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[Pepboy]

Marvel sold the movie rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four. Do people treat Fox with any ill will today?. Don't people wish the rights would go back?. Do people insult and name-call Marvel because they made a mistake?.

It's not really about him making a mistake -- that would be sympathetic. It's saying nonsense like:

"The belief, widely spread by CDPR, that the games made me popular outside of Poland is completely false. I made the games popular. All of my translations in the West—including the English one—were published before the first game."

When the guy has access to his own sales data and can see that probably 200 copies of the Witcher books were sold before the first game was released, yeah he's liable to ridicule.

 

[ViciousDS]

Apparently CDP approached him first offering royalties, but he prefered a single payment. He then, reportedly, tried to renegotiate his contract (after The Witcher turned out to be successful), but CDP rejected the offer.

He fucked up, they even offered royalties on the first go around......what a fool!!!!

 

[Mercador]

In 98, games weren't what they are today, multi million business. Don't forget that.

 

[ViciousDS]

In 98, games weren't what they are today, multi million business. Don't forget that.

In 98 the market was expanding like crazy was it not though?

 

[JBwB]

So he underestimated the potential of video games and is now salty about it huh?

 

[Hip Hop]

So he underestimated the potential of video games and is now salty about it huh?

Yeah, why not.

If I made a mistake like that, I'd be salty too, right or wrong.

Still, a lot of the popularity is also because of CD being super talented. This could have gone a totally different roue if another dev had picked up the rights.

 

[HStallion]

I wonder how the Tolkein family feels about the games even though I'm sure they got a far better deal. Still I know they weren't fans of the movies so I'd be curious.

 

[Mercador]

In 98 the market was expanding like crazy was it not though?

It was starting to get better but not as big as today. And probably not that big in Poland.

To put in perspective, Ubi MTL was founded in 97.

 

[firehawk12]

So is this why the TV show PR doesn't mention the games at all? lol

 

[SargerusBR]

I wonder how the Tolkein family feels about the games even though I'm sure they got a far better deal. Still I know they weren't fans of the movies so I'd be curious.

I could be wrong but for the Tolkien family anything that isn't 1:1 with the books they dislike it.

 

[Kageshinzo]

If anyone's curious, here's how the canceled Witcher game developed by Metropolis looked like, from scans I got off NextGen mag. Keep in mind that this was in 1997.

 

[Mr. Phellps]

The first deal was made in 98, yes, back then games weren't as big as they were in the 2000s.
But before CDPR's first game, they made another deal and he still never demanded royalties.

He made the same mistake twice. Fuck his attitude towards the games.

 

[Tunahead]

In 98 the market was expanding like crazy was it not though?

The Witcher wasn't going to be a game just for "the market" though. It was specifically a PC RPG. Ocarina of Time was probably the biggest game of 1998 and The Legend of Zelda just got a new sequel this year. Baldur's Gate was the biggest PC RPG of 1998 and oh would you look at that, it hasn't had a sequel in over 15 years. How about that.

It's also worth noting that the Witcher game rights weren't the first time Andrzej Sapkowski had to choose between royalties and lump sum. The first time was the Witcher tv show rights and Sapkowski chose royalties and got burned. Why should he realistically have expected better from a niche video game genre than a tried and tested tv show format?

It's very easy to paint Sapkowski as some ranting wild-eyed luddite madman, but if any of you think he should have chosen different in 1998 based on video game sales charts from 2017 then you're frankly no better than your perception of Sapkowski.

 

[Budi]

If anyone's curious, here's how the canceled Witcher game developed by Metropolis looked like, from scans I got off NextGen mag. Keep in mind that this was in 1997.

Thanks for sharing, I'd like to play that! You know if the story was supposed be lifted straight from one of the books or be more original like in the CPDR games?

 

[Wolf Akela]

He probably made a lot more money through the increased interest with the books thanks to the game.

Wonder how he'd react if a fan tried to get him to sign books that had CDPR Witcher covers. I think I remember him saying he'd sign the games for fans.

 

[Piotrek]

CDPR gave him $0. They acquired the license via acquisition of the original licensing company.

No, they didn't. Witcher 1 was released in 2007, and CDP acquired Metropolis almost a year later.

There must have been another deal with CDP – and that's the one Sapkowski is still salty about. That was pure bad judgement on his part. I get his reasoning when selling the rights to Metropolis (considering almost nonexistent market for legal video games, rampant piracy etc. – and mind you, CDP was the one to make a dent in it) but thinking along the same lines when CDP came to the table – that was stupid. Pretty much anyone at least remotely interested in the Polish video game market back then knew that CDP was a serious player in the publishing sector, and their game development venture would make an impact at least locally (i.e. Central Europe, Russia, Germany maybe with their fondness to Gothics and the like), and that would still make Sapkowski more than a fair amount of money. The Witcher becoming a global breakout hit was a surprise, surely, but it's not like the game wasn't anticipated and expected to deliver back here.

