3/30/2023

speaker
Adam Kiciński
President & CEO, CD Projekt Group

Good afternoon. My name is Adam Kiciński and I'll be your host during today's conference dedicated to the CD Projekt Group's financial results for 2022. I'll run the presentation together with Piotr Nilubowicz. Michał Nowakowski will join us for the Q&A session. Before discussing earnings, I'll sum up last year's main events. 2022 can be defined as the year in which we laid solid foundations for our future business. First, beginning parallel development of two AAA projects. As we continued working on Phantom Liberty, we started production of the next Witcher game. Parallel development should eventually let us increase the frequency of releases. Second, we entered into a strategic partnership with Epic Games. We decided to transition to the Unreal 5 engine for our future titles. This should eventually support more stable and efficient development. At the same time, we continued to improve our key products, Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt. They both received a number of significant updates. Speaking of Cyberpunk, two important events took place in 2022. In February, we released patch 1.5. This substantial update brought various improvements to the game. What's more, we updated the game to the full next-gen version. This means Cyberpunk 2077 can make the most of the additional power delivered by next-gens. Later that year, in September, we released patch 1.6, the so-called Edgerunners update. It brought another batch of meaningful improvements to the game, many of which had been directly requested by the community. Also, the update contained tie-ins to the anime series Cyberpunk Edramus, which was released on Netflix at the same time. Speaking of the direct impact of these events, let's move to slide 4. Analyzing the Steam reviews, there is a clear increase in positive ratings at the beginning of the year when patch 1.5 was released. It's worth mentioning that this was a next-gen patch, so the quality increase was especially noted by console players. But as we can see, PC players also appreciated the improvements. However, these results were disrupted by a review bombing linked to the war in Ukraine. It is clearly visible in March, when we were hit with a massive number of negative off-topic reviews. Our understanding is that it was a direct effect of pulling out our games from Russia and Belarus and our financial support for Ukraine. The impact of the war aside, starting from September, the impact of the transmedia synergy was particularly visible. The release of the Adranos update, combined with the very positive global reception of the anime, gave the game another boost. Sentiment around Cyberpunk is clearly good, laying a solid foundation before the release of the expansion Phantom Liberty. Now let's move to the next slide, number 5. The highlight of the late 2022 was definitely the release of the next-gen update for The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt. In December, we invited players to return to the Witcher universe and enjoy girls' adventures in the best possible quality. The update featured multiple visual and technical enhancements, including performance and ray tracing modes. On both next-gens, Witcher 3 hit a 94 score on Metacritic, and a must-play distinction. We believe that thanks to this update, we have extended the game's lifespan by another generation. Now let's move to slide 6 to take a look at the long-term revenues from our key games. 2022 was another year when our back catalogue generated solid sales. Significantly, revenues of Cyberpunk grew on a year-on-year basis. This is a good sign ahead of the release of Phantom Liberty and its potential of supporting sales of Cyberpunk 2077 in the years ahead. Now let me walk you through the effects of strengthening the red team presented on slide 7. We are rescaling as a company, now able to work on two AAA games simultaneously. We have turned to data through employee service to support our path for the next transformation steps. The initial results are encouraging, especially the involvement of employees. More than 85% of the team took part in the survey. This is way above the benchmarks. At the same time, we see further room to develop the company as an attractive workplace. by giving not only voice but also real empowerment to each team. What's more, we have stabilized our teams with a drop in turnover by 6 percentage points compared to 2021. In order to further minimize turnover and compete for the best talents, we are transforming our payroll policy. This year's dynamics of salary increases will be maintained On top of that, we have already integrated our company-wide bonus system into the base salaries. So the total base salary growth in 2023 will be even higher than in previous years. At the moment, our compensation system does not include long-term incentive plans. To be even more competitive, we are proposing an incentive program. It will be voted on at the next shareholders meeting, which will take place on April 18th. If you have any questions in this matter, do not hesitate to contact us. As for our current operations and development, let's move on to slide 8. Our focus remains unchanged. We are at the final production phase of Phantom Liberty with 340 developers on that project. In parallel, we have grown the Polaris team to almost 200. Before I turn the floor over to Piotr, I would like to announce that in June we'll be launching a marketing campaign for Phantom Liberty. So stay tuned. Now it's time for financials. Piotr, the floor is yours.

