Responding to a rumour that originated on DSOGaming, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt developers CD Projekt Red have denied being in talks about a company takeover by EA.
CD Projekt Red’s community lead Marcin Momot rubbished the rumours on Twitter, saying the company’s co-founder Marcin Iwinski is even unaware of the apparent takeover.
@astreamz Just bumped into Marcin Iwiński – it was new to him. I guess the "informer" has better insight than the @CDPROJEKTRED founder. 🙂
— Marcin Momot (@Marcin360) September 14, 2015
The rumour started when DSOGaming were allegedly sent a tip, along with a payslip as proof of identity, from a CD Projekt Red employee. The tip said: “I’m [an] employee of CD Projekt Red and I have some bad news to share with you. Electronic Arts representatives are currently visiting our studio and meeting with top management. We are not going to release any game soon, so for sure it’s not about any publishing deal, so the only possible reason for EA guys being here is that they want to buy us.”
This seems like it could be jumping the gun just a little bit. CD Projekt Red have said before that they were being approached by big companies on a regular basis, but this doesn’t mean any deals are being made. That said, it’s unlikely the company would admit they were in talks before anything concrete was agreed.
With the success of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the company’s game distribution service GOG on the rise and plans to chat about their next game, Cyberpunk 2077, in 2017, I can’t see why CD Projekt Red would want to lose their independence. But this is a world where Microsoft own Minecraft.