CD Projekt Red is one of the world’s brightest video game developers right now. Its most recent effort, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, wontons of awards and praise, and I’m really looking forward to the developer’s work in Cyberpunk 2077.

What about that name, though? In a massive and wonderful interview with studio lead Marcin Iwinski, Glixel asked about the name following a little suggestion by the dev.

It turns out, Iwinski and Michał Kiciński (co-founder) used to import games on CDs from the United States to Poland, and “Michał was selling them at the computer market on the weekends.”

Initially, we got them from any channel we could. I remember one of our first contacts was a company called Just CDs in Anaheim. I was just on the phone, ordering games like, “Five units of Indiana Jones. Two units of Day of the Tentacle.” After three months of this sort of incubation, in the gray zone so to speak, we said, “Hey, it’s going well. Let’s start a company.”

And that’s why it’s called CD Projekt?
Exactly, because we were the first with CDs. And then, you know, we slowly learned how the industry worked. We went for the first time to the Consumer Electronics Show. We were in heaven.

That doesn’t explain the “Red” part of CD Projekt Red

I love this interview, and you can get it all by hitting the source below. I wish Glixel asked Iwinski about the “Red” part of the name CD Projekt Red.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda.