Current report number: 34/2024
Date: 27 September 2024
Legal basis: Art. 17 section 1 of MAR – inside information
Subject: Update of CI Games S.E. strategy for the years 2025 – 2028
The Management Board of Cl Games SE with its registered office in Warsaw (the “Company”) with reference to current report no. 33/2022 of October 24, 2022, informs that on September 27, 2024, it adopted an update of the Company’s development strategy for 2025-2028.
Detailed assumptions of the update of the Company’s development strategy for 2025-2028 adopted by the Management Board are as follows.
Having strengthened and streamlined our business during the first half, we have developed a clear strategy to drive future sustainable returns, develop higher quality games which leverage our prior investments more efficiently and ensure we have an expand addressable market for our new releases:
- A focused product roadmap with major releases in each of the next 3 years
- A player-first and efficient new operating model
- With a finance strategy to deliver the product roadmap
Our focused product roadmap
A primary Focus on Core IPs
Project III – which is in full production for release in 2026, is the next major instalment in LOTF franchise, built on UE5, which has already seen a major investment from Epic for PC exclusivity. This game will have increased appeal and accessibility to both existing and wider audiences as well as gameplay improvements
Project SGW Evolved – which is currently pre-production, with a planned release in 2027, will be the next major iteration in the SGW franchise, built on UE5 with a strong appeal to both core and wider audiences through a combination of signature FPS gameplay, elevated by survival genre elements. Its development will be expedited by repurposing extensive components from Project Survive and SGW Next
Project H – currently in currently pre-production, with a planned release in 2028, will be a new major action-RPG IP within a highly commercial fantasy genre, built on UE5 using systems and architecture from Lords of the Fallen and Project III. It will have an efficient pre-production lean team until late2025, when the Hexworks team can begin to move from Project III to Project H.
Secondary focus
We will aim to release 1-3 high quality titles per year under the United Label, with two new titles to be published over next six months – Beyond Galaxyland and Tails of Iron 2.
In addition we will continue with Project Potential, exploring options to partner with strong external IPs, and Project Expand, exploring licensing our own strong IPs to external partners within entertainment and other markets (transmedia, tabletop gaming etc) for both commercial gain and increased IP awareness.
Player-first and efficient new operating model
Key to our approach will be to expand our addressable market using data-driven insights to improve the appeal and audience accessibility for our games and embedding player-centricity in our development process.
We will evolve our operating model with a player-first approach, building on our Lords of the Fallen launch experience by.
Maximising our market appeal through:
– A new senior-led, player-first development process
– Informed by consumer insights
– Robust external testing and validation throughout development
– Thematic and gameplay mechanics for wider addressable audience
Minimising barriers-to-entry through:
– Focussing on quality over quantity
– Providing difficulty customisation options
– Removing friction points (best-in-class onboarding, keyboard remapping etc.)
Optimising the gamer experience across hardware/stores:
– Enabled by Unreal Engine 5 now being more mature
– Through closer, earlier collaboration with partners (Epic, NVidia, AMD)
Driving 80+ user scores after launch through:
– A highly iterative development
– Innovation over revolution
– Pre-launch tech demos
Data-driven efficient marketing:
– Using extensive insight, learnings and global IP awareness
– Streamlined to deliver efficient, targeted marketing campaigns
New, player centric, iterative development process
To achieve this we have a new structure with senior oversight of our new, player centric, iterative development process.
Our new Development Management & Support Office will be led by SVP of Development, Tom O’Connor (formerly Tencent, Sony), to oversee all areas of game production across all projects with Studio heads and QA reporting in to him, for improved parity with production based on consumer insights.
The development process will produce successful games with an emphasis on quality and predictability by ensuring major validation steps at key ‘gates’ in the project development lifecycle. In addition there will be more regular development milestones with evaluation, validation and iteration throughout production assessing the game for market appeal, product benchmarking and player UX through internal/external expert evaluation and open/closed-beta testing. This approach will ensure that we broaden our market, minimise friction points and make onboarding easier for gamers, supporting higher user scores.
New talent sharing model
This will be complemented by a more efficient talent sharing model, with new infrastructure facilitating cross-studio knowledge and talent sharing and a talent reallocation model to help reduce project fatigue, with our recent restructuring having optimised our talent pool, the cost of which has been taken.
Streamlined and smarter marketing
We will also have a more efficient approach to marketing with a significantly reduced Project III marketing budget, enabled by having achieved strong global IP awareness of Lords 23 given its sizable marketing budget and successful brand activations. We’ll keep that IP front-of-mind with future improvements and free content updates and build on our extensive learnings from Lords 23 to run more efficient targeted campaigns in the future, focusing on needle-moving activations.
Finance strategy to deliver the product roadmap
Our new strategy, model and operating structure will enable lower costs to market through:
• More efficient development; building on existing IP, concepts, architecture and engine
• A Streamlined team, new operating model and talent sharing, driving greater efficiency
• Lower marketing spend with targeted campaigns springboarding existing awareness
And we have a clear plan for the financing for the next 3 releases through:
• Operating cash flows
• Recent EPIC investment and exploring co-publishing partnerships, first party exclusives and territory distribution incentives
• Existing PLN 15.0m bank facility with plans to increase debt in order to finance future projects
The presented information is not a forecast of the future results of the Company or the CI Games S.E. Capital Group. Statements about expectations as to the implementation of specific assumptions and projects do not constitute a guarantee or assurance that such will be achieved in the future. The Company is not responsible for the effects of decisions made on the basis of the information provided. The adopted Company’s development strategy may be subject to periodical reviews carried out by the Management Board.
Disclaimer: This English language translation may contain certain discrepancies. In case of any differences between the Polish and the English versions, the Polish version shall prevail.
CI Games SE Management Board:
Marek Tymiński – President of the Management Board
