Cyberpunk 2077 was already profitable before it even launched, but we’ve been left to wonder how those ballyhooed refunds have affected sales after release. Not very much, as it turns out. CD Projekt Red says it has sold through an estimated 13 million copies of Cyberpunk 2077 as of December 20, and that number accounts for a chunk of refunds, too.
“This figure represents the estimated volume of retail sales across all hardware platforms (factoring in returns submitted by retail clients in brick-and-mortar as well as digital storefronts),” CDPR says in a report to investors, “i.e. the ‘sell-through’ figure, less all refund requests emailed directly to the Company by the publication date of this report in the framework of the ‘Help Me Refund’ campaign.”
In more human language, the 13 million unit figure is an estimate based on reports from both digital and brick-and-mortar retailers. The figure subtracts refund requests that CDPR itself has received through its own channels – so if players processed a refund directly through a retailer, presumably that wouldn’t be accounted for here.
Cyberpunk 2077 reached eight million pre-orders, so players picked up another five million copies even after discs were in the wild and everyone could see the more substantial shortcomings of the console versions. It has also remained the top-selling game on Steam for the past two weeks. (For comparison, Red Dead Redemption 2 sold over 17 million copies in its first 12 days.)
It remains to be seen how the negative word of mouth will affect Cyberpunk 2077’s prospects going forward. The console versions are already getting discounted, but the PC edition offers a much stronger experience – if not a bug-free one – as we explain in our Cyberpunk 2077 review. There are certainly plenty of other RPG games to keep you occupied if you’d prefer to wait for further patches.