CI GAMES SE (34/2024) Aktualizacja strategii CI Games S.E. na lata 2025 - 2028

Raport bieżący 34/2024

Current report number: 34/2024

Date: 27 September 2024

Legal basis: Art. 17 section 1 of MAR - inside information

Subject: Update of CI Games S.E. strategy for the years 2025 -

2028

The Management Board of Cl Games SE with its registered office in Warsaw

(the "Company") with reference to current report no. 33/2022 of October

24, 2022, informs that on September 27, 2024, it adopted an update of

the Company's development strategy for 2025-2028.

Detailed assumptions of the update of the Company's development strategy

for 2025-2028 adopted by the Management Board are as follows.

Having strengthened and streamlined our business during the first half,

we have developed a clear strategy to drive future sustainable returns,

develop higher quality games which leverage our prior investments more

efficiently and ensure we have an expand addressable market for our new

releases:

1.A focused product roadmap with major releases in each of the next 3

years

2.A player-first and efficient new operating model

3.With a finance strategy to deliver the product roadmap

Our focused product roadmap

A primary Focus on Core IPs

Project III - which is in full production for release in 2026, is the

next major instalment in LOTF franchise, built on UE5, which has already

seen a major investment from Epic for PC exclusivity. This game will

have increased appeal and accessibility to both existing and wider

audiences as well as gameplay improvements

Project SGW Evolved - which is currently pre-production, with a planned

release in 2027, will be the next major iteration in the SGW franchise,

built on UE5 with a strong appeal to both core and wider audiences

through a combination of signature FPS gameplay, elevated by survival

genre elements. Its development will be expedited by repurposing

extensive components from Project Survive and SGW Next

Project H - currently in currently pre-production, with a planned

release in 2028, will be a new major action-RPG IP within a highly

commercial fantasy genre, built on UE5 using systems and architecture

from Lords of the Fallen and Project III. It will have an efficient

pre-production lean team until late-2025, when the Hexworks team can

begin to move from Project III to Project H.

Secondary focus

We will aim to release 1-3 high quality titles per year under the United

Label, with two new titles to be published over next six months - Beyond

Galaxyland and Tails of Iron 2.

In addition we will continue with Project Potential, exploring options

to partner with strong external IPs, and Project Expand, exploring

licensing our own strong IPs to external partners within entertainment

and other markets (transmedia, tabletop gaming etc) for both commercial

gain and increased IP awareness.

Player-first and efficient new operating model

Key to our approach will be to expand our addressable market using

data-driven insights to improve the appeal and audience accessibility

for our games and embedding player-centricity in our development process.

We will evolve our operating model with a player-first approach,

building on our Lords of the Fallen launch experience by.

Maximising our market appeal through:

-A new senior-led, player-first development process

-Informed by consumer insights

-Robust external testing and validation throughout development

-Thematic and gameplay mechanics for wider addressable audience

Minimising barriers-to-entry through:

-Focussing on quality over quantity

-Providing difficulty customisation options

-Removing friction points (best-in-class onboarding, keyboard remapping

etc.)

Optimising the gamer experience across hardware/stores:

-Enabled by Unreal Engine 5 now being more mature

-Through closer, earlier collaboration with partners (Epic, NVidia, AMD)

Driving 80+ user scores after launch through:

-A highly iterative development

-Innovation over revolution

-Pre-launch tech demos

Data-driven efficient marketing:

-Using extensive insight, learnings and global IP awareness

-Streamlined to deliver efficient, targeted marketing campaigns

New, player centric, iterative development process

To achieve this we have a new structure with senior oversight of our

new, player centric, iterative development process.

Our new Development Management _amp; Support Office will be led by SVP of

Development, Tom O'Connor (formerly Tencent, Sony), to oversee all areas

of game production across all projects with

Studio heads and QA reporting in to him, for improved parity with

production based on consumer insights.

The development process will produce successful games with an emphasis

on quality and predictability by ensuring major validation steps at key

_#8216;gates' in the project development lifecycle. In addition there will be

more regular development milestones with evaluation, validation and

iteration throughout production assessing the game for market appeal,

product benchmarking and player UX through internal/external expert

evaluation and open/closed-beta testing. This approach will ensure that

we broaden our market, minimise friction points and make onboarding

easier for gamers, supporting higher user scores.

New talent sharing model

This will be complemented by a more efficient talent sharing model, with

new infrastructure facilitating cross-studio knowledge and talent

sharing and a talent reallocation model to help reduce project fatigue,

with our recent restructuring having optimised our talent pool, the cost

of which has been taken.

Streamlined and smarter marketing

We will also have a more efficient approach to marketing with a

significantly reduced Project III marketing budget, enabled by having

achieved strong global IP awareness of Lords 23 given its sizable

marketing budget and successful brand activations. We'll keep that IP

front-of-mind with future improvements and free content updates and

build on our extensive learnings from Lords 23 to run more efficient

targeted campaigns in the future, focusing on needle-moving activations.

Finance strategy to deliver the product roadmap

Our new strategy, model and operating structure will enable lower costs

to market through:

•More efficient development; building on existing IP, concepts,

architecture and engine

•A Streamlined team, new operating model and talent sharing, driving

greater efficiency

•Lower marketing spend with targeted campaigns springboarding existing

awareness

And we have a clear plan for the financing for the next 3 releases

through:

•Operating cash flows

•Recent EPIC investment and exploring co-publishing partnerships, first

party exclusives and territory distribution incentives

•Existing PLN 15.0m bank facility with plans to increase debt in order

to finance future projects

The presented information is not a forecast of the future results of the

Company or the CI Games S.E. Capital Group. Statements about

expectations as to the implementation of specific assumptions and

projects do not constitute a guarantee or assurance that such will be

achieved in the future. The Company is not responsible for the effects

of decisions made on the basis of the information provided.

The adopted Company's development strategy may be subject to periodical

reviews carried out by the Management Board.

Disclaimer: This English language translation may contain certain

discrepancies. In case of any differences between the Polish and the

English versions, the Polish version shall prevail.

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