• AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    Everything I’ve read about the author does not paint him in a positive light. He seems crochety

    • maxprime@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      From what I understand CDPR purchased the licensing for the Witcher IP a long time ago. At the time the Witcher was not popular outside of Poland so they didn’t have to pay very much. Since then they made the series really popular and the English translation brought it to a much wider market. So he felt like he wasn’t fairly compensated for his IP.

      I think they’ve reached new agreements since then but it wasn’t easy for either party to reach agreement.

      • CannedTuna@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        He was given the option of either a lump sum or a percentage of game sales. He thought video games were a passing fad and took the lump sum. Then he got pissed because the games were super successful.

        • Narrrz@kbin.social
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          8 months ago

          they’ve probably earned him more than a couple of dollars, too, just from people wanting to read the source material.

          and I doubt there would have been a Netflix series without the games.

          • CannedTuna@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            Exactly, which is why I don’t understand disliking the games and being salty over a poor financial choice. Especially after CDPR gave him extra money after the success of the series

            • nman90@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Yes, he is definitely salty about not taking the royalties and being made to look a fool because he chose poorly. I think he is also extremely salty that the thing he thought would amount to much is 1000x more successful than his own creation. His books are more successful now thanks to the games, but that’s just pouring salt in the wound for him.

      • AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Him being crochety about video games is why he didn’t negotiate for royalties. And after realizing his mistake… He’s still crochety about video games :/

    • tty5@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      He has been “the author” in polish fiction for decades and he didn’t handle it well. I met him about 20 years ago and he’s already been a douche back then.

    • nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksOPM
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      8 months ago

      Why would they, they are writing their own shitty stories an then wrapping the Witcher IP over them.

      • Bri Guy @sopuli.xyz
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        8 months ago

        what’s funny, if i remember correctly, was that when the show was first announced, i’m pretty sure the author was brought in as an “advisor” of a sort and they were talking about how the show was going to be more accurate to the books than the games.

        we all know how that panned out

    • bogdugg@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      or played the game

      I would argue it’s actually a detriment to experience anything other than the source material when adapting a work. Especially with books, different people are going to have wildly different interpretations of the world. The character that exists in your mind is going to be different from somebody else who read the same book. But once it is adapted to a visual medium, you lose a bit of that magic. Which sucks, because all of those previous interpretations are still valid! More valid even, than anything that was put to screen, because they were yours.

      I think the argument for accuracy is kind of bullshit anyway (not that you said this, but others have). Is The Shining (the film) worse for the changes it made to the original text? Stephen King might think so; he would also be wrong. You don’t want something accurate, you want something that’s good. You want somebody with passion and artistic vision to create something new and uniquely amazing. The recent Last Of Us show, to my knowledge, tread pretty closely to the source material. “Aha!” you might say. But what is also true, is that the best episode of that first season was also the probably the biggest deviation from the source material. I probably don’t even need to say which one if you’ve seen the show.

      Anyway, companies should hire people who are both passionate about the source material, and want to make something cool and new in that world - not robots who are just going to recreate the original work beat for beat. If I wanted that, why wouldn’t I myself just, you know, read the book?

  • hoshikarakitaridia@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    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.

    • Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      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.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      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.

    • crushyerbones@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      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.

  • CarlosCheddar@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    He’s just salty about taking the lump sum of cash instead of royalties when selling the rights for the games.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    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)

    • Aram855@feddit.cl
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      8 months ago

      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.