The Witcher Netflix show resulted in a 554 percent jump in game sales

Physical sales of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt were up 554 percent in December 2019, coinciding with the release of the live-action Netflix series.

A new report from the statistical brains at NPD Group highlights the impact of the Netflix show on the entire Witcher franchise - from its books to its games.

"In the world of PC and console gaming, The Witcher was already widely popular," writes NPD Group executive director Satori Bernbeck, who specialises in the entertainment market.

"The most recent game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, was released in May 2015. In June 2019, the game’s publisher CD Projekt Red confirmed that the game sold over 20 million units worldwide. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was ported to the Nintendo Switch console in October 2019, just before the Netflix series premiered. These combined factors caused the game to have a strong surge in sales during Q4 2019. U.S. December physical sales for the game were 554 percent higher than December 2018, and still 63 percent higher even when excluding the Nintendo Switch platform.

"The Witcher has successfully capitalized on the strong market interest that Game of Thrones fostered for fantasy series. Given the positive reception of the first season, it may well grow to fill the newly created hole that appeared when Game of Thrones ended in May 2019. Much like Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings, and many others, media was a catalyst to bring mainstream attention to strong source material loved by subcultures."

Earlier this year we reported The Witcher 3 received a massive boost on Steam after Netflix debuted the full first season of the series.

On December 22, two days after the show dropped, Wild Hunt broke its previous concurrent player record on the platform by climbing to just above 48,000 players. This figure was last achieved at the game’s launch.