Polish developer CD Projekt RED is planning to become a publicly traded company in the near future. If so, this move should put some extra clink in the studio’s coffers, thus giving them more money to continue to develop things like, say,
The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings without a publisher.
Polygamia is reporting that almost-defunct Polish PC assembling company Optimus S.A. plans to purchase shares of CD Projekt with its own shares. This means CD Projekt would become its own owner, but more importantly, a public entity. It sounds funny because it is: as described by Polygamia, this is a “back door” move to avoid formalities.
And this isn’t set in stone -- the companies have only signed letters of intent. In a
Kotaku update to their original story, a CD Projekt representative talked about the implications of possible move: "Since Optimus is a stock market company CD Projekt will in fact go public and have access to all stock instruments. Ultimately, this means money for future development of the whole company."
More money means more problems, but it could also ensure that
The Witcher 2 happens and that’s, obviously, not a bad thing. We’ll keep watching this situation and see how it unfolds. In the meanwhile, check out
this The Witcher 2 footage to learn why we're pumped about Polish stock market stuff.
Contest:
7:04 AM on 10.02.2009
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I wouldn't be surprised to see other smaller-scale devs taking the same route in the future, especially if they can use the lack of publisher control to their advantage. I know of quite a few projects that would probably have survived had they taken this route (I'm looking squarely at Six Days In Fallujah, for starters).