 

[NEO0MJ]

CDPR gave him $0. They acquired the license via acquisition of the original licensing company.

As per the OP:

CD Projekt has aquired a seperate license from Sapkowski few years later (and we don't know how much he asked for it)

Maybe buying that company gave them right of first refusal when it came time to renew the contract? People are just guessing they probably didn't give him much based on the amount of the first contract. If if it was ten times the original price $40K doesn't amount to anything compared to how much CDPR made from the series.

 

[Outrun]

I just hope that Netflix did not pay him in meatballs...

 

[HK-47]

I could be wrong but for the Tolkien family anything that isn't 1:1 with the books they dislike it.

They probably try to pretend that shitty fanfiction like shadow of mordor doesn't exist.

 

[li bur]

I mean, if it isn't because of the games, you wouldn't even get those Netflix series deal dude.

 

[JBwB]

Man I really wish we knew the details on the deal for the separate license...

 

[mavo]

Sure, but that doesn't mean he's entailed to any more money.

Of course not, business is business, i'm pretty sure if the witcher games failed)and CD Projekt Red closed he wouldnt have given the money back lol.

 

[Kageshinzo]

Thanks for sharing, I'd like to play that! You know if the story was supposed be lifted straight from one of the books or be more original like in the CPDR games?

The article didn't say, as it was mostly about Metropolis and their games. They did mention that it was a game based off a novel from Sapkowski, "who's very big in Poland".

 

[erawsd]

People always forget he actually made a good amount of money thanks to the Cd Projekt Witcher games, even without royalties from them.

How? Easy: We can imagine the amount of The Witcher novels sold globally has increased 7-8x fold thanks to the video games. And I suppose he gains some from royalties from the novels, which are written by him.

Besides that, I dont think wed be seeing a Witcher Netflix series without the success of the games.

 

[greatnorthern]

Now's the time to mention that James Earl Jones took a small cash advance (a few thousand dollars, if I recall) for voicing Darth Vader in Star Wars instead of a percentage of ticket sales. Eeesh.

 

[Toxi]

It really isn't.
But English speakers would butcher the pronunciation so Witcher is the better choice for that language.

Hex is a word in English. Not sure how the pronunciation differs from Polish, but "Hexer" is pretty easy to say for an English speaker.

 

[13ruce]

CD really should gove him a few 100s of thousand as a thank you atleast.

Anyway way he probably got a good amount of money for the Netlflix series.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

LOL. He should probably learn how to negotiate a contract before being salty about being underpaid.

I'm kind of torn.

CDPR has no obligation to pay the man anything not contracted. At the same time, given the enormous success, I can't help but think a nice one-time "feel good bonus" check to the guy would be kind of cool, something in the 6-figure range.

But again, that's probably pretty unheard of in business.

 

[thecosmicfly]

The Super Best Friendcast discussion about the Witcher author sums up how I feel about this. Dude is absolutely salty for getting his ass blown out. Twice.

 

[Floody]

People always forget he actually made a good amount of money thanks to the Cd Projekt Witcher games, even without royalties from them.

How? Easy: We can imagine the amount of The Witcher novels sold globally has increased 7-8x fold thanks to the video games. And I suppose he gains some from royalties from the novels, which are written by him.

Oh, I don't doubt it, he's probably better off than I'll ever be and I'm sure he hasn't made the same mistake a 3rd time with Netflix (and if he did, Netflix would be paying him a hell of a lot more regardless after how huge the franchise got). But he made $4k (+ an undisclosed amount, but probably nothing crazy from CDPR before Witcher 1) from something possibly worth millions, that's gotta hurt, no matter how much they got him in extra book sales.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

It's not really about him making a mistake -- that would be sympathetic. It's saying nonsense like:

"The belief, widely spread by CDPR, that the games made me popular outside of Poland is completely false. I made the games popular. All of my translations in the West—including the English one—were published before the first game."

When the guy has access to his own sales data and can see that probably 200 copies of the Witcher books were sold before the first game was released, yeah he's liable to ridicule.

The Marvel/Fox thing is only an issue because we can never have a unified cinematic universe which kills many essential storylines

 

[PSqueak]

I guess, but it took me years to not think that "Witcher" sounded kinda dumb.

Whenever i read "witcher" i think of that Penny Arcade in universe novel "the song of the sorcelator" that had a villain called the "Witchalock".

