Some articles say he wasn't into gaming and allowed the game company to use the character but to create their own stories, not connected to his books at all. I'm sure with the popularity of the game his book sales went up anyway. He also did a movie and TV series based on his books so I'm sure he's not hurting for cash.
I would say the moral of the story is it pays to be a glass half full kind of guy. He would not have been so negative and would probably be a lot richer than he is now.
Which would explain why the games turned into softcore porn.
Sadly its too bad because this writer could have made Hundreds of thousands of dollars if not more, as the Developers of the Witcher Series did a good job at designing the game, and did the right thing not wasting on Denuvo Spyware in Witcher 3 which is a great move and selling 10 million copies at $50 a pop that is insane....
**** Although i don't really like the Witcher Series much because its Gender Locked and seems too much like the Gorean Novels to me but maybe that will change in the future.****
nice, someone posting references about their thoughts
I don't care the witcher series (books games and all other multimedia derived from the series) is the most ignored case of plagiarism ive ever seen. The entire series was stolen from pulp magazine series and later novel series Elric of Melniboné. Elric essentially a white hair swordsman called The White Wolf who takes substances like herbs and potions to survive, and one of his love interest is a raven hair woman similar to Yennefer. He is also a well known and feared mercenary.
For context, Sapkowski was working for the pulp magazine elric was being published in. And after working directly with Elric left to go pen the witcher.
can I give you a medal or award or something? golden comment right there
I'm really enjoying the game now that pic controls are much better then they were when the game was released.
Sound like the writer has his own demons he's fighting. Would be interesting to know what shaped such a personality.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I'm really enjoying the game now that pic controls are much better then they were when the game was released.
Sound like the writer has his own demons he's fighting. Would be interesting to know what shaped such a personality.
He is a polack, a writer and grew up during communism, being eccentric is somewhat expected from such a person. He also happens to write fantasy in a country where fantasy is considered something for stupid children who can't even masturbate properly.
After reading the whole article I didn't find him that bad, there is something witty about him and I'm sure he gets a lot more fun after you paid him a few beers.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
let me go ahead and absolve cd project red. My beef isn't with them which is why I play the game.
Elric and Geralt have the same personality. They both artificially extended their life. Both are wandering mercenaries/monster hunters. Both are constantly pulled into political conflicts and larger schemes that they want nothing to do with. Though wit her would be more brightdark while Elric is grim dark. Also no soul stealing sword in witches. If you think their similarities are superficial you haven't read both series.
This thread is the epitome of "Hindsight is 20/20".
If you're a not particularly known author and you get approached by a video game "company" that is basically a garage band no-name studio with no titles under their belt and they want to turn your fiction into an internationally distributed action RPG, what are the chances success and don't you want money upfront for your work?
You can either get paid and go about your business, or you can either not get paid (or get paid significantly less), and cross your fingers that these people don't make trash.
Want a perfect example? Kickstarter. How many games get pitched on there? How many end up being massively popular franchises that sell millions upon millions of copies? It's like that. Except The Witcher wasn't crowdfunded. It was just some random dudes telling a writer that they wanted to use his IP for a video game setting. For all he knew, these kids would give up a few months down the line.
If you're a not particularly known author and you get approached by a video game "company" that is basically a garage band no-name studio with no titles under their belt and they want to turn your fiction into an internationally distributed action RPG, what are the chances success and don't you want money upfront for your work?
Except that he was pretty known by that time but yep, that's why I said above as well, it was the "smart" decision. That time was the end of a smaller bubble, with companies slowly turning towards the online and cutting back the over-expanse of previous years. The central-ish Eu region was filled with dev studios doing contractor work for large companies, and most of them were left without any project - turning to local IPs was an obvious choice (since it's cheaper than a big, internationally known IP, but still better than write and start a new one, expecially marketing-wise). CDPR was not unique in that, in most countries there were similar attempts, but I think the only other successful one was what I mentioned earlier, with giving an another go (after the first few games back in the '90s) to DSA in Germany, which resulted Drakensang.
So yep, even if he'd care about gaming, it might seemed a very slight chance for getting anything back from the success of the game. And since he gave a flying f.ck about the whole genre, probably it was even more obvious. "These guys want to give me money for making a game (lol) from Witcher. It surely will be a failure like the previous guys. Yeah, give me the dough, and have fun with your game or what" I bet a year later he didn't even remember them at all... And a few years later, the Witcher turned out to be a great game.
