348. Why None of Us Saw Cyberpunk Coming Apart I Michal Nowakowski. joint CEO, CD PROJEKT RED — Deconstructor of Fun

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Cyberpunk 2077 sold 13 million copies in ten days, then Sony pulled it from the PlayStation Store. CD Projekt Red joint CEO Michal Nowakowski was the one taking the calls.

He walks through what actually broke, why the investors weren't the reason, and how the studio went from a Polish box distributor to owning The Witcher outright. Plus the transmedia strategy, the move to Unreal Engine 5, and why Poland built the strongest gaming ecosystem in Europe.

Chapters

00:00 From Polish distributor to a global studio
04:43 Buying The Witcher rights
08:15 Why owning the IP was non-negotiable
14:12 Poland's coding culture and the talent pipeline
18:54 Scaling to 350 developers on The Witcher 3
26:16 The Cyberpunk 2077 launch and the hardest week
34:03 The decision to fix the game instead of cutting losses
39:14 Unreal Engine 5 and rebuilding production
43:51 Transmedia, Netflix, and keeping games at the center
49:49 What makes the Polish gaming ecosystem work