speaker
Piotr Nilubowicz
CFO & Vice President Finance, CD Projekt Group

Thank you Adam. Now let's dive into our 2022 results. First, our consolidated profit and loss account on slide 11. In total, our sales revenue in 2022 reached 953 million zloty. Most of that was delivered on sales of products of CD Projekt RED. Three major events helped us to achieve this result, in chronological order. The release of the Cyberpunk Next Gen version, the whole event of the Cyberpunk Edgerunners update and anime launch, and last but not least, the introduction of the Witcher 3 Complete Edition on Next Gens. In contrast to total group sales, our cost of sales slightly decreased, which is attributable mostly to the GOG segment. Moving on to operating costs. Our selling expenses in the amount of 222 million Zloty decreased by over one-fourths. This was mainly driven by the decrease of Cyberpunk servicing costs from over 80 million Zloty in 2021 to nearly 23 million Zloty in 2022. The updates and improvements published over the past two years significantly enhanced gameplay performance and have been met with a positive response by gamers, as shown by Adam. Our focus and team involvement now naturally shifted towards future releases, including Phantom Liberty. Still, overall, the selling costs were high as last year we were actively promoting the three events I just mentioned. Next slide. Our administrative expenses increased by 5%. On the one hand, we spend less on the early phase research expenses as we progressed our projects to more advanced phases and further expenses were capitalized, but on the other, most costs are, in general, on the rise, including costs related to our historic incentive program, which only this year increased our administrative expenses by over 5 million zloty versus last year. Speaking of the historic incentive program, as you may imagine, due to a strike price of 390 zloty and goals practically out of reach for now, the program, although still costly for us, entirely lost its motivation function. We aim to replace it with a new one, supporting our team retention, recruitment, growth and, in consequence, efficient and timely developments. Since the last General Meeting we collected feedback from the market and incorporated substantial changes into the new resolutions. We would like to invite you to support the company on that voting at the next General Meeting on the 18th of April. Moving further to other operating income and expenses, I am aware that it is not great to hear from a company that a project is being re-evaluated. But at the same time, in order to stay innovative, we must experiment and be brave when trying new paths. And to stay in control and keep the right course, especially with a project that is new to us in terms of design, developed by a new studio in our family, we need to keep evaluating the situation as we move along. It's better to cut costs early and even restart if needed than to carry on. As a result of this approach, we experienced negative results on our other operating activity due to the impairment related to Project Sirius, which we reported 10 days ago. Moving on to the EBIT line, our operating profit reached 377 million zloty, which is 62% above the result of last year. EBIT was supported by positive results on our financial activity. Although the 16 million zloty positive financial activities performance included 27 million zloty of revaluation of Spoko company shares upon this year's decision to sunset the Witcher Monster Slayer project. All in all, our net profit for 2022 reached 347 million zloty, which is a nice two-thirds more than a year ago. Most of the result was delivered by CD Projekt Red segment. However, unlike last year, GOG also delivered over 5 million zloty of net profit for the group. What is also worth mentioning is that the net profitability of the group for this year exceeded 36% and for CD Projekt Red alone it was even close to 44%. Let's now move on to the next slide, number 12, our consolidated balance sheet. Over 2022, our balance of expenditures and development projects increased by 123 million zloty. This figure represents the balance of new expenditures and development projects for the period, 262 million zloty, less the amount we've recognized as costs for the period in the amount of 139 million zloty. The latter includes impairment related to project series and one-time amortization of our expenditures related to cyberpunk genres. As usual, I'll come back to expenditures on our new developments in a moment. Our property, plant and equipment position increased by 25 million Zlotych, mainly due to our investments on the Warsaw campus and acquisition of office equipment. At the same time, looking at current assets, our trade receivables increased by 40 million Zlotych, which I see as a consequence of higher Q4 sales than this year