He’s just salty about taking the lump sum of cash instead of royalties when selling the rights for the games.
deleted by creator
Especially after the first totally botched game prior to Witcher 1. He chose royalties there and lost.
Would have, could have are thiefs of joy. He should enjoy the money and the success of his IP.
Isn’t this the guy who was a dick about copyright to his work concerning derivatives? I remember someone saying that either for the games or for the movie they had to fight to retain licenses because he was acting up about it.
Yeah, if I remember correctly. He sold the rights straight up to the developers of the game, no royalties or percentage or anything because of his anti-game bias, then when the game was successful and that decision bit him in the ass, he tried to change the deal and get more money out of them. As I understand it he lost and still receives no revenue from the games.
Even then they’re still benefitting him tremendously because while he was popular in Poland, it’s the games that have really made his work popular overall, and people are buying his books and all because of it.
This article says he settled with CD project https://www.vgr.com/cd-projekt-witcher-lawsuit-author-sapkowski/
Ah, I recalled he didn’t win, I suppose I should’ve assumed it was settled, that’s usually how that goes down.
Personally I think he should’ve lost and had to pay CDPR’s legal costs, the whole thing was absurd. He admits he made a stupid mistake but wants money out of them anyways despite having been an arrogant shithead to start with.
I mean he had a very weak case iirc but it’s very unsatisfying to hear he still got a settlement. Makes sense tho, lawsuits are not worth it 95% of the time.
Off the top of my head, he sold the game rights for a lump sum. Basically, he didn’t believe the games would be popular, so he didn’t believe royalties would ever pay out. So he demanded a large up-front payment instead of the standard “small payment plus royalties” deal that authors would go for.
Then when the games ended up being super popular, he came back and tried to demand post-dated royalties. When the company (obviously) refused, he got crotchety and started shit-talking the games to anyone who would listen.
Honestly, the games have been a huge benefit to him. Tons of fans ended up buying the books because of the games. But he’s salty that he demanded a bad deal, because he didn’t want to risk losing if the games flopped.
deleted by creator
It’s a bit complex. IIRC He sold the rights of making games to a tiny indie company and then CDProjekt bought the company and made the much elaborate Witcher 1.
It makes some sense that the story writter of a story-heavy game would never play the game as a game, for fun, same as a book author not reading his or her own books for the pleasure of it.
Or to put things another way, they’ve already “consumed” the story in the game before ever playing the game.
As it so happens I’m making my own game, which is not story heavy, so I hope I’ll actually be able to enjoy it myself, but I can see how at the end of making a game you’ve just seen too much of it in too much detail from too many angles to actually be able to enjoy it yourself as just a game unless, maybe, a lot of it is somewhat unpredictable even for the author (i.e. stuff with lots of procedural generation or where what happens comes from the complex interaction of various game mechanics and user choices, which is what I’m aiming for in my own game)
This isn’t about the writer of the games, is about the writer of the original book series that the games act as sequels. The guy hasn’t played the games because he hates them in a way, in the sense that more people know about the world of the Witcher thanks to that “fad” (quote) than to his own prose.
