Witcher Author Demands $16 Million from CD Projekt Red and Threatens Legal Action

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[YongYea]

EDIT: CD Projekt Red got the rights to Witcher games fair and square under terms both parties agreed upon. This last minute demand and legal threat from the author seems opportunistic and desperate. And it's not as if his novels didn't benefit from the global popularization of the franchise.

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TOP PATRONS
[CIPHER]
- Thelionsam
- Shawn Duane Cottrell
[BIG BOSS]
- SolidJake
- Alex Moretti
- Vin Giorgio
- Casual Ninja
[BOSS]
- Matthew Szalkiewicz
- Peter
- Zander Rose
- Joel Wesley Salyer
- John A Perez
- justconst
- comfyHat
- Jonathan Ball
- Michael Redmond
[LEGENDARY]
- Ryan Daniel Brown
- SweGabe
- David Doty
- Michael P. Reid
- Mark Taylor
- Christopher Davis Kildahl
- Jade Rose
- Prismat Dragoon
- Darien Cunningham
- Teemu Hattukangas
- Princess Stabbity

[Mayonezorro]

I'm polish, read Witcher novels way before games were made, and I hate the guy despite his amazing work. He sold the rights to make games way before witcher was known world wide so the 9, 5k he received was just right. Now that games popularized novels world wide he woke up, demanding absurd amounts of money. There wouldn't be any netflix series if it wasn't for CDPR and their games. I hope the best for the Reds.

[thecapacitor]

Funny thing is, CDPR actually offered him royalties but he turned them down... It's no one else's fault but his. He came up with the deal and they agreed to *His* deal, not the other way around.

For example, that's like Nikon suing me because one day I bought a Nikon DSLR for £500 and I made an indie horror movie series that turned out to make millions in the cinema. I bought that product for a set price that *They* made. I would owe nothing to them.

[MamaBedlamVO]

Their deal was not royalties, their deal was one lump sum due to the writer not believing in video games as a medium. It is actively his fault.

[NewNecro]

"Give my client money now, you don't want to make it a public affair"

*CDPR makes it public*

"You and what army of lawyers?"

[kindredkurse]

"yo i had no idea youd be so successful. give me extra money now."

[kimkire]

The fact that the Metro author called him out on this makes this all the more entertaining..

[BigMac]

I know there’s more to it, but it really just sounds like “oh they are big now, I can get some money out of this”

[athlwulf]

The author should be more worried about what Netflix is going to do with his works...

[LadyBrightcynder]

"My audience has changed! Young people are asking me questions about my books! THE NERVE!!!"

[SynodicScribe]

The author of Metro calling him out kinda sums up how I feel about all this.

[niamhmorrissey]

"Here's the rights, knock yourself out"

CDPR: "ok"
(Makes the Witcher games)

"Wait"

[nofme]

heres the thing: when you buy rights to make a game, you're taking a RISK. you don't know if you're going to make $1 or a billion. The author decided NOT to take any risk, by agreeing to a fixed sum instead of royalties. So those of you arguing that CD Projekt Red owes him something, I ask you: If the game had flopped and the company ended up LOSING money (it costs a LOT more than whatever they paid the author to make a game - gotta pay your developers, artists, etc)... Would you think it's fair for CD Projekt Red to demand their money back from the author? No. This is silly. You're arguing that people should be basically robbed for taking a risk, but only if the risk pays off. Nuts.

[DarknessInferno]

The Metro series author has my respect for that quote. Absolutely savage.

[AdnanCucak]

"No one knows its based off my novels!"
"Its because of my novels the games are popular!"
Pick one mate

[scottdixon]

The lesson learned from this:- never sell your rights to anything for a fixed sum. You always ask for a percentage so you can continue to benefit from it.
And in all honesty, the witchers creator has said in multiple interviews that he hates the video games based on his books and wants absolutely nothing to do with them. But now the games have made a load of money, suddenly it's a different story...

[MsRuell]

If it wasn't for CDPR, the author would never get the contract with Netflix and earn this bag of money. Maybe he should pay royalties too?

[jordanhorst]

In other words "Butt-hurt author with poor understanding of current trends and terrible business sense, loses money based on arrogant stance of superiority".

[GendrisVilor]

What the author is basically doing is the equivalent of wanting to go back and change the numbers you chose on your lottery ticket after hearing the winning numbers and being 1 number off.

[Apocabacca]

What an angry old man. The guy now has a fledgling book series to fall back on because of the success of the studio. Most authors would bend over backwards to have any shred of this man's success and he spits on it as if it means nothing.