The shares of Poland’s gaming giant CD Projekt – the company behind Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher – soared by close to 50% earlier this week on the Warsaw Stock Exchange only to tank nearly 16% on January 29, its volatility a side effect of the army of small investors in the US trying to hit short-selling hedge funds.

While the retail investors in the US – who banded together on Reddit – targeted stocks of less-known companies such as game retailer GameStop, some of the hedge funds that shorted the company also had short positions on CD Projekt. 

That aroused interest in the Polish company, alongside, as it happened, a tweet by none other than Elon Musk sporting a picture of a Tesla with CD Projekt’s The Witcher on-screen and an appreciative remark about Cyberpunk 2077.

CD Projekt's shares soared as investors poured in, and then corrected afterwards.

But unlike Gamestop and other nearly forgotten companies such as Blackberry or Nokia that the Redditors targeted in their move against short-selling hedge funds, CD Projekt is an actual star of one of Poland’s top gaming industry.

CD Projekt - with a capitalisation exceeding PLN30bn - is only one of the listed game developers in Warsaw that have given investors noteworthy returns recently, also prompting new IPOs.

Mobile game developer Huuuge is in the final stages of an offering that could be worth PLN1.7bn, the company said earlier this week.

A smaller player, Game Island, also said this week it was preparing a pre-IPO for Warsaw’s alternative market, NewConnect.

CD Projekt’s shares have gained just over 10% in the past 12 months, with growth impeded by the unfavourable early reviews of bugs in Cyberpunk 2077, a problem that the company began addressing with a patch released in January and another one coming in February.

Another gaming company, PlayWay, had its stocks soar 134% since the beginning of 2020. Still another company, Ten Square Games, brought in returns of 111%.

The positive sentiment around gaming companies has literally dozens of them looking at carrying out IPOs in Warsaw. According to Poland’s financial website Bankier.pl, at least 30 gaming companies are planning IPOs on WSE’s main market or the alternative market NewConnect in 2021.