CD Projekt Red is laying off nine percent of its staff
Though CD Projekt Red has a few games in the pipeline, the company behind the Witcher video game series apparently doesn't have enough work for all its employees. As a result, CD Projekt Red has announced it's cutting about 100 jobs or around nine percent of its workforce. This news follows layoffs in May and June when 29 people were let go from The Molasses Flood (owned by CD Projekt Red), followed by 30 people who worked on a Witcher card game that was scaled back.
"To meet our own high expectations and ambitions to create the best role-playing games, we not only want to have the best people but also the right teams," CD Projekt Red CEO Adam Kiciński said in the announcement. "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 company will notify all impacted employees now, but layoffs will be staggered, with some not taking effect until the beginning of 2024.
CD Projekt Red had a rough last few years — especially with the mess that was the Cyberpunk 2077 launch. Sony Interactive Entertainment pulled the game from its PlayStation Store at the end of 2020 — only one week after it was released — due to widespread glitches. Customers were offered a refund, and CD Projekt Red's stock tumbled by over 20 percent, a drop of $1.8 billion. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, its follow-up starring Keanu Reeves and Idris Elba, will hopefully have a smoother launch when it comes out on September 26th.
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