I assume that’s deliberate because who knows when the crazy old man is going to sue again. No reason to give him any ground for a suit.
He won additional renumeration based on the law designed to protect artists in circumstances exactly like his. It has nothing to do with any questions he has been asked. Furthermore, calling an elderly writer “crazy old man” is deeply disrespectful.
He is, and he’s an ass about it as well. Couldn’t be more bitter that the game is more popular.
I wonder if he still believes the games only sold well because the books are what apparently made them popular.
and yet . he is the reason it exists
and the crszy old man is a fantastic author
Mediocre author. The actual material is mid.
whatever floats your boat
You are an arrogant idiot.
His circumstance was that he took an upfront payment for gaming rights because he didn’t believe CDPR was going to be successful. To be very clear, CDPR offered him royalties and he chose to take no royalties for upfront payment. It’s only after the games were a global success did he start complaining about getting no royalties. The very royalties he originally decided weren’t worth it. I consider it greed when you think you deserve a piece of something you don’t respect and didn’t believe in.
And I don’t care about being disrespectful towards him because he’s been deeply disrespectful towards gaming. I can respect his works but I’m not going to respect him.
he took an upfront payment for gaming rights because he didn’t believe CDPR was going to be successful
And? This is completely and utterly irrelevant what his motivation was.
I don’t care about being disrespectful towards him
You don’t say 🙄
Having met the guy before any of the Witcher international success I can understand why they limit interactions with him.
Any context? I first played Witcher in 2007 and it was so refreshing after the flood of shitty console-style RPGs in the mid 2000s (just my opinion), but I’ve never read the books. I’ve been meaning to read the Ukrainian translations, since I don’t think I will manage with the original Polish and I assuming the Ukrainian versions are closer to the original than the English translations.
I’ve met him either in 2000 or 2001 - shortly after final Witcher book has been published. By that time he’s become the biggest name in Polish fantasy literature with no close second. In terms of popularity he was bigger than Tolkien.
He didn’t handle that gracefully at all. I can confirm his reputation as an asshole was fully deserved.
I see. We’ll that’s too bad.
Until they reply to you, I think some of it can be found in the article you posted, which I assume you read. So for the benefit of others who may not have, it seems that CDPR bought the rights to the Witcher books cheap and then the series ended up being worth a lot more, so he sued for more money. And since he created the series, I don’t think it’s that far out of the way to ask for more money since he created it and it’s bringing in so much.
But also, the game is very much its own thing now and he’s maybe feeling left out and maybe a bit salty about that. And who could really blame him? I’d guess he just wants to be more involved with the more accessible media telling the story of characters and a world he created. Barring anything too weird, I’m kinda with the writer here.
There’s also how closely CDPR has worked with Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the Cyberpunk tabletop RPG their popular video game (and anime, and various books) is based on. And they took that in their own way, too. Like Johnny Silverhand was originally based on David Bowie, but Pondsmith never considered using Johnny again after he was killed. The character was dead and considered apocryphal to the setting of the story. The whole Relic thing, bringing him back in the head of a dead mercenary was all CDPR, and of course since Bowie had passed, they had to get another person to base him off of. So while they kept him a rock star (Keanu Reeves is one as well, but nowhere near as major leagues as Bowie was), they had to make him a whole new character. And apparently Pondsmith has been nothing but supportive of Reeves’ Silverhand.
So there is something else going on with the Witcher guy, Sapkowski.
Also… what was CDPR before The Witcher? So it makes sense that they wouldn’t have paid much for the Witcher rights, since they were such a small/new studio.
But also, the game is very much its own thing now and he’s maybe feeling left out and maybe a bit salty about that. And who could really blame him? I’d guess he just wants to be more involved with the more accessible media telling the story of characters and a world he created. Barring anything too weird, I’m kinda with the writer here.
I doubt that. Sapkowski has been pretty public about his disdain for games and has said games are a poor medium for telling stories. He also considers what CDPR has done with the Witcher as fanfic and not in any way canon. The last thing he wants is to be more involved with what CDPR is doing.
CDPR offered him a percentage of all sales. He told them to get bent, because they won’t make anything worthwhile anyway and demanded a flat fee of IIRC 10k instead. When Witcher games became a huge success he sued for more.
what was CDPR before The Witcher
The largest game publisher in Poland that made it’s name by hiring top billing Polish actors to voice characters in e.g. polish release of Baldurs Gate.
Oof. Yeah, I saw on the Wiki that CDPR had a demo of Witcher 1 that people thought was trash, so it’s almost understandable he wanted a flat fee. $10k (or the Polish equivalent) seems absurdly low.
Witcher 1 was never really considered to be a great game anyway. Witcher 2 got a lot of buzz around it, and 3 even more so.
