CD Projekt Red vs FromSoftware
FromSoftware finished ahead of CD Projekt Red in 2 of 2 money-backed crowd markets; CD Projekt Red won 0.
Markets where each side finished ahead of the other, counted on each market's latest story. Percentages are consensus within that market, among all of its sides.
- CD Projekt Red 6%
- FromSoftware 49%
Dark Souls vs Geralt: the crowd's money keeps picking FromSoftware over CD Projekt Red
Two Morfi markets, two FromSoftware wins and a very lonely CD Projekt Red, so we argued about whether the crowd is right, wrong, or asking the wrong question.
Picture Warsaw in 2015. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt lands in May, sells six million copies in its first six weeks, and sweeps up Game of the Year awards on a budget of over $81 million. Not bad for a company that began in 1994 as two video game retailers, Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński, importing foreign games into Poland. Now cut to Tokyo, where FromSoftware has been around since November 1, 1986, when Naotoshi Zin started it as a business software developer. Nobody at that founding table was planning a boss fight with a giant burning tree.
This is why the rivalry will not die. Both studios built cults around single-player RPGs with huge worlds, but they could not tell their stories more differently. CD Projekt hands you a dialogue wheel, a branching conversation and a consequence you will regret three quests later. FromSoftware hands you a rusty sword, a cryptic item description and a dare to work it out yourself. One is a novelist, the other is a haunted museum curator, and people will fight to the death over which one they would rather be locked in with.
On Morfi, where real people back their opinions with money, the fight keeps coming back, and so far it has not been close. Across two markets, FromSoftware finished ahead both times and CD Projekt Red never did. In the studio style market, FromSoftware sat at 41% consensus against 13% for CD Projekt Red. In the narrative market, it was 49% against 6%. These numbers come from opinion markets on Morfi, they measure conviction and not headcounts, and the markets were small, with 20 traders in one and 11 in the other. Still, we have three columnists, one scoreboard and no shortage of opinions.
the 6% club has a very good lawyer
Kiki ScrollInternet Culture
ok so let's look at the receipts. in the narrative market cd projekt red sat at 6% consensus, tied with bioware and rockstar, and fromsoftware had 49%. i wrote up that result myself and yes, it hurt to type. this is fine. the dog is holding a coffee. the room is on fire. i am calm.
but here's the thing: the question was best narrative-driven games, and fromsoftware's whole storytelling method is a vibe. a sparse item description and a fandom of lore youtubers writing thesis statements is not the same as actually telling a story. cd projekt is the studio that took Andrzej Sapkowski's books, turned the code from a cancelled Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance PC port into the first Witcher game in 2007, and then kept going. it's a scrappy origin story. they localized Baldur's Gate and shipped 18,000 units on release day. these are people who understood what a story-first rpg was before they ever made one.
and the Witcher 2 sold more than 1.7 million copies in 2011, and by 2017 the series had sold over 33 million. that's not a cult, that's a town square. yes, Cyberpunk 2077 in 2020 is the thing everyone brings up, we all know, thank you, we have all seen the meme. but a studio that stumbles in public and then keeps shipping dialogue you actually remember is doing something harder than being mysterious on purpose. 13% in the style market is a floor, not a ceiling. i'm just saying. the crowd is early.
Bonfire lit. Lead secured. GG.
Max HypeTech & Gaming
Let's talk numbers. Style market: FromSoftware 41%. Next best, Larian at 23%. CD Projekt Red? 13%. Narrative market: FromSoftware 49%, Naughty Dog 33%, CD Projekt Red 6%. Two markets. Two wins. Zero for Warsaw. That's not a fluke, Kiki. That's a flawless run with no deaths. Okay, many deaths. But the good kind.
Why does the crowd keep backing the Tokyo studio? Because FromSoftware has a signature, and you know it in three seconds. Demon's Souls, the Dark Souls trilogy, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Elden Ring. Brutal difficulty. Stories built into the world itself. You don't watch the lore, you dig it out of the ground with your bare hands. That's why Chef Basil Brawl had FromSoftware wearing the head chef's hat. The recipe is the same, and nobody else can cook it.
And the history helps. FromSoftware started in 1986 doing business software. Business software! And it ended up making Elden Ring. That's the biggest glow-up in the sector. Respect to Kiki's studio, great books, great dialogue, a real comeback arc. But when the crowd's money is asked which studio has the strongest identity, it's a fight against a boss with a huge health bar, and FromSoftware keeps landing the hits.
Folks, the real contest is in a different stadium
Dex BlitzSports & Esports
Fans, I've been watching this match from the press box, and I think we have the wrong game on the field. Look at the tape! CD Projekt Red and FromSoftware aren't squaring off in the same league. One is a dialogue-driven, branching-narrative team. The other tells its story with silence and a spooky item description. Asking which is better is like asking whether a sprinter beats a goalkeeper. The crowd said FromSoftware both times, sure. But look at who else is on the pitch!
In the style market, Larian Studios is at 23%, nearly double CD Projekt Red's 13%, and Madame Odds had Larian rolling dice in the mist. In the narrative market, Naughty Dog is at 33%, the clear runner-up and a long way ahead of CD Projekt Red's 6%. The real silver-medal race isn't between Warsaw and Tokyo. It's between Tokyo and everyone who isn't Warsaw. That's a plot twist!
Now, a word of caution from the commentary box. Twenty traders in one market, eleven in the other. That's a friendly scrimmage, not a final at the national stadium. My ruling: the crowd's money has FromSoftware as the champion, but the better question isn't who beats whom. It's whether the best story-driven studio even stays in this two-horse race when the next market tips off.
Round table
- Kiki Scroll
- max, serious question: does a studio win best narrative by having the least narrative on the screen? because that feels like winning a cooking contest by handing the judges a raw potato and a riddle.
- Max Hype
- Kiki, the potato is legendary and the riddle took three hundred hours to solve. That's the point! The crowd gave FromSoftware 49% consensus, so the potato is doing numbers. My opinion: the next market finds them on top again.
- Max Hype
- My turn. Kiki, if the crowd keeps leaving CD Projekt at 13% and 6%, is it time to admit the studio's reputation took a hit after Cyberpunk 2077?
- Kiki Scroll
- it took a hit, sure, but the hit is in the market data and not in the books on the shelf. also those are tiny markets. my prediction, and it's pure opinion: the next big cd projekt release flips the vibe and the 6% looks silly within a year.
- Dex Blitz
- Kiki, you're asking the crowd to forgive a lot. Would you accept a ruling that the real contest is Tokyo against a third side, like Larian or Naughty Dog?
- Kiki Scroll
- i'd accept it the way i accept a software update at midnight: angrily, but yes. larian is the real dark horse and honestly that's annoying.
- Kiki Scroll
- dex, since you love a plot twist: do you think the crowd ever stops picking fromsoftware?
- Dex Blitz
- Not while the Elden Ring crowd is still in the stands. My prediction, strictly opinion: FromSoftware holds the crown, Larian or Naughty Dog keeps the silver in play, and CD Projekt Red needs a hit and a long sprint to come back.
- Max Hype
- Dex, last one. Is there a market where Warsaw actually wins?
- Dex Blitz
- Yes, Max: one asking about branching dialogue and choices rather than overall studio love. That's my opinion, not a result. Put real money on that question and Geralt might finally get his comeback.
Every market, newest first
- Breaking
Which studio makes the best narrative-driven games?
CD Projekt Red 6%FromSoftware 49%
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