 

[StrategyFan]

Then how would you explain the huge popularity of the books in Germany and Central/Eastern Europe way before the games?

The books are legimately awesome, the writing style is very distinctive and unique, the way he plays with language is something else. Of course you wouldn't know this if you read only English translation.

you could be right, but i don't think the games' success relied on the books

witcher 1 was a breakthrough game for a lot of other reasons, most of which was just generic demand for a decent role-playing game at the time. everything was an action RPG or a tactics RPG, but there weren't many role-playing RPGs

people wanted sequels because they wanted more CDPR stuff, not because they wanted a recreation of more of the books' plot points

 

[chrisPjelly]

Sucks, but that's a risk that's associated with practically anything regarding IPs. However, it's pretty obvious that the games got famous first and foremost because of the devs efforts towards the craft, and that his books DID get the exposure regardless. If I were CDPR, I'd offer a seat at the writing staff of their next game.

 

[bonesmccoy]

I think Spakowski is just taking the piss at this point. It's probably a lot of fun to be a cantankerous, eccentric, and well-off writer.

 

[massoluk]

having read some of the books, the witcher's success is 99.9% related to the game's developer and 0.1% related to the quality of the source material

Yup. The book ain't some masterpiece. I dare say the game has better story than the book

 

[v1oz]

In 98, games weren't what they are today, multi million business. Don't forget that.

Actually they were.

Games have been multi million since the NES era.

 

[jwhit28]

Yup. The book ain't some masterpiece. I dare say the game has better story than the book

They build a really good world even though the stories ain't that great.

 

[Ahasverus]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Take that monumental L

 

[mcrommert]

He's made good money off the books and now he has a show in development

Don't feel too much pity for him

 

[Coreda]

Would have also been similar to the game Hexen. Might have wanted to avoid that.

This is all I think of when I hear his preferred name.

 

[JBwB]

Yup. The book ain't some masterpiece. I dare say the game has better story than the book

If you're referring to the Ciri Saga (Blood of Elves - Lady of the Lake) then sure.

But the short stories? Hell no.

 

[v1oz]

But he sold the rights...And he didn't believe in his own creation enough to get the royalties.

Could they have given him pity money? Sure. But they also have hundreds of other employees to feed.

Back then the first Witcher game was a failure and didn't even come out. The reason he took a lump sum payment is because he didn't believe CDP could deliver a hit game, he probably thought it would end up as either vapourware or shovelware. CDP were completely unproven and inexperienced as a developer back then. And Poland wasn't necessarily known for their games industry and the chances of making a foreign produced title that was a hit in the west were slim. At the time it rarely ever happened (apart from games produced in Japan, the US or Western Europe). I'm sure if someone from EA or Blizzard had approached him he would asked for royalties instead. He merely took the safest financial option available to him at the time.

 

[ScientificPizza]

It's not really about him making a mistake -- that would be sympathetic. It's saying nonsense like:

"The belief, widely spread by CDPR, that the games made me popular outside of Poland is completely false. I made the games popular. All of my translations in the West—including the English one—were published before the first game."

When the guy has access to his own sales data and can see that probably 200 copies of the Witcher books were sold before the first game was released, yeah he's liable to ridicule.

Yeah. I love the Witcher, both the games and the book, a tremendous amount, but he seems incredibly ungrateful for what the games have done for him and his property

 

[Ivory Samoan]

"The Witcher" is such a better name than "Hexer".

I actually prefer Hexer....which makes me feel dirty to say as someone who adores all thing Witcher lol.

 

[Ahasverus]

"The Hexer" is too vanilla. Witcher is immediately recognizable.

 

[Shaanyboi]

No wonder he hates the games.

 

[NightShift]

He's somehow getting less and less sympathy from me now that I know this deal would have happened in 1998. There would have been so many examples of good storytelling in games at that point.

 

[renzolama]

Isn't this shitty on Cd Projekt's side?. If they really respect him and his work why wouldn't they re-negotiate the contract?. I wouldn't like knowing that I make money off of something the creator now regrets and despises.

CDR isn't a charity organization, it's a publicly traded company with 600+ employees to pay and shareholders who expect the company leadership to pursue maximum profit within ethical guidelines. Giving money away to someone who has no new value to provide the company in exchange for it would be financially irresponsible. Personally, I'd be perfectly happy knowing I was making money off of something the creator regrets and despises, especially if his regret was based on betting against my success when I negotiated with him originally. I imagine the CDR reaction to the author's request to renegotiate looking something like this (except minus 20 years on all involved):

 

[Lostconfused]

Hexen was out in 95.

Nobody in their right mind would name a game The Hexer around that time anyway.