Funny thing is, personally I pretty much disliked it back then. I saw it as an adventure game, fitting well into the trend of "fill our adventure game with primitive combat because nowadays everything has to have combat", which I think was one of the ruiners of the adventure genre. So, I had quite mixed feelings about Witcher, but after the second playthrough I started to like it. Not the combat though, I still loathe its combat
(To be honest, I'm still on that opinion with the series, when W3 launched and there was a 'best rpg' vote here, I wrote W3 is more like an adventure game to me and not an rpg. Probably because it is based on a book and lean heavily on writing - while Drakensang for example is based on a p'n'p rpg system, and is a more traditional rpg, but lacks on great story and writing)
One thing my dad taught me before I left home to go to college is that you always, always, ALWAYS get royalties in your contract. If you don't think it will do well, then ask for a an upfront sum and small royalties. If you're fairly certain it will take off, then ask for a higher percentage.
Either way, if there's even the slightest chance that the product takes off beyond your expectations, then you're making something from it for the rest of your life.
I agree.
In truth I would never sell off the rights of anything I wrote. Too much of a control freak when it comes to my work.
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Comments
The first game is the superior game IMO.
nice, someone posting references about their thoughts
Sound like the writer has his own demons he's fighting. Would be interesting to know what shaped such a personality.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
After reading the whole article I didn't find him that bad, there is something witty about him and I'm sure he gets a lot more fun after you paid him a few beers.
Elric and Geralt have the same personality. They both artificially extended their life. Both are wandering mercenaries/monster hunters. Both are constantly pulled into political conflicts and larger schemes that they want nothing to do with. Though wit her would be more brightdark while Elric is grim dark. Also no soul stealing sword in witches. If you think their similarities are superficial you haven't read both series.
If you're a not particularly known author and you get approached by a video game "company" that is basically a garage band no-name studio with no titles under their belt and they want to turn your fiction into an internationally distributed action RPG, what are the chances success and don't you want money upfront for your work?
You can either get paid and go about your business, or you can either not get paid (or get paid significantly less), and cross your fingers that these people don't make trash.
Want a perfect example? Kickstarter. How many games get pitched on there? How many end up being massively popular franchises that sell millions upon millions of copies? It's like that. Except The Witcher wasn't crowdfunded. It was just some random dudes telling a writer that they wanted to use his IP for a video game setting. For all he knew, these kids would give up a few months down the line.
That time was the end of a smaller bubble, with companies slowly turning towards the online and cutting back the over-expanse of previous years. The central-ish Eu region was filled with dev studios doing contractor work for large companies, and most of them were left without any project - turning to local IPs was an obvious choice (since it's cheaper than a big, internationally known IP, but still better than write and start a new one, expecially marketing-wise). CDPR was not unique in that, in most countries there were similar attempts, but I think the only other successful one was what I mentioned earlier, with giving an another go (after the first few games back in the '90s) to DSA in Germany, which resulted Drakensang.
So yep, even if he'd care about gaming, it might seemed a very slight chance for getting anything back from the success of the game. And since he gave a flying f.ck about the whole genre, probably it was even more obvious. "These guys want to give me money for making a game (lol) from Witcher. It surely will be a failure like the previous guys. Yeah, give me the dough, and have fun with your game or what"
I bet a year later he didn't even remember them at all...
And a few years later, the Witcher turned out to be a great game.
Funny thing is, personally I pretty much disliked it back then. I saw it as an adventure game, fitting well into the trend of "fill our adventure game with primitive combat because nowadays everything has to have combat", which I think was one of the ruiners of the adventure genre. So, I had quite mixed feelings about Witcher, but after the second playthrough I started to like it. Not the combat though, I still loathe its combat
(To be honest, I'm still on that opinion with the series, when W3 launched and there was a 'best rpg' vote here, I wrote W3 is more like an adventure game to me and not an rpg. Probably because it is based on a book and lean heavily on writing - while Drakensang for example is based on a p'n'p rpg system, and is a more traditional rpg, but lacks on great story and writing)
I agree.
In truth I would never sell off the rights of anything I wrote. Too much of a control freak when it comes to my work.
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo