One of the great things about The Witcher series has always been its independent pedigree. Coming from CD Projekt Red, the games have always had a very indie attitude, while sales have soared skyward, propelling the studio into the top tiers of gaming. Now, it seems, that might be in jeopardy as rumors are spreading that CD Projekt Red might be fighting against a hostile takeover.
The news has been compiled very well on Reddit, with official sources mostly coming in Polish, as the studio is based out of Poland. The events that have led to this current rumor is that CD Projekt Red is currently calling a nearly unprecedented emergency meeting of stockholders. The agenda for this meeting gives hints that the studio is currently fighting against someone trying to buy up enough stock to take over control.
The agenda for this meeting includes an option to buy back large portions of CD Projekt Red stock, the merging of a couple of subsidiaries, and a change to the company’s statute. That’s all we know so far, but Polish sources are starting to speculate that this could be trying to combat a hostile takeover from an unknown outside source.
We’ve seen things like this already happen in gaming, with the most recent being a rumored attempt at a takeover of Ubisoft by Vivendi. They’ve been able to hold that off for now, but attempts seem to still be made on occasion.
The meeting is scheduled to take place on November 29th, so we should know more then. With how large CD Projekt Red has become, they’ve still managed to remain very independent. It’ll be interesting to see if this goes through, or if they can hold it off and remain so for the foreseeable future.
