we have come together
to become the developer with the biggest potential in this part of Europe. We will develop our future games on a grand scale
– a scale which, in Poland,
was previously only available for The Witcher. I believe that thanks to CD
Projekt’s support, THEY will have the chance to take the FPS genre by
storm, just as The Witcher did in the RPG genre.”
Piotr Nielubowicz, Vice-president for Strategic
Finances of CD Projekt group, had the following to say about the deal: “It’s
the first business deal of this kind in our history and, at the same time, it’s
another big step in our company’s expansion. Simultaneously, it’s
one of the steps in our plans for our stock market debut. Metropolis Software
is an experienced and thriving team. I’m sure that our financial
contribution and experience on an international level will guarantee the
development of many fantastic games of the highest caliber. I believe that
together with Metropolis Software we will succeed in realising a strategy that
will deliver unique value to future investors.”
ABOUT CD PROJEKT
Established in 1994, CD Projekt is the biggest PC
games distributor in Central Europe. It is
known among gamers for high professionalism and many pioneering projects
changing local markets. It was the first company in the region to fully
localise PC games, including the biggest RPG projects like Baldur’s Gate,
Planescape: Torment and the Gothic series. Polish language versions of those
games are lauded by players as premiere models for the localisation process. CD
Projekt, as a distributor, introduces to the central European markets products
of such companies as Microsoft, NCSoft, Ubisoft, Activision, SEGA, THQ, Vivendi
Universal Games, Disney and Konami. Distribution is only one area of CD Projekt
group’s activity. At the beginning of 2002, CD Projekt RED, a game
development studio, was created. Including The Witcher, CD Projekt sold 3.7
million games bearing the CDP logo in 2007. In addition to CD Projekt RED, CD
Projekt group also includes CD Projekt Localisation Centre which offers
professional games localisation service to companies from all over the world (www.localisation.cdprojekt.com),
and gram.pl Ltd, which is responsible for running the web portal and online
shop at www.gram.pl. Currently, CD Projekt is
a group of companies operating in the electronic entertainment industry, employing
over 300 people altogether, with annual turnover coming to 55 million USD
(2007). CD Projekt group’s mission is less about the realisation of
business goals than the realisation of dreams and delivering products that
cater to the needs and desires of gamers around the world. An important value
of the company is also the pursuit of unique and landmark projects. Every year,
the company’s turnover has been at least 30% higher and such growth is
planned to continue in 2008. You can find more information about CD Projekt at www.cdprojekt.com. Since the beginning of
February 2008, CD Projekt group also includes Metropolis Software.
ABOUT CD PROJEKT RED
CD Projekt RED was established in February 2002 as
the sister company of CD Projekt. CD Projekt RED’s mission is to become
one of leading RPG developers in the world, developing games that combine the
best trade practices with original ideas. One of the company’s guiding
values is working in close contact with the players and listening and reacting
to their opinions, both in the scope of developed games and the methods of
delivering them to gamers’ hands. The studio’s first game is The
Witcher, a title warmly welcomed by fans of the genre and showered with awards
by professional media. To this day, The Witcher has won over 40 distinctions,
including prestigious awards like PC RPG of the Year from IGN.com, GameSpy and
PC Gamer, as well as Gamespot’s Readers’ Choice award for Best RPG.
During only three months since the premiere, 600,000 people all over the world
have purchased the game. CD Projekt RED benefits from the experience and
financial support of CD Projekt’s publishing arm, the largest PC games
distributor in Central Europe. Currently, CD
Projekt RED consists of 70 people working on The Witcher: Enhanced Edition and
another as-of-yet unannounced project. More information is available at www.thewitcher.com.
ABOUT METROPOLIS
SOFTWARE
Metropolis Software Ltd is one of leading game
developers in
Poland
and at the same time is the longest operating company of its kind in the
country. The company has extensive experience in video games development and
has 11 finished projects on their account. The latest projects of Metropolis include
warmly welcomed
Gorky
series and, released last year, Infernal. Since its establishment, the
company’s philosophy has been to create original and unique games based
on their own continuously developed technology. The company has cooperated with
the biggest world publishers, including Atari, Ubisoft and, most recently,
Eidos. Currently the company is working on the very promising action game,
THEY, which is being developed for PC and next-gen consoles. At the beginning
of February 2008, the company will join CD Projekt group.
