CD Projekt vient d'annoncer avoir signé un accord d'investissement avec Metropolis Software en devenant actionnaire majoritaire dans la société polonaise. Si cet accord peut faire parvenir They au rang des FPS de qualité comme CD Projekt à porté son dernier projet (The Witcher), alors il ne peut être que bénéfique. Rappelons au passage que Metropolis Software vient dernièrement de rejoindre le programme « It's Meant to be Played » de Nvidia.

Le communiqué complet (en anglais) se trouve dans la suite de la nouvelle.

CD Projekt and Metropolis Software announced that they have signed an investment agreement, under which CD Projekt will become the majority owner of Metropolis Software. Combining the strengths of both companies is a very important step in realisation of CD Projekt’s strategy, which includes becoming a leading publisher delivering high-budget, ambitious and creative projects that ready to compete with the world’s biggest productions.

To date, CD Projekt has developed one title, the hit PC role-playing game, The Witcher. Fusing with Metropolis and dividing the CD Projekt RED team into two units, CD Projekt now has are three development teams working on new AAA game projects.

CD Projekt’s debut game, The Witcher, has been a worldwide success. After several years of development by dozens of people at the CD Projekt RED studio, as well as a record budget for a Polish media product, The Witcher launched to much critical and commercial success. To date, The Witcher has earned more than 40 awards, including prestigious awards like Best PC RPG of the Year at IGN.com, GameSpy and the US edition of PC Gamer, as well as Gamespot’s Readers’ Choice award for Best RPG. Rave reviews from fans and media have translated into excellent sales results, as the game has sold more than 600,000 copies around the world.

Metropolis Software has been a leading Polish game developer for years and is the longest operating game-development studio in the country. Its catalog includes Gorky 17 and last year’s Infernal. The latest Metropolis production is THEY, a next-generation mystery first-person shooter set on a near-future Earth that has been ruined by war. What makes THEY unique is that it combines an involving story with the best characteristics of action games. Thanks to the emphasis on an engaging plot, THEY has a chance to join the small and elite circle of FPS games whose involving story is the key element driving the player to keep playing for hours on end. The game’s world is developed on the basis of Metropolis’ new proprietary game engine, benefiting from all the latest technologies used in video games software. The game is designed for PC and next-gen consoles, and is scheduled for release in 2009.

The fusion of the two companies was commented on by Michał Kiciński, CD Projekt Joint CEO: “I’m very happy that we managed to combine the strengths of two key development teams in Poland. Metropolis and CD Projekt have many values in common: we believe that the success of our products depends on innovative character and atmosphere, as well as uncompromising care of the highest quality. In the games business, this latter element is particularly difficult to achieve by independent teams. It is often the case that finance — and not the developers’ vision — that determines the final shape and quality of the project. CD Projekt was an atypical company from the very beginning – the realisation of our plans is preferred to simply earning a profit. Now, thanks to our financial reserves from the success of The Witcher and CD Projekt’s publishing business, Metropolis will have much more creative freedom. I’m sure that thanks to that, Metropolis will develop their dream game and will soon join the upper echelon of game developers.”

Grzegorz Miechowski, Metropolis Software Joint CEO: “This deal is great news for Metropolis. Thanks to this fusion, we have come together to become the developer with the biggest potential in this part of Europe. We will develop our future games on a grand scale – a scale which, in Poland, was previously only available for The Witcher. I believe that thanks to CD Projekt’s support, THEY will have the chance to take the FPS genre by storm, just as The Witcher did in the RPG genre.”

Piotr Nielubowicz, Vice-president for Strategic Finances of CD Projekt group, had the following to say about the deal: “It’s the first business deal of this kind in our history and, at the same time, it’s another big step in our company’s expansion. Simultaneously, it’s one of the steps in our plans for our stock market debut. Metropolis Software is an experienced and thriving team. I’m sure that our financial contribution and experience on an international level will guarantee the development of many fantastic games of the highest caliber. I believe that together with Metropolis Software we will succeed in realising a strategy that will deliver unique value to future investors.”