In the world of PC and console gaming, The Witcher was already widely popular. The most recent game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, was released in May 2015. In June 2019, the game's publisher CD Projekt Red confirmed that the game sold over 20 million units worldwide. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was ported to the Nintendo Switch console in October 2019, just before the Netflix series premiered. These combined factors caused the game to have a strong surge in sales during Q4 2019. U.S. December physical sales for the game were 554 percent higher than December 2018, and still 63 percent higher even when excluding the Nintendo Switch platform.
The Witcher has successfully capitalized on the strong market interest that Game of Thrones fostered for fantasy series. Given the positive reception of the first season, it may well grow to fill the newly created hole that appeared when Game of Thrones ended in May 2019. Much like Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings, and many others, media was a catalyst to bring mainstream attention to strong source material loved by subcultures.
The takeaway from this success for IP holders is to keep a pulse on market trends across entertainment, and creatively explore existing IP so they can capitalize on growing interest in new categories that fit their IP, just as The Witcher has with its Netflix series. And for those looking to license IP for new content, it is important to prospect as creatively as possible and look for specialized trends in other areas of the entertainment, such as book IP, that could translate strong source material into large followings.
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