versus the comparative period. At the same time, the other receivables line item decreased by 55 million Zloty. This was mainly driven by limiting our tax-related receivables and also decrease of advances on development works due to completion and delivery of the Cyberpunk Edgerunners project. And last but not least, the total value of cash, deposits and treasury bonds included in the three items marked with an asterisk is summed up under the table and totals 1 billion 91 million zlotych as of the end of 2022. I will walk you through our main cash flow drivers in a moment. Let's move on to the second part of the balance sheet, slide 13. As of the end of 2022, our group's equity had a value of over 2 billion zloty and grew by nearly 140 million zloty driven by our profit for the period. But what is also reflected here is that during 2022 we shared over 200 million zloty with shareholders, half-half by way of share buyback and dividend payout. Another noticeable change among the liabilities section involved the liabilities themselves, which decreased by 22 million zloty This was mainly driven by other financial liabilities and reclassification of part of the liabilities to the other financial assets position, resulting from positive valuation of instruments hedging foreign exchange risk, as well as from the realization of part of our liability for the payment of the purchase price of shares in the Molassos flood. Parallel to that, we increased our trade liabilities and decreased our income tax liabilities. As regards provisions, this line item grew by 10 million zloty, mainly in relation to provisions for team bonuses set based on 2022 results. Having mentioned the team bonuses, I would like to add to what Adam said just now. Starting from the beginning of 2023, we've changed the general remuneration policy to the private credit. So the project now offers a predictable remuneration system based on an attractive salary. The salary has been just revised upward with an annual rise, inflation adjustment and annual bonus all rolled up into one flat monthly remuneration package. We believe that the ability to offer base remuneration, which is both higher and more predictable, should strongly support our recruitment activity as we look to attract top talent in our industry. At the same time, when it comes to top management, the existing bonus system based on net profit is still in force, as the top management should be directly involved in maximizing our sales and profits. Now, please move on to the next slide, number 14. Teleproject Red's expenditures on research, development and service of released games are presented quarterly for 2021 and 2022 to illustrate the changes happening at the studio recently. The decreasing yellow part represents our total cost of servicing our released games, mainly Cyberpunk and Gwent. What is also clearly visible, the scope of our development continues to grow and the team is progressively moving on to new projects in development which are represented by the blue part. Main projects included in the blue part in Q4 were Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty, Polaris, Sirius and Witcher 3 Next-Gen Edition. And now, our simplified cash flow on slide 15. Cash-wise, the 347 million zlotych in net book profit for the period was supported by 117 million zlotych in depreciation and amortization for the period. We used these positive cash flow drivers to finance 207 million zlotych expenditure on development projects at CD Projekt Red. GOG also invested in its business by contracting licenses for new games for the store, which drove the increase of prepayments and deferred costs presented by the next part. In cash terms, the group also invested 48 million zlotych into both intangible and tangible assets, mainly investments on our campus, software and equipment for our business. In 2022, we also shared over 200 million zloty with our shareholders, over 100 as a dividend payout and close to 200 as a share buyback program. Altogether, our financial reserves kept in cash, bank deposits and t-bonds decreased over the last year by 63 million zloty. which means that putting aside the transfers to shareholders we were able to self-finance from our 2022 positive cash flows all our outflows including investment into development and on top generate 138 million zloty surplus. That's all from me for now. Thank you for your attention. We can now proceed with the Q&A session.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask an audio question, if done by telephone, please press star one on your telephone keypad. The first question is coming from Mr. Omar Sheikh. Sorry, Mr. Omar Sheikh is just disconnected. Please go ahead, sir.

speaker
Omar Sheikh
Analyst

Yes, hello. Can you hear me?

speaker
Adam Kiciński
President & CEO, CD Projekt Group

Yes, we can hear you. Thank you.

