CD Projekt
From Gray-Market Imports to Global RPG Dominance and GOG.com
CD Projekt is a Polish multinational video game publisher and developer founded in May 1994 in Warsaw by Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński. Celebrated worldwide for The Witcher series, Cyberpunk 2077, and digital storefront GOG.com.
From Warsaw Market Stalls to Baldur's Gate
Having traded cracked floppy disks at Warsaw's Grzybowska street market during the communist transition, Iwiński and Kiciński established CD Projekt to legally import CD-ROM software. In 1999, their fully voiced Polish localization of BioWare's Baldur's Gate sold an unprecedented 18,000 units on day one, vanquishing domestic piracy.
CD Projekt RED and Global Prestige
Founding internal development arm CD Projekt RED in 2002, they adapted Andrzej Sapkowski's dark fantasy novels into The Witcher (2007). In 2015, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt achieved universal critical acclaim, selling over 50 million copies.