Good afternoon. My name is Michał Nowakowski, and I'll be your host during today's conference where we sum up the first quarter of 2024. I will be co-presenting with Piotr Nielubowicz. After the presentation part, we invite you to participate in a Q&A session where we will be joined by Adam Kiciński. After an intense, yeah, 2023, the first quarter of 2024 was a period when the studio focused on the development of new projects while also benefiting from the results of the tremendous work put into improving Cyberpunk 2077 and the Phantom Liberty, our spy-thriller expansion. All that effort is appreciated by gamers. In May, the recent player review score for Cyberpunk 2077 reached 95% for the first time ever, which is the rating threshold for the Overwhelmingly Positive badge on Steam.
This slide presents the road we have traveled together since the game's debut at the end of 2020. We have put a lot of effort into patching, updating, and adding new content while also making sure we continue to listen to our community. As a result, the review score has been progressively increasing. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our development team and all the players for their support and valuable feedback, which helps us deliver the best possible Cyberpunk experience ever. Our effort is appreciated not only by gamers. Recently, we have been honored with one of the most prestigious accolades in the industry: the studio's first-ever BAFTA Award. Cyberpunk 2077 has won the Evolving Game category, getting critically acclaimed for the hard work the team had put into developing the game over the past three years.
Together with the Phantom Liberty expansion, Cyberpunk 2077 now boasts close to 300 awards from industry organizations and media outlets worldwide. Our business strategy is built around long sellers. We constantly organize various activities to boost sales of games from our back catalog. In March, we run a short but intensive campaign to support continued sales of Cyberpunk 2077. In cooperation with Xbox and PlayStation, the game was made available to all owners of current-generation consoles to play for free during the final weekend of March. This free trial campaign served as an effective tool in sustaining interest and engagement in Cyberpunk 2077, following last year's Ultimate Edition launch significantly bolstering our overall sales. Things are happening also in The Witcher universe. Just a week ago, on May 21st, we launched REDkit, a modding tool for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
This tool allows fans to create their own adventures set in The Witcher universe and to modify characters, their appearance, quests, locations, cutscenes, and dialogues. The Witcher 3 REDkit was enthusiastically received by gamers, and we can't wait to see what kind of projects they will create. We believe this will breathe a new life into The Witcher 3 on the eve of its 10th anniversary. Now, let me briefly guide you through the current project engagement of our dev teams. The most visible difference versus the previous update concerns the team responsible for maintaining Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty. As we finished fixing and updating the game, the corresponding category has disappeared from the chart, and developers have been reassigned to other projects. The sizes of other teams have remained almost unchanged since the last update in February.
This is in line with our recruitment plans for 2024, wherein we aim to maintain current employment levels. The Boston hub remains our top recruitment target this year, as we are still in the process of building the team that will deliver another fantastic experience in the Cyberpunk universe. Since we're about to go into financials, let me hand it over to Piotr.
Yeah, thank you, Michał, and good evening, everyone. Let's start with our consolidated profit and loss account on slide 9. Our group sales revenue for the first three months of 2024 reached PLN 227 million. That's 30% above the revenues of the comparative period. Again, Cyberpunk and Phantom Liberty allowed us to reach new heights compared to past first quarters. What is not directly visible here is that despite a very strong Q1 this year, both CD PROJEKT RED and GOG.com enjoyed sales increases versus a year ago. Our cost of sales increased as well, mainly driven by the amortization of Phantom Liberty and Cyberpunk. Moving on to operating costs. Our selling expenses decreased by PLN 8 million down to PLN 31 million. This was mainly driven by a decrease in the cost of maintenance dedicated to our release products. I will come back to this in a moment.
As regards administrative expenses, the increase in this category was driven mainly by expenses on early-phase works on new products presented as research work, costs, driven mainly by Orion, Canis Majoris, and Hadar. This is a good sign confirming that we are progressing here. And while we are on the topic of research work costs, recognizing its growing significance in our operations starting this quarter, we will add a new line directly to the profit and loss account statement to present the value of research costs for reported periods. I hope you will find it useful. Moving farther to other operating income and expenses. As you may remember, the positive balance of nearly PLN 20 million during the comparative period was supported by the partial reversal and partial write-off of our development expenditures related to product series. This year, no such extraordinary transactions supported our results.
The surplus for financial operations reported for 2024 Q1 at PLN 16 million came from usual drivers such as interest from deposits and bonds, with nearly no impact coming from foreign exchange-related operations. Moving further to our income tax. During 2024 Q1, we recognized an increase in the value of R&D tax relief available to the company, which led to an increase in the deferred tax assets calculation. This, together with a decrease in deferred tax provisions together of PLN 16.5 million, exceeded our current income tax amount, leading to a rare situation where the total income tax amount reported in the P&L statement is technically negative. What is worth mentioning here is that our current consolidated income tax included in the P&L calculation for the first quarter of 2024 amounted to a healthy PLN 14 million.
All in all, our net profit for 2024 Q1 amounted to a nice round PLN 100 million, 44% more than what we achieved in the comparative period. The net profitability of the group also exceeded 44%, while for CD PROJEKT RED alone, this factor was over 53%. Let's now move on to the next slide, number 10, our consolidated balance sheet. On the asset side, as usual, first, expenditures on development projects. The balance here increased by PLN 28 million during the first three months of 2024. The new developments, mainly Polaris and Sirius, were responsible for a PLN 54.5 million increase, parallel to the decrease coming from depreciation driven mainly by the already released Cyberpunk and Phantom Liberty. At the same time, among current assets, our trade receivables decreased by PLN 105 million thanks to the collection of high post-Q4 receivables this year.
Last but not least, the total value of cash, deposits, and bonds, which are included in the three asset items marked with an asterisk. The total is summed up under the table and amounts to PLN 1,446,000,000 as of the end of March 2024. I will have a separate cash flow slide to give some more insight on our main cash flow drivers this year. Moving forward to the second part of the balance sheet, slide 11. The most noticeable change here is the increase in our equity driven by the strong financial performance in the first quarter. Now, please move on to the next slide, number 12, CD PROJEKT RED's expenditures on research works, development, and cost of product maintenance presented Q4 since 2023. The chart nicely illustrates changes at this studio during recent quarters.
At the end of 2023 Q3, we released Phantom Liberty, as a result of which in Q4 last year, a visible part of our development team presented in blue was engaged in either initial maintenance of the game, represented by the yellow part, or further acceleration of research works on new products, represented by the green part. And in the first quarter of this year, we were already able to significantly reduce our involvement in maintenance work, which allowed us to increase our engagement in the development of new games and even more in research related to our subsequent projects. And finally, our simplified cash flow on slide 13. Cash-wise, the PLN 100 million in net profit was supported by PLN 30 million in depreciation and amortization for the period.
PLN 89 million came from changing receivables, liabilities, and provisions, mainly thanks to the collection of our post-Q4 trade receivables during the reported period. At the same time, cash-wise, we invested over PLN 50 million in the development of new games and technologies. All in all, our financial reserves kept in cash bank deposits and bonds increased by PLN 137 million over the reporting period, reaching PLN 1.45 million. For us, this is the high watermark since the post-Cyberpunk dividend payout in 2021. I would also like to summarize and visualize our generation of cash deposits and bonds over the recent three quarters, which correspond to the release and post-release window of Phantom Liberty. Please go to the next slide, number 14. At the end of the quarter directly preceding the Phantom Liberty release quarter, the total value of our financial reserves amounted to PLN 930 million.
This means that over the last three quarters, while spending around PLN 250 million on development, research, and maintenance of our products, we generated a net increase in our financial reserves of over PLN 500 million. I'm super proud of the performance of Cyberpunk and Phantom Liberty. As we progress with more Cyberpunk projects, I'm sure that this is still only the beginning for the franchise. That's all from me for now. We can now move on to the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask an audio question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Just please also ensure your mute function is not activated in order to let your signal reach your equipment. Our first question today is coming from Ed Young, calling from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hello. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got, I've got three if that's okay. The first one I wanted to ask was about Polaris development. They're using UE5 as the game engine, and you've talked in the past about how that's going to be a relatively big shift for everyone involved. I just wondered if you have any updated thoughts on the challenges there or opportunities there, or if that really requires you to get into production before you'll really know. The second is that there's been obviously across the industry a lot of layoffs this year, potentially reflecting a more negative outlook on the consumer for video games. Is that something you share in terms of outlook, or alternatively could that actually help you be an opportunity for your recruitment efforts in, in Boston, in the U.S. in general? The third, just updated thoughts on consolidation?
Again, there's some going round. You've given a view on this in the past, just an updated view on whether CD PROJEKT would benefit from being inside a bigger group or equally, acquiring some capabilities through M&A. Thanks.
Hello, Ed. This is Michał Nowakowski. So I'll try to go through, for sure the first question. Let me refocus on the third one. So first you ask, and please correct me if I'm framing the question wrong, but the way I took it is you're asking how do we feel developing Polaris with Unreal Engine, and are there any changes in how we perceive it, any challenges, and so on? So, assuming this was the question, I mean, we feel good with Unreal. There's obviously still a lot of, you know, development, including development of some tools specifically for our game, which by the way is something we would be doing even using our own technology. And the collaboration with Epic is quite unique.
It's, and I think at this moment in time, it's given us exactly what we were hoping for. So, so there are moments when we collaborate on things together with them. There are many moments when we do things on our own, but most importantly, like the very core foundation of technology is not something that is really our core burden, which was the case when we were developing our own proprietary tech, and, and, and it gives us space to focus on creating content and, and, figuring out how to tell the best stories for, for our games, you know, in the future. So, so we feel good. We feel we're in a fine spot with UE5. Now the second question about the layoffs.
I mean, layoffs are first and foremost, you know, personal tragedies for a lot of people all around the world, you know, in this industry. So, you know, it's hard to look at it as a positive thing at all in this regard. When it comes to our plans specifically, I mean, we don't really plan any special increases because of layoffs happening somewhere. I mean, we do go by recruitment, as was the plan, as was, you know, agreed internally with us as fits the production schedule. So there's nothing special happening. Are there any special opportunities that pop up because of, you know, the misfortunes happening around? Yes, there are sometimes, but it's not, I don't know, some special, you know, Christmas happening for us in the middle of June or anything of the kind.
That's not even the way we would look at it. So I'd rather say it's, you know, it's going per our plans, per the positions we were planning, and there's nothing extraordinarily special happening around that. The third question was, I believe, about the consolidation and whether we would benefit from being part of the larger group. So on that part, we do have a goal and ambition to remain independent. That's always been the case, and nothing has changed here. So we do not intend or plan to be acquired by anybody else in terms of us doing the acquisitions. It's not a core part of our strategy. We're not like, you know, let's say on a proverbial hand, to find a target for the acquisition.
You know, should we find, you know, people thinking alike that would be a good fit for our strategy going forward, you know, things may happen, but there's nothing that we're like actively pursuing, trying to find or anything of the kind. I hope that answers this. Thank you.
Thank you. Could I just come back on the second one? I mean, just on the layoffs, I think you understood me correctly. I'll try if there were some opportunities in that. Clearly, the overall tone of that is sort of negative. The other part of the question was presumably that's in response to the industry recognizing perhaps a weaker consumer demand going forward. Do you think that's potentially the case? Do you recognize that in any of what you see?
Mm-hmm. When it comes to us specifically, and you know, I, I can only speak, of course, about us. We don't see any, any threat or any weakness in terms of, you know, consumer demand going forward. What I could, what I could say is, some sort of thing, not just in our industry, but in case of entertainment in general, there's a lot of content in general for anything you can think of. That's true for games. That's true for, for, you know, for, the Hollywood industry, for the streamers and so on. The competition is just very, very fierce.
So that's for sure, but we strongly believe we're occupying a portion of the market that is quite unique, and we believe also we're able to come to the market with things, with stories, with games that are truly emotional, very unique in what they offer, as a value to the games, to our consumers. So I wouldn't say we're, I don't know, more worried about launching our things in the future than we were five or 10 years ago. I mean, that there's nothing in case of our situation. There's nothing special about that, the way we see that.
Yes, thank you very much.
Thank you very much, sir. We're going to update questions from Nick Dempsey calling from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening. I've got three, please. So first of all, just should we expect the administrative expenses to reduce through the year, through the quarters of the year, and meanwhile capitalize development costs to increase? And some of that R&D spending moves into development expenditure. Or, are we kind of fixed on this pattern for a few quarters now? Second question, have you had any discussions regarding licensing your two big franchises to make a mobile game for someone else to make it? And the third question, can I just confirm that you have no plans at all to release any further content for Cyberpunk 2077, obviously before Project Orion?
I'll take the first question, Piotr Nielubowicz here, regarding administrative expenses and especially research work costs versus the development. Yes, that's, that's true. Once we progress with the projects currently in research phase into the development, the administrative expenses should naturally decrease. However, the truth is we are not into guiding right now when one of the three projects currently in the research phase will move to the development phase.
All right. I'll take the question about the mobile games. When it comes to mobile games, we are, as we mentioned before, we are definitely interested in doing some licensing in that area, but obviously there's nothing that we are ready to announce yet. When the proper moment for that comes, you will definitely know about that. Now the third question I think, and please correct me if I'm wrong, was: are we done with the development of the Cyberpunk? Was it that question, or?
Yeah, yeah, so you won't, you won't release a surprise second expansion or any other further content despite the good reception currently for the game?
So basically when it comes to an expansion, we are not planning any more expansions. We stated that I believe it was towards the end of the last year, more or less. So we're done with that and are moving on to, you know, to what the Cyberpunk future is in terms of the, you know, of the sequel. When it comes to updates, you know, there could be small things happening, some maintenance thing, but, you know, I mean, we're not planning anything major. So basically it's, you know, it's pretty much done. More maintenance than anything else.
Okay. Thanks. That's great.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. We'll now move to Alexei Filipov of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening. Thank you very much for the presentation. I have three questions as well. First one on taxation. Can you please explain the dynamics behind tax benefit in the first quarter and maybe guide for the effective tax rate for the full year? Basically, shall we expect any positive surprises on the tax front during the remaining quarters of the year? That's my first question. The second would be on marketing of the future. Thinking about how you plan to market and advertise, which for just trying to understand the next milestones on what to expect from you in the next 12 to 18 months. If you can guide directly, perhaps you can remind how it was with the first Cyberpunk. At what point of the development process did you release the first teaser or gameplay trailer for Cyberpunk?
The last question on incentive program, if I remember correctly, you are introducing next stage of the incentive program every summer. Can you remind us when you will be releasing the next targets for your incentive program? I mean, the next stage of the incentive program. Thank you very much.
Oh, so I will take the first question regarding the dynamics behind the taxation in the first quarter. So, this year, we were able to recognize additional or increased amount of the R&D tax relief available, in the Polish tax regime. And this was based on a calculation of past costs, that was done this year. And therefore, right now we were able to include it in our deferred tax calculation, which led to the increasing of deferred tax assets and therefore influenced the final amount, presented in the P&L statement. What I can say is that the situation where the effective taxation is negative, in case of a positive gross result is rather a rare situation and shouldn't be expected in the future.
However, at the same time, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the tax regime right now in Poland, especially the use of the tax reliefs, either the R&D tax relief or an innovative employee tax relief, are quite complex. And, I wouldn't like to be giving specific guidance in this respect. What I can tell you is that we are still analyzing the laws, which are relatively fresh. We are asking for tax rulings. We get certain tax rulings and explanations from the tax authorities. And once we get them, we can apply them on our tax calculations. And, therefore, this may in some quarters improve the tax performance of the company. And, such improvements was also visible in the first quarter of this year. However, this shouldn't be the case each and every quarter from now on.
It's rather a rare situation that we were experiencing this year at the beginning of the year.
Okay. I'll take the second question about the marketing about the Witcher. So, when it comes to Cyberpunk, we actually showed the first teaser trailer about eight years before the launch of the game. Seven, eight years. So, but I do understand you to probably mean more what we have shown at the E3 back then, which was roughly two years before the launch of the game, two and a bit. However, I would actually not look at Cyberpunk as the guidebook of how it's going to be with the Witcher specifically. Having said that, and again, I'm not, I cannot, and I will not guide on a specific moment in time when we will drop something, whether it's, you know, 12, 18, or whatever, you know, months from now.
So I will refrain from attaching myself to time, but you may expect us to do things like trailers, teaser trailers, or informative trailers happening even before we start the actual marketing campaign. Whereas as a marketing campaign, we understand the moment in time when we, when it's getting actionable. So, preorder now or download something or, you know, things like that. I mean, and, and, and anything that's going to happen before is going to be more informative. It's going to be more PR-oriented and so on. And, and that's something you can expect earlier than, than the actual kickoff of the marketing campaign. But I would really not necessarily look towards what happened and at which moment in time with, with, with Cyberpunk, that's not necessarily going to, you know, match with what we're going to do here. Thank you.
And I'll take the third one, Adam Kiciński. So the question was about the next stage of the incentive program. So the next stage, the second stage, is already public. We set the goal four years, 2024 up to 2027 for four years. And the goal is PLN 3 billion net profit. It was released earlier this year. And the next stage, four years, 2025 to 2028, will be released next year, Q1 next year. So each year we'll be releasing, stage by stage, in Q1.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Filipov. Our next question will be coming from Ali Naqvi calling from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for taking my questions. Just in regards to the Witcher RED mod kit, is there a monetization strategy here, or could you give us a view on how much that will cost you or, or how you're thinking about the cost structure? Is this any sort of precursor to a longer-term strategy about mod kits for Cyberpunk or future games? Then, it's a slightly longer-term question in terms of phasing of game releases. Where do you think CD PROJEKT is trying to get to in terms of how future releases will be phased? Is it just one large title stop, one large title, or, or how do you think about that? Please. Thank you.
Okay, I'll start with the first one. So there is no direct monetization strategy behind mod kit. It's available free of charge. It's available on PC. I mean, modding itself is not something that you can do on the consoles. When it comes to how we think about that, I mean, we think that unleashing the creativity of the community is a big thing, especially at the scale that a game already has. We have more than 50 million, you know, copies sold as we have announced way back. And that's a great number of people who and a lot of them want to have a job at, you know, being a little bit more creative with the setting they love. And it has many benefits.
I mean, something that's maybe not a public knowledge, but quite a few of our now even quite senior developers came from the modding community. I mean, came to the studio because they did something that we didn't notice that basically was a proof of their skills, of their capabilities, and so on. So this is, this is something. Another thing is, you know, it reinvigorates the community and reinvigorates the interest in the game. It kind of actually translates, even by word of mouth to additional sales. And, you know, more cool things in general cannot generate anything else than a lot of goodwill, a lot of fun, and a lot of good groundwork for, you know, what's to come next, or, you know, for the next Witcher game in the series is how we think about that.
But to be very precise, there is no direct monetization. There is no, no need to pay anything, and, and the company does not directly benefit from anything, transactional. When it comes to any, any future things, Cyberpunk or anything related, I mean, once we have something on our hands, we will definitely talk about that. But in general, I would indicate that, community-created content by means of mods, enabled and powered by, really well-prepared tools is something we are fond of. And, and we do see value in that, in how we interact in the fan with the fans. And, when it comes to the second question, could I ask you to repeat that because I'm not sure we actually, I, I actually got it.
Yeah, it was just to talk about longer term, how do you think about the phasing of, of your games? I mean, obviously, Polaris has got the most amount of developers, for example, currently working, working on it today. But then the phasing for Orion and Sirius, you know, and, you know, just even longer term, how are you thinking about how, you know, CD PROJEKT will be looking to release games? Is it a case of just because of your bandwidth, you can only focus on one large game at a time, or is, is there an opportunity to, to make it a little bit, less lumpy, shall we say?
Yeah, I mean, so here we can definitely comment. We already worked on two projects at the same time when we were working on the Phantom Liberty because this was a game-sized project that were, you know, almost 300 people working on that project, which we have disclosed. And at the same time, we've been already working on the Polaris. So we really have had an experience of working on more than one project. And we are working on more than one project at this moment in time as well. There is Cyberpunk 2 being developed in Boston. There is, you know, a Polaris, developed predominantly here in Europe. And obviously, we have other projects with other teams like Project Sirius, also in Boston with the Molasses Flood.
There is, you know, the Witcher 1 Remake, done in cooperation with Canis Majoris. So you can definitely expect us to release more titles. And the cadence of launches is something we definitely plan to increase, although I will obviously not comment on what is the space between the projects timewise. And if there's anything more that I missed from the question, feel free to obviously guide me here, but that will be my answer.
No, that's very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you have any audio questions, do press star one at this time. We'll now move to Sebastian Patulea calling from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good evening, everyone, and thank you for the presentation. I've got two questions, please. The first one is a bit more on high level. Do any recent games have any in-game mechanics or maybe highly cinematic footage or specific things that you admire and you think would go well in the Witcher universe? And secondly, Larian Studios, they just opened up a new studio in Warsaw, and they're known for world-class RPGs. Do you see any particular threats here that they might go for one of CD PROJEKT's senior developers or senior people? Thank you very much.
So when it comes to recent games that have any mechanics, footage, or something that we admire, I mean, we obviously, you know, were on top of being a studio of developers, we're also fans of games. So we constantly look at everything that is, you know, that we like. And it doesn't necessarily have to be huge games. We're fascinated very often with the creativity of smaller studios, smaller teams. And I don't think I can personally give an honest answer for the whole studio, which consists of many individuals with many tastes and many flavors. But I think we are inspired by a lot of creative output that is out there, you know, created by peers, by colleagues in the industry. And I'm sure and hopeful that maybe we're an inspiration for some of them as well.
But there's nothing super specific like I want to say, you know, game XYZ did this and we love it and we have to do it the same way. So, so that's the way we look at it. Now, when it comes to Larian opening up a new studio in Warsaw, you know, more, more the, the more the merrier, to be honest. I mean, Larian are great people. Swen is a great guy. And that team is great. What they did with Baldur's Gate is admirable. I completed the game. I loved it. Big fan of D&D as well, personally, from the old times. Much time to play it nowadays. Do we see any threats? I mean, you know what, to be honest, there's always a threat that somebody can leave and go somewhere else.
To be honest, whether they have a studio in Warsaw or it's a job opportunity somewhere else, the difference is not that big. The world is a pretty small place. The developers, especially of a senior level, are very often very mobile. If somebody didn't want to work on the project, but really dreamed of working on somebody else, they will do it anyway. So, to be honest, having Larian, you know, next door or not does not change that much, you know, from our perspective, I think. We wish them nothing but the best.
Thank you very much. So just as a very, very little joke, so CD PROJEKT management is spending 150 hours to play games instead of working on Witcher 4. That's a little joke. Thank you very, very much. I appreciate it.
It took me a little bit less because I didn't really, and it took me, oh my God, it took me seven months to complete it. So, yeah, I think that speaks a lot about my time for playing games. It's not two weekends and that's a very long game on top. It took me a while.
Thank you very, very much. Thank you. Have a good evening.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, as a final reminder, if you have any audio questions, please press star one at this time. We do not appear to have any further audio questions. I'll turn the call back over to the host to take any questions submitted by Webcast. Thank you.
The first question comes from Gabriel Uryniuk from Strefa Inwestorów. How is work on the next Witcher game progressing?
Okay, so, as we have mentioned before, we are finishing the pre-production phase. We are nearing the end of the pre-production phase this year, and we are planning to enter the production phase later this year. So this is the kind of update that we can give here and now. Now, for the second question, I mean, where we are, I mean, things are moving, things are progressing. And obviously the big shift compared to where we were even able to be last year is, you know, the writer strikes have ended, the actors guild strikes have ended. So Hollywood is way more relaxed and open to have conversations. So we're happy with this project right now.
Obviously once we have any news, any information to share, we, we will.
Yeah, so just one more addition from our side. We can see the questions, but we didn't manage to share the question with you, and Michał already answered it. So the question to which Michał gave the answer as the second one was, can you please tell us a little bit more about Cyberpunk-based movie TV series? And the answer, you already know. So the next question comes from Piotr Poniatowski, mBank. Could you confirm or deny the internet rumor regarding Polaris trailer that is supposed to be released June this year and that is supposed to be prepared by Platige Image?
We don't, you know, comment on the speculations. Doesn't matter whether it's regarding the timing or who's working or not working on any possible potential teasers or trailers. So I don't really have any specific comment here.
Next question comes from Michał Wojciechowski, Ipopema Securities. Could you explain how you achieved relatively flat research, development, and product maintenance costs in several quarters at the same time, maintaining high salaries increase in recent years? I'll take the question myself. The answer is pretty simple. So, especially the development, but also to some degree research costs include not only salaries, but also outsourcing costs. Like in case of, which in case of finalizing the development, which was the case, in Q1, Q2, Q3 last year for Phantom Liberty, were always higher at the final phase of development. Just to give you an example, at the final phase, we can see costs of external localization, translations, recordings, actors, all this, also costs of testing the game. And they boost the expenses at the final phase.
This was visible in the totals I presented to you in my part of the presentation. This part of external expenses was not that present in Q4 or Q1, Q4 last year or Q1 of this year. That's the reason why you saw a small decline of the expenses, even though in general the salaries are on the increase. Next question comes from Konrad Krasuski, Bloomberg. Is Polaris concept still pure RPG or there may be some changes versus Witcher 3?
I'll try to answer that. So, Polaris, the next Witcher game is definitely still a role-playing game. However, obviously there will be some changes versus the Witcher 3. You know, we don't want to be stuck in the same spot. You know, we always wanted to push the boundaries and try to discover new ways of telling the story. So, we want to, you know, move in new directions as well. You may expect new things in the next Witcher game as well.
Okay, next question comes from Piotr Poniatowski, mBank. Have you booked any Boston-related Orion costs in GNA already in Q1 2024? The answer is yes, even starting end of 2023, when the Boston team was initiated and started works on Orion. We started recognizing costs related to Orion coming from Boston already in 2023 and obviously in 2024. They were continued, and they were on the incline.
All right. Since it seems we have no further questions, I'd like to thank all of you for participating in the call today. Of course, should you have any additional questions, do not hesitate to reach out to our fabulous Investor Relations team. Hope you all have a nice evening. Goodbye. Thank you.