speaker
Omar Sheikh
Analyst

Many thanks for the presentation. Can you please talk a little bit about the migration to the new engine? What's the progress there? Do you see or expect to see the fall in productivity of your developers until they learn how to use the new engine? That's my first question.

speaker
Adam Kiciński
President & CEO, CD Projekt Group

Adam Kiciński, I'll take the first one. We are preparing many things on the pipeline sides and toolset sides. Some developers are still learning the technology and at the same time there are teams working together with Epic on all those aspects that are needed for our open-world server-driven RPGs and definitely For the first project, Polaris, it will maybe not slow down, but it won't accelerate the processes. But for the next projects, we assume that it should smoothen the production. That was one of the reasons. Behind saying the strategy that we want to release three big Witcher games within six years, starting from the release of Polaris, which is feature four. So, yeah.

speaker
Omar Sheikh
Analyst

Great. Yeah, that's very helpful. Thank you very much. Another question is on your development code. What is basically the effective inflation in your development costs? I mean, due to this nice ph indexation that you are doing, how much more this costs for you one year of development now compared to last year?

speaker
Piotr Nilubowicz
CFO & Vice President Finance, CD Projekt Group

Hi, Piotr Nielubowicz, I will take this question. So comparing Each year's development versus another year is not really giving any substantial update on development inflation as each year is different. Some years, like a year of completing a big project, like it was in case of 2020, are heavy with some external expenses like external testing or localization and some others are more focused on our internal works. So we never compare it this way. In general, what I can say and what I just mentioned in the presentation, the salaries are rising along the inflation, but also due to the fact of changing the remuneration system in the company. Each our game we historically created was more expensive than the previous one, and I do not expect this trend to change dramatically, so games are becoming more complex, bigger and getting more expensive. But we were not guiding on future development budgets, therefore I wouldn't like to give any precise details on what overall game development costs in the future will be bigger versus what we had previously.

speaker
Omar Sheikh
Analyst

And that's clear. Maybe a quick one on incentive program to be voted in April. So if you secure the required share of votes, not for all your suggestions, will you accept the agenda only partially or you would need to do another round of voting for the whole agenda in this scenario?

speaker
Adam Kiciński
President & CEO, CD Projekt Group

This time we disconnected those two parts of the program A and B. So there is, of course, a scenario in which one of them will be positively voted. Of course, from our perspective, we believe that this program is very helpful in delivering strategies. So we hope that both parts will be positively voted, but there are disconnects.

speaker
Omar Sheikh
Analyst

Yeah, very clear. Thank you very much.

speaker
Adam Kiciński
President & CEO, CD Projekt Group

Thank you.

speaker
Omar Sheikh
Analyst

Thank you very much, sir.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

We'll now go to Mr. Omar Shaikh of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.

speaker
Omar Shaikh
Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Great. Yeah, thanks very much. Just three pieces for me, if I could. So, first of all, thanks very much for giving us the actual sales numbers for Cyberpunk on slide six. It's very helpful. Could you maybe just talk about what the impact you saw on Cyberpunk sales from the Edgerunners release in, well, in September? What impact does that have in Q4? And maybe some commentary on how it's going in Q1. That would be helpful. Secondly, on Phantom Liberty, could you give us a sense of the scope of the marketing that you're planning? Is it going to be a short campaign, long campaign? How would it compare in terms of size and expense to what you spent on the main game and previous DLCs? And then finally, just on Project Sirius, you made a couple of comments just now about it. Just, I guess the question here is, you know, what happened? What does it imply about your kind of future, the work you might do with Molasses Flood? What sort of implications should we think about for the long term kind of development of programmes within that studio? Thank you.

