Opinion Switch

What’s The Point In Selling The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Content Separately On Switch?

On Feb 02, 2021, by Jamie Sharp

Last week, CD Projekt Red announced that you can now buy all The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt content separately for Nintendo Switch. This means that you can pick up everything in the Complete Edition, or buy the base game and two separate DLCs if you fancy it. There are two ways of looking at this change, and I wanted to explore both of them. It’s not that I think the developer is looking to grab more money, but I do think that it’s slightly suspicious that they do this after Cyberpunk 2077 has done so badly. Check out the announcement below and read on for more details.

Let’s look at this from a money-grabbing perspective first. It’s not that CD Projekt Red is out to make you spend more on the game by purchasing it in these separate chunks, I don’t think that’s it. What I believe they’re doing is putting out their extremely well-reviewed content in smaller and cheaper chunks. This makes it easier for a player to justify the purchase of the game, giving CD Projekt Red some more funds in the short-term. That player may then move onto the DLC, but it doesn’t matter too much because they’ve already made one purchase.

The second way of looking at this is the developer giving users the chance to experience a truly brilliant game without the massive price tag the Complete Edition has on it. The Complete Edition is about $70, which is very steep for any game. If you can get the base game for cheaper, you can experience the greatness of the game while saving up for the next bit of DLC. In a way, it is serving consumers, but it’s also going to help boost sales for the developer when they need it.

Ultimately, I think CD Projekt Red could have done this when they first launched the Complete Edition for Switch. Making this shift now shows that they want to buff sales thanks to the lack of then from Cyberpunk 2077. Hopefully, it does allow a few new users to get the game and try it at long last though. Overall it’s a good thing. I just wish that they’d done it sooner.