How do you feel about CD Projekt Red and Andrzej Sapkowski?

[StaceyPowers]

@Crazycrab, @Shagger and I were talking about the incident involving rights and royalties between CD Projekt Red and Andrzej Sapkowski. For those who don’t know, CD Projekt Red purchased the rights off Sapkowski for The Witcher for a meager amount (I think it was like 10 grand). Sapkowski accepted this sum with the belief that the game would do nothing. Obviously, The Witcher 3 is now one of the biggest games in existence.

Sapkowski then went after them for more money, and they settled out of court.

How does everyone feel about this issue? This is one which I easily can see both sides of. I don’t feel that CD Projekt Red was “wrong” or “unfair,” though I do think they were “lousy.” I.e. “all is fair in war and capitalism,” sure—I’ve got it—but they sure could’ve distinguished themselves by doing him a good turn. Unless I am wrong about their financial situation, it wouldn’t have hampered them to do it voluntarily. If I made hundreds of millions off of a game, I’d pay the person who made the stupid mistake of selling me the rights for 10 grand more without even stopping to think about it. But that’s just me, I guess :/

 

[Shagger]

Like I said in the other thread, it wasn't stupid mistake, it was error in judgment brought on by sheer arrogance. Video games and the people who play them are beneath Andrzej Sapkowski and his art, according to him. I believe CDPR offered a sales stake at first, but he just took the modest cash sum instead because gamers wouldn't by it. I'm repeating a lot of what I said in the other thread, but the game made him a fortune through raising awareness of the book. Looking into the history of the publication, the literature wasn't even published in English until around the time the first game came out and that can't be a coincidence. That man owes so much the success of his books to the game,  especially outside of Poland, and for him to say because he underestimated the gaming community, insulted their intelligence and didn't have faith in CD Project Red to make it a success he deserves a bigger cut of that success is just, that word again, arrogant.

Sadly, because of Polish law he had a strong legal case, and it would be just like CD Project Red to "be the bigger man" and just settle with him. I won't deny the man his due, he's a great writer and novelist, but if this is anything to go by he's an archaic, arrogant, stuck-up, snobby turd of a man.

[kingpotato]

At the end of the day making videogames is a business, and its not CD Projekt Red's fault that the author made the wrong decision, he was given a choice and he choose poorly and they owned him nothing.