speaker
Piotr Nilubowicz
CFO & Vice President Finance, CD Projekt Group

So I'll take the first question. Yeah, so the eMac of anime and the whole concept of linking it with the update that was released just Just before Anima was really visible on our sales. We are not publishing precise daily, weekly or monthly sales. However, it was for us the beginning of the Q4. Q4 that was super intense and that we perceive as the actually the second best q4 in our history only the q4 when we released the cyberpunk itself was better than than this fourth quarter now what's uh also interesting the effect we saw after launching the anime was visible for many weeks after the release of uh The Anima also, when all of the promotions ended and we returned to the standard sales, the volumes we saw were better than before. The second part of the question was about Q1. So Q1 this year unlike last year was not having any, in Q1 we didn't have any extraordinary events or new releases like last year we had the Cyberpunk next gen release therefore I would say this Q1 will be more of a normal quarter with no special situations. And still the most important event of this year, which is the Phantom Liberty launch is still ahead of us.

speaker
Michał Nowakowski
Head of Investor Relations, CD Projekt Group

The second question was, I believe, about the scope of marketing, where we are with planning campaign. I mean, at least that's the way understood. Feel free to correct me. Okay, I'm assuming that's correct. So when it comes to scope marketing, I mean, as Piotr already mentioned, Phantom Liberty launch is the biggest event for us this year. So it's going to be significant, but obviously, you know, significant to the scale. Do not expect a campaign that's going to be comparable to the launch of a completely new Triple A game, obviously, but it is a very important event for us. And I can say we are and have been for a while. As a matter of fact, I mean, planning a campaign is not something you do over a weekend or two. So we've been talking about it for a while now. And I believe we mentioned just today that we're going to start talking more about Phantom Liberty in June this year. So expect more news coming around that time frame. But for now we have to be a little bit more patient. Thank you.

speaker
Adam Kiciński
President & CEO, CD Projekt Group

And Adam Kicinski here and We'll be announcing more details regarding our planned activities fairly soon. So we will add some color about what is planned for June. And regarding Sirius. Regarding Sirius, as we expected questions, please let me sum up everything we want to say at this point about it. Sirius is a codename for a project carried out by the Molassos Flat, a Boston-based studio which joined the project group in 2021. So this is a project which is, I would say, insourced. It's also new to us in terms of design and format. For those reasons, it's very different from the big productions we are known for. To stay competitive, we have to keep looking for new ways to extend our franchises. At the same time, we need to be ready to reevaluate our original concepts, even if development work is already underway. On the 20th of March, we announced that we want to create a new framework for Sirius. We also decided to establish an empowerment allowance on serious development expenditures. It was a tough decision to make, but we also believe it was the right one. Our intention was to cut costs early and give ourselves time for reassessment. We don't want to carry on with projects that we are not aligned with. So this is kind of obvious. So basically, that's all we would like to share about Project Sirius as for now. Thank you.

speaker
Omar Shaikh
Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Okay, very clear. Thank you very much.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Shaikh. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, if you have any questions or have any follow-up questions, please press star 1. And if your question has been answered, you can remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. When I go to the show, Matthew Walker. Okay, please go ahead. Your line is open.

speaker
Matthew Walker
Analyst

Thanks a lot. Good evening. The first thing is just on the salary stuff. Is that a good idea to expand the fixed base costs? You know, just in case the game doesn't come through, then you know, you've basically created a bit more operating leverage. Second question is, Is there going to be any substantial game release in the year 24, 25 or 26? And then the final question is, with the ramp in development costs, I know you're not giving a specific number on the cash flow ramp on development costs, but can you say whether at any point, given the ramp in development costs and the number of games they're doing, that the company will move from net cash to net debt or Will the current cash envelope include or deal with the ramp in development costs? Thank you.

speaker
Piotr Nilubowicz
CFO & Vice President Finance, CD Projekt Group

So the first question was about salaries. In general, we believe that to attract the best people, we need to offer competitive compensation packages. In general, in 2022, the rising remuneration will be even higher than what we observed in previous years. But we decided to do this for two reasons. First, we always adjust remuneration on a yearly basis, taking into account, among other things, the current inflation, which in this year is particularly high. And secondly, as mentioned during our presentation, In January, we remodeled the whole compensation package in order to be able to present to our employees clear salary package that they can estimate how much they will earn based on that. and not speculate what will be the annual profit of the company divided by over 1000 employees per person and what their final eventual annual bonus will be. We decided for more direct communication on that, which can be done only in case of offering flat salaries. And especially right now, we believe that was a perfect moment to adopt this change.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Mr. Walker, is that your question, sir?