I’m not a fan of how Witcher 2 does a few things, but I will go to bat for that intro cinematic every time. Pure gold. With the pirate ship. Love it.
Those negotiations were well before the demo - before any work on the game has started
A small studio was able to afford the rights because the rights were underpriced, not because the price was set so that a small studio could afford them. When selling exclusive adaptation rights, there’s a single price for one IP, not a different price for each potential buyer. You sell to whoever is willing to pay the most. If you give someone smaller a discount, you can’t later sell things on to a bigger buyer for more money, but the party you sold to could.
Also, it’s not clear-cut that the rights were massively underpriced as no one else was trying to buy them. CDPR were willing to pay more if that had been the asking price, but they were the only ones biting anyway. The one thing in favour of the price being too low is that the author thought that video games were a fad that was about to pass, so there was no need to ask for royalties or withhold the rights to make sequels as the game was never going to make money anyway.
CDPR offered him a percentage of all sales. He told them to get bent, because they won’t make anything worthwhile anyway and demanded a flat fee of IIRC 10k instead. When Witcher games became a huge success he sued for more.
He does seem like a colossal arsehole.
Can confirm he’s been a huge arsehole even before Wither Netflix series or before any of the Witcher games. Simply being an extremely popular fantasy author in Poland was enough to get him there.
I’ve been told by one of the Polish convention organizers that just a year or two (2000 or 2001, can’t remember) after last Witcher book was published they were worried when they invited him, because he’d sometimes refuse to leave his hotel room over some imaginary slight. They didn’t want to invite him because of that, but they could not not invite him, because he was THE author…
What I remember from my limited interaction with him around that time at one of the cons is that despite being a fan he made my fists itch.
Yeah, I think it was this interview that let on who he was for me.
https://www.eurogamer.net/meeting-andrzej-sapkowski-the-writer-who-created-the-witcher
Seemed incredibly bitter about the success of the games, had nothing but disdain for CDPR and just wanted the money. And then when the games made him a household name outside of Poland, was annoyed that it wasn’t the books that had done it.
When CDPR came to him to license Witcher they offered him a percentage of all sales. He told them to get bent, because they won’t make anything worthwhile anyway and demanded a flat fee of IIRC 10k instead. When Witcher games became a huge success he sued for more money…
And? The law predicted exactly such situation and he was well within his rights.
Correct, the law was on his side. If he was offered the 10k he initially took and not it being a result of his demands I would be on his side as well. He opted for the less risky option - a flat fee - and because of that I don’t believe he was morally entitled to the higher, more risky payment structure he flat out refused to consider. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
I don’t believe he was morally entitled to the higher
Fortunately, the law disagrees with you and protects the artist, not corporations.
Yeah cuz they can fuckin read bro. Pretty sure you wrote it all down in these things called “books.”
He has been asked this question by a journalist and he answered the question asked. There is no need for sarcasm.
Meh, it was kinda a slog to get through the books. Like, it’s an interesting world and all, but the writing itself is where those books suffered the most to me. If they have their own vision for it, I can see why they didn’t consult him as much.
Contrast to Mike Pondsmith, who not only built the base for the world but also designed a game. Mechanics for all the things CP2077 wanted existed already, and they had to heavily adapt them for the game. But those mechanics still exist, and may be explored in future titles. Netrunning on the ttrpg is especially different. But if/when they decide to expand on that, Mike Pondsmith is going to be the first person they call. Would they call Andrzej for anything like that in the Witcher series? I doubt it, since that world was only built big enough to serve its stories. The Cyberpunk world was built as an arena for players to make their own stories, so it naturally needs to have at least some information already for a lot of seemingly disconnected places, people, and points in history. It leaves a veritable buffet for adaptations to draw from, all of which needs fleshing out rather than starting from scratch. And Mike may already have something cooking for that bit that ties together 4 others. At least, that’s the impression I get when I hear him talk about lore tidbits on Morro Rock radio.
Very well said, and heavily agree.
Right off the bat, I want to say: that’s very well put, I completely agree on every point, and thank you for putting this out there. 🤘🏼
There is a minor apples v. oranges hiccup in that comparison, considering one was designed to be consumed by a passive audience of one, and the other to be built upon/into/from by a group actively collaborating to that end.
What you said is completely valid, but the implication of parallel seems to ignore a fundamental difference in each original’s medium.
Counter-point: it’s my impression that ol’ Andrzej soured the milk with his very public dismissal of the games (much less video gaming in general), and hasn’t exactly reversed his position to anywhere even a close to a middle. YTF would CDPR have any interest in deferring to his myopic stance and knowingly risk tainting the end product?
