To some, The Witcher is a popular RPG video game trilogy (with card game spinoff) that took the world by storm over the last decade thanks to the incredible team at CD Projekt Red. However, what you might not have known at some points is that the games were actually based off of a book series that was made popular in Europe by a man named Andrzej Sapkowski. And per the law, CD Projekt Red went to him and made a deal with him to get the rights to make a video game based off of Geralt of Rivera.
Ironically, in the context of hindsight, Andrzej didn’t have a lot of faith in CD Project Red or their Witcher games ideas. So, when they offered to pay him a percentage of all the profits The Witcher games would make, he declined, instead asking for a lump sum. Well now, he’s suing to get more money that he feels he’s “owed”.
How much does he feel he’s “owed”? 16 million dollars. That’s a lot of money, and so it shouldn’t be a surprise that CD Projekt Red is not happy about this, and aren’t going to go down without a fight. For as Eurogamer noted, this is their response to the claims:
“In the Company’s opinion, the demands expressed in the notice are groundless with regard to their merit as well as the stipulated amount. The Company had legitimately and legally acquired copyright to Mr. Andrzej Sapkowski’s work, i.a. insofar as is required for its use in games developed by the Company. All liabilities payable by the Company in association therewith have been properly discharged”.
We’ll have to see what happens next, but based on the agreement that was signed, it would appear that CD Projekt Red is in the right on this.
tuff luck for him he should have taken the percentage now he will get nothing