Poland boasts the most expensive title in Europe: the Witcher video game

Enthusiasm, or speculation, in a delayed burst has turned a Polish video game company into one of the most quoted, and expensive, companies in Europe, surpassing even leading sectors such as defence and electrification. The boom of Witcher, the famous 'fantasy' video game saga that has even become a Netflix series, is the stock market case of the summer of 2025.

Shares in CD Projekt SA have soared 40% this year and have almost doubled in 12 months, with investors betting on the fourth instalment in the series, even though its release is at least two years away. According to Bloomberg news agency, using the price/turnover multiple, CD Projekt is the most expensive stock in the European Stoxx 600 benchmark index, with 29 times the estimated revenue for next year. That is a value that beats even the big artificial intelligence stocks.

The stock market always discounts future expectations, but in the case of CD Projekt it seems to have gone a long way. Investors who are filling their portfolios with stocks justify this with the potential increase in sales that will be guaranteed by the new instalment of the medieval role-playing game. The Witcher IV is not expected to debut until 2027 and analysts estimate that it could more than triple sales that year. "Investing in video game companies means betting on future releases and, given the popularity of The Witcher, it seems that the run, driven by the enthusiasm of the saga, is not yet over," is the comment of Piotr Poniatowski, analyst at mBank SA.

The enthusiasm, however, does not seem to be based on very solid elements: the last update on the video game was six months ago when a trailer of the future video game was released, accompanied by positive reviews. But CD Projekt is no stranger to shocks: in 2020, the title had tripled in anticipation of theCyberpunk 2077 video game, only to collapse after its release due to bugs and technical problems that had compromised its launch. The success of The Witcher IV is crucial for CD Projekt: it is the studio's flagship product to date, with 60 million copies sold since 2015, thanks also to a Netflix series.

However, the same analyst Poniatowski downgraded the rating on the Polish video game company from 'buy' to 'sell' citing the price surge and the appreciation of the Zloty against the Dollar. Is another Gamestop case around the corner?