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The Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski's disdain of games

Lambach

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But (coming from his own words) the thing that makes him rage like an idiot is that Sapkowksi had the gall to nickname his character "white wolf". He might be right but it's not like it's a super weird nickname for a fantasy character.

The similarities between Elric and Geralt go beyond simply the nickname.
 

pippin

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I know. IIRC he even wanted to sue both CDPR *and* Sapkowski. I can't remember it properly, but he was pissed off enough to want to sue anyone who had anything to do wit The Witcher. I dunno. He should write more songs for Hawkwind if you ask me. One more before the grave.
 

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He is not above signing a Witcher game too, should you present it, and people have. "I do it," he says. "Because first of all, when people come to sign, I consider them fans, so if they come and present me the game to sign, I cannot say no to that because it would be very impolite. Stand in a long queue, bring the game, what can I say? 'Please go away, I will not sign it'? It will be very impolite."

That's interesting. The Witcher as an IP for games is basically open to anyone rather than exclusively in CD Projekt's domain?
He's talking about fans bringing copies of the game to a book signing event (or similar), not publishers approaching him for a deal.
 

PulsatingBrain

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Doesn't he get a lot of cash from the books right now?

There's bound to have been a large rise in book sales, but nothing compared to the success of the games. Consider also that CDProjekt was dealing with him before the Witcher 1 so they probably would have given him a fairly large percentage to get their hands on the rights. I'm sure he makes a decent living, but even with 5% cut on the games he'd be fucking rolling in mountains of cocaine and cash. I'm curious to know how much they actually paid him
 

ShadowSpectre

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Doesn't he get a lot of cash from the books right now?

There's bound to have been a large rise in book sales, but nothing compared to the success of the games. Consider also that CDProjekt was dealing with him before the Witcher 1 so they probably would have given him a fairly large percentage to get their hands on the rights. I'm sure he makes a decent living, but even with 5% cut on the games he'd be fucking rolling in mountains of cocaine and cash. I'm curious to know how much they actually paid him

The Witcher games did create the need for the books to be finally translated into English though. I'm sure even without royalties from the game profits, his books sales have likely skyrocketed into money he never thought he'd be making.
 

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The Witcher games did create the need for the books to be finally translated into English though. I'm sure even without royalties from the game profits, his books sales have likely skyrocketed into money he never thought he'd be making.

Yeah no doubt, it would still be grim though to realise what an amazing deal you turned down
 

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To be fair it was less his writing and more the game development team's writing that made it a success.

Without that it could as well be shit. Also imagine if he was actively involved and went all George Lucas "creative vision" on it.

I think its great they amiably parted with just bags of money rather then give a percent and give the author funny ideas.
 

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1. Second SuperNowa edition is the only BRO APPROVED edition. Everything else is shit. FACT!
2. I can't believe Codex doesn't symphatize more with the edgy old fuck who likes shitting on games.
 

laclongquan

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To be fair, who would expect Witcher can become that huge? Nobody, that's who. So his not getting profit share is just unlucky, is all...

Still, a competent lit agent (cum marketing plant) can leverage this videogame fame into related glory for the books and sell it worldwide. Hollywood movie/shows even, ala Game of Throne.
 

pippin

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Yeah, to be fair not even GRRM expected the series to be as big as it ended up being. He was often asked when did he learned that he could get that famous, and he always said "In 2011!".
Tolkien must be that rare example of a fantasy author who was famous while he was still alive and also managed to get big on a mainstream level. Gotta thank hippies and treehuggers.
 
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Gotta thank hippies and treehuggers.
Or maybe it was the fact that Tolkien was, in fact, a great writer, instead of a hack like GRRM. It's one of those rare occurrences where mainstream success is coincidental with actual merit.

On-topic, I sympathize with the old fuck. Everything about "videogame culture" is shit. Imagine how infuriating it would be if some 'gamer' came upand obnoxiously asked you if that novel that you wrote in another language 20 years ago is based on the TOTALLY AWSUM GAME. On the same note, imagine how Lovecraft would feel with all of the games based on his work (obviously there were no videogames in the 1920s but he hated all kinds of games), and all the pop references or the fact that Cthulhu is now a household plushie doll.

Of course he's butthurt about the shitty deal he got, but at least he admits to his lack of foresight. There are plenty of royalty stories like that, where the original creator waived their rights for a percentage in lieu of a lump sum instant payment. I guess he does like his beer.
 
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Truth be told, his shittin' on Poznań was completely justified, drunk or not. You would never guess that this is where Poland started thