Okay, I think we can start. Good morning. My name is Janusz Maruszewski. I would like to welcome you to a meeting with representatives of CI Games, and the purpose of this meeting is to discuss the financial results of CI Games for 2023. I am pleased to welcome to our meeting Marek Tymiński, CEO of CI Games. Good morning, Marek.
Hello, hello. Hi, morning.
Katarzyna Sermanowicz-Giza, Financial Director at CI Games. Good morning.
Good morning.
The meeting will be divided into two parts, a presentation and a Q&A session. I would like to invite you to participate and ask questions. That's all for the introduction. Marek, I'm giving you the floor.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to financial year 2023 investor call. Just getting through the presentation rather quickly and getting to the questions and Q&A, obviously. As a summary, CI Games is globally recognized developer and publisher of high-quality video games in the AA A, A A format. We've been developing RPG and FPS projects on different platforms, including PC, consoles, PlayStation 5, Xbox, previous generation, obviously thinking about the next generation as well. We have two main popular IPs. That is, one is Lords of the Fallen and Sniper Ghost Warrior. We based in across basically Europe in different countries. We're 100% remote as an organization. Currently, at 180 people, mostly with the development and publishing.
Developing projects on Unreal Engine 5, and obviously, we are very much hiring and running the business with the senior teams across different functions. As a summary, 25 million copies sold to evergreen IPs, 180+ headcount as of today, and 100% remote organization across mostly Europe. This is our management team. Since last time, I think a new person is Samantha Bell, who joined the company as the Chief People Officer. She used to be previously at PlayStation Studios, and obviously, Katarzyna has been around with the company for a long period of time, I think since 2017, 2018, as a financial director. She's today with me.
It's just a demonstration how we basically where we have our personnel split among different disciplines across the company. This is where we have our talent, you know, top 10 countries where we hire our talent. Obviously, Spain is the largest, second is United Kingdom, third is Poland. A bit of a summary of company journey since being founded in 2002, so almost 22 years for CI Games today, with listing on stock market, Sniper Ghost Warrior franchise, Lords of the Fallen, released in 2014, throughout further Sniper Ghost Warrior releases, establishing of United Label, Hexworks, and obviously, Lords of the Fallen launch last year. Hexworks is the studio behind Lords of the Fallen.
That studio was incorporated in 2020. We started pretty much from scratch. One, two people basically started the studio, so but we assembled a strong talent across Europe. At the same time, we started to develop Lords of the Fallen. That was first quarter 2020, and we released the game in the fourth quarter last year, so that was pretty much three and a half years development. But again, we assembled the studio from the start. Currently, the studio is 82 people strong. Experienced in RPG, delivered the game together, had a lot of expertise working in that specific genre on that technology, Unreal Engine 5 and everything around, and I think is very well positioned for the next installment from that studio. Underdog is a studio that previously behind Sniper Ghost Warrior.
There was quite a lot of transition of that studio into a fully remote studio and more global international studio in the last couple of years. Currently, 53 people strong are working on Project Survive. Again, very similar strong senior talent, very similar setting, very similar way of leadership to Hexworks. Project Survive is the next game coming from CI Games. Our strategic pillars, we introduced that a year and a half ago, roughly. So obviously, Hexworks behind Project 3, Underdog behind Project Survive, United Label, Underdog Studio behind Project Scorpio, Project Potential, Expand, and Sniper Ghost Warrior. Just wanted to make a remark, we're calling that Island: Gate to Gehenna. That's not yet the formal name, so it may change.
Lords of the Fallen in numbers, for the last year, so 1.3 million copies sold around till the end of December 2023. We had, I think that was a position six in Europe, best-selling games in October across all platforms, across all formats, and obviously, digital, physical combined, and we were top 20 in the U.S. for the same months. The last edition is roughly half of the sales and 45% of the revenue we are generating in North America. Very strong marketing, strong recognition recently with MCV, but obviously almost 220 campaign views, wish list additions, almost 3 million. A lot of articles and a lot of interest.
It was a great branding exercise, and we look forward to do more of great branding and marketing for the next projects coming from CI. Just a bit of a snapshot. We presented that before. Some of the strong reviews behind Lords of the Fallen, released last year. And obviously, some of the quotes, selected quotes, speaking about the game. Post-launch, I think that, this is important to mention, we released over 30 major updates. That was, performance, technical improvements, but also new content, so we delivered more to the game. We work very closely with our partners, including Epic, AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, to make the game working even better on their platforms.
Soon, we are launching new game modifier system, so we're expecting a major release, a major update to Lords of the Fallen in the next couple of weeks. Katarzyna, numbers to you.
Yes, thank you.
Go ahead.
So moving to numbers, as you may see, that 2023 was the record year for the company. The revenues amounted to PLN 245 million, wherein 83% was attributable to Lords of the Fallen. Contracts 2 is the nice game, which generates constant revenue. Revenues from Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 accounted for 8% of, sorry, 9% of annual revenue. The amount of sold units reach almost 1.3 million copies . Moving to cost of goods sold. So cost of goods sold included mainly amortization of the, of the Lords.
We amortize 35% of the value of the asset, and remaining portion will be amortized over the remaining life of the asset, in line with the future economic benefits, and it's very important, at aggressive rate. Costs also included production of physical copies, also cost of Unreal Engine and not capitalize production cost incurred after the launch date. Moving to selling costs. Selling costs were, of course, very high in that year, amounting almost PLN 56 million, wherein 76% was connected with the promotion of the game. G&A costs were around PLN 70 million, and they were quite on the similar level compared to the previous year.
Profit before tax amounted to PLN 26 million, and then were decreased by almost PLN 12 million of tax. That's important, maybe to comment on the tax component, because current tax, which was mainly connected with our subsidiaries, amounted to PLN 1.7 million, and remaining portion related to deduction of withholding tax; it was over PLN 7 million, and PLN 6 million is non-cash change in deferred tax. So in this way, we arrive to net profits for the year, PLN 14 million. So moving to the balance sheet structure. Total assets increased by 53%, which is mainly attributable to two items. One of them is, of course, intangible, which had two effects.
One is investment in the games, mainly Survive and Lords. Then this amount, gross amount, was decreased by amortization of the Lords. So net increase in intangible was almost PLN 17 million. The remaining growth in total asset is connected with the working capital, which is, of course, connected with the release of the game. Mainly, it's cash and trade receivables. On the liability side, you may see that we, as at the end of the year, we had debt comprising of bank facilities. It was almost PLN 31 million, which were repaid in January.
Total, we paid full debt in 2024, and we have still some small portion of finance lease liability related to rental office, and we have still on the balance sheet liabilities related to issuance of the bonds. Net cash from operations was over PLN 71 million. So net cash, meaning, is our cash inflows from revenues and by deduction of operating costs, marketing, and some other items. Investment cash is primarily related to investment into Lords and Survive games. You may see that we invested over PLN 18 million in the development of our portfolio, and net cash flow from financing activities related to drawing and partially repayment of the bank facilities. So that's all on the finance side. Thank you.
Great. Thank you, Katarzyna. This is for the presentation, and let's move to the Q&A. We have questions coming from investors. There is a question. Analysts were expecting much higher profits and slightly higher revenue. I think that question goes back to consensus that was published today, which I do not get from what analysts were mentioned as a consensus. So if that was coming from perhaps, I would like to understand what they meant by the consensus. From what was available, a recent coverage came from Redeye, that's a Swedish bank, and I think that we are very much in line with what they expected our numbers to be. So I don't think that we are coming below what the market expected.
I think that considering everything that happened in the industry and the difficulties across most of the releases last year and everything that, you know, we experienced ourselves last year, I think that the results that we have for the last year are still a very good results. I mean, we have the best revenue we ever had historically. We successfully delivered the largest project till date to the market, and that's a very strong foundation for future projects and for future performance of the company. I think that thinking from the standpoint of mid- to long-term, I think it's a very strong base where we currently are. What is the target team size for Project Survive and Project 3? So that's a very good question.
I think that I want to remind everyone that we are having our internal teams, but we also working a lot with the outsourcing partners. So this was the case of Lords of the Fallen. I think at some point we were, like, 85, 90 people internally in the development, but at the same time we had over 100 people full-time working from the outsourcers. And the same goes to Project 3 and Project Survive. Project 3, Hexworks, that studio will grow still further slightly from where it is currently, but again, it will be strongly leveraged from the standpoint of the outsourcers. And the same goes to Hexworks.
I mean, Hexworks, I think it can reach 60-70 people at some point, at some seniority of that studio. But again, there's a quite high part coming from the outsourcers on that project, too. Questions around sales of Lords of the Fallen in 2024, we will be updating the sales results in our quarter reports. We cannot give any guidance beyond that. In terms of how much we've already invested into Project Survive, again, we're not providing exact detail on that, as it's not in the financial statement. But this is, I would say it's over one third or around one third in terms of the production. And the production is ongoing.
We still just slightly ahead of the a bigger vertical slice. So this is where we are with Project Survive. Are you planning, and what kind of marketing budget we will be spending on Survive, and if it's comparable to Lords of the Fallen? I think that this is too early to say. We're currently planning to spend definitely a smaller budget, but still substantial, significant budget on, on Project Survive. But it's too early to comment on that. And obviously, we can only say that the marketing budget for Lords of the Fallen that we launched last year was substantial, but also we were able to achieve quite much with that budget. And I think the IP, popularity of the IP and what we could do with potentially next installments in, on that franchise is also it was of strong support to that.
Not much, Katarzyna, on the financial side, so no real questions to you. What level of cost should investors expect in 2024? I think you can add anything, I mean-
Yeah, on Q&A, we expect a rather stable level of cost on marketing. Of course, much lower compared to 2023 because it was a record year, but also we would have some marketing spend, both on the Lords and some production of the asset, some small investment on Survive as well. But of course, much more lever.
This is the marketing will not be substantial in 2024, correct? I think that, you know, there is a question about the net profit, why it's lower than, you know, could be higher. I think there is a lot about the tax. If you can just briefly, Katarzyna, explain the tax implication that is-
Yeah, I mentioned to you that we had over PLN 6 million non-cash movement in deferred tax asset, and in 2023, we recognized amortization of the Lords as one of taxable costs, which brought company into taxable loss. Which means that effectively, we didn't pay tax in 2023, but we paid the current tax related to subsidiaries. But it means that this amortization, one of tax amortization, created deferred tax asset, which is positive. But also we have big difference in taxable and accounting value of Lords, which creates deferred tax liability. So net result is that we have big deferred tax asset and provision, which created negative amount over PLN 60 million in the tax.
But in the couple of next quarters, both values will be setting off and decreasing on the both balance sheet and also in the profit and loss.
Okay. So coming back to. There is another question here on about the source of financing for incoming games, and I think it's a very good question. And the question is also connected to a potential issue of new shares, that the shareholders approved and gave that to the company, to the management. So answering to that question, so obviously, we're financing our future projects through further, you know, further sales of our current portfolio, including Lords of the Fallen. Obviously, we just got a bank loan facility with PKO BP, and we are looking forward in the future to expand on that. I just want to remind everyone that our bank facility last year was close to PLN 50 million. Currently, it's PLN 15 million.
So, we believe that there is much more room there in the financing coming from the bank. We are also speaking to big, big and mid-size, but also, you know, one of the largest publishers, and about potential partnering, co-publishing geographically, platform-wise, with some of the big players in the industry. We have some serious conversations, and nothing yet is materialized, obviously, but we have some serious conversations, we have some serious interest. And, the amounts we are speaking with those partners are similar to the amounts that we, that our budgets, development budgets are. So just we have...
It's a combination of different options that we will be using to finance the business, and obviously, that also depends how much we want to increase the scope of the current business. But we believe that there is a very strong base and foundation for growing the business from, you know, from where we currently are. The other question, why we have the presentation in English, obviously, we explained that, and we answered that question before. We have also investors who are non-Polish native investors, and we were several times asked in the last years to run our presentations in English, and I think that's the correct format.
I think that as of now, this is pretty much, you know, we answer most of the questions. Some questions are similar. I want to thank you, everyone, for taking part in that investor call today. We will be seeing each other probably beginning of June, after end of May, after first quarter results, on a similar type of investor call. Thank you very much to our investor for organizing that. Look forward. Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you. Bye.
I would also like to thank you for the presentation and for answering the questions. I wish you all the best, best luck with continuing to develop your studio. Me and your guests were Marek Tymiński, CEO of CI Games. Thank you and goodbye. Katarzyna Sermanowicz-Giza, thank you and goodbye.
Thank you. Bye.
Thank you.
That's all for today. Greetings, and have a nice day. Bye-bye.
Thank you.