speaker
Matthew Walker
Analyst

Yeah, I'll do the first one. Yeah, thank you.

speaker
Michał Nowakowski
Head of Investor Relations, CD Projekt Group

Yeah, and it's me, Gerard Oskar, and I'll take the second one about the substantial game releases. So, first of all, we don't really and we haven't guided on which of the titles comes out when, and we want on this call as well, What I can say is we're totally committed right now from the publishing revenue perspective and fully focused on delivering the Phantom Liberty this calendar year. And again, come June, we're going to reveal, we're going to start talking more about that and you'll learn more. And, you know, the belief behind that is this is going to help to increase the sales of Cyberpunk 2077 in the long run and establish that franchise even more and make it a long seller. You know, we've done it in the past with The Witcher 3 and this is the effect we're looking for with Cyberpunk and this is where we are focused. This is what we're talking about. And, you know, there's a lot of other things we're focused on right now. Like preparing for the Boston Hub and the Polaris is in the full development, but we honestly cannot and do not want to guide on specific releases in specific years, you know, 24, 25 or 26. We'll talk about those things when we are ready. Thank you.

speaker
Piotr Nilubowicz
CFO & Vice President Finance, CD Projekt Group

And I will take the third one. The third question was about financing development costs, as far as I remember, and whether we are considering to move to negative net cash position. So, as you know, as of the end of 2022, our financial reserves, meaning cash, bank deposits and T-bonds amounted to almost 1.1 billion Zloty. On top of that, our flagship titles Cyberpunk and Witcher 3 generate solid revenues. With next-gen editions of both games and with Phantom Liberty expansion coming out this year, we believe the stream of revenues will be strong in the coming years. And at the same time, in recent years, we were self-financed and we would like to continue with this approach also moving forward. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, if you have any questions, please press star one. We'll now go to Mr. Thomas Rodak of BOS Brokerage. Please go ahead.

speaker
Thomas Rodak
Analyst, BOS Brokerage

Yes, hi. Good afternoon. I just want to make sure I understand the new renumeration system correctly. I understand that you now the salary will include the bonus and it means that the bonus is currently not related to the result so you basically are increasing the flat salary but getting rid of the bonus at all for developers and second question on motivation program and on the on the target, financial target. Could you just elaborate more on how do you construct the financial targets? Does it somehow account for your publishing pipeline? And finally, does this new target that you revealed, it's 2 billion slots in 2326, does it include the the profits from the New Polaris project, which would make it, let's say, not so ambitious, or maybe it doesn't include the New Polaris project, which makes it very ambitious. In my opinion, at least. Thank you.

speaker
Piotr Nilubowicz
CFO & Vice President Finance, CD Projekt Group

Okay, so I'll take the first two questions probably. So yes, you're right. We have recalculated average bonuses into flat monthly salary increases. Based on that we increase proportionally the monthly salaries. also taking into consideration inflation and other annual rises which means that for the whole team starting from this year there will be no annual bonus the 2022 is the last year on which we will pay annual bonuses but starting from the 1st of January the net profit of the company will not constitute a bonus obligation for the company towards employees, but at the same time, as I mentioned, the top management will still have part of their remuneration based on the financial effectiveness of the company. Regarding the motivation program targets, I wouldn't like to go into details and especially as you know, we are not guiding on the release dates. I wouldn't like to go into details of whether this or that product is included. That's a goal that we believe is ambitious. and we are aiming to, we will need to work hard in order to generate such net profit within the next four years.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Rodak. As we have no further audio questions, we turn the call back over to the organizers to take a deal with the questions coming from webcast questions. Thank you very much.

speaker
Adam Kiciński
President & CEO, CD Projekt Group

So I'll read the first questions. We see how many developers did you have at the end of February and how many at the end of 2022? How many would you like to have at the end of 2023? Piotr, do you have those numbers precisely?

