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

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