speaker
Piotr Nilubowicz
CFO & Vice President Finance, CD Projekt Group

so i'm i'm trying to find the group results because what i have in front of me is just the project essay so the model company and i think let me yeah do we do we have it so We have right now at the end of February almost 700 developers and at the end of the year for the whole group we had, I'm consulting my team, slightly lower number probably. So that's what we can tell you on the fly. If we find more precise data, we will come back to this question.

speaker
Adam Kiciński
President & CEO, CD Projekt Group

So I'll take the second one. What do you see on American employee market right now? With all the layoffs in the US tech, it seems it should be easier to find new people. Have you noticed any changes in the last three months? Michal, I think you know something about this.

speaker
Michał Nowakowski
Head of Investor Relations, CD Projekt Group

I mean, I know and I don't. I mean, we obviously monitor the situation and we are fully aware of what's happening on the American market. But there's a couple of things. First of all, with our hiring and setting up the Boston Hub, we are not in the phase where we would be netting large numbers of people yet. And this would be like really the practical The second thing which is important to remember is that very often, let's put it like this, the programmer from a tech company is not necessarily a good fit for a video games company. I mean, he or she, they can be. But they not necessarily are. I mean, it's a question of passion, certain inclinations, certain experience as well. So I would answer like this. Thank you.

speaker
Adam Kiciński
President & CEO, CD Projekt Group

The next question. Will you be attending E3 this year? Do you want to show Phantom Liberty there? As we mentioned already, we'll be kicking off marketing campaign for Phantom Liberty in June. But as for now, we are not sharing any details, but soon we will reveal our plans, so stay tuned. And I can take the next one. Can you comment on the development process of Polaris and Canis Majoris projects? Do you see a write-down risk? No, I don't see any write-down risk. Of course, this is what I see now, but bear in mind that our flagship projects like Polaris or Orion, the situation with them is kind of different. Both of them are our flagship internal production and the very core of everything what we do. So it's hard to imagine that we would decide to not carry on with these developments. There are a couple of questions about Sirius, but as I said in my kind of statement, that was all I would like to share. So we won't go through all those questions. There's a question about dividend. What is your view on this year's dividend? Are you planning to recommend a rate of around PLN one per share? No decisions, no discussions were done yet, so of course now we have results and we'll have this discussion and once we'll conclude it, if there is any proposition, we'll of course share it with you.

speaker
Piotr Nilubowicz
CFO & Vice President Finance, CD Projekt Group

And I think that's it.

speaker
Adam Kiciński
President & CEO, CD Projekt Group

Piotr is going to answer one of the questions. Piotr, you can take it. So Piotr is preparing the answer, I can read the question. Cost of products and services sold of CD Projekt RED in Q4 2022 amounted to PLN 27.2 million, while in Q1-Q2 it was just circa about 18.5 million PLN. Where does the difference come from? Is it additional amortization of Witcher 3 Next Gen? If yes, then for how long will it be recognized?

speaker
Piotr Nilubowicz
CFO & Vice President Finance, CD Projekt Group

So this is both additional amortization related to Witcher 3 next gen, but also there is additional amortization related to Cyberpunk next gen. So at least as far as I remember, at least the two products contributed to increasing amortization after the Q1 of last year. And there was also a question about how long we plan to amortize it. As far as I remember, for Witcher 3, the plan is to amortize it over the next three years.

speaker
Adam Kiciński
President & CEO, CD Projekt Group

There is one more question. How many developers are expected to work on the next Witcher game by the end of this year? Could it be more than half of your dev workforce? We'll see, we'll see. It's possible, it's possible, but you know, it's a transfer year. So we'll see, but it could be more than half, I can imagine, but maybe end of this year or beginning of the next year. As we have no more questions, I would like to thank you again for joining us today. If you have any follow-up questions, do not hesitate to contact our IR team directly by mail. Have a nice evening. Goodbye. Good night.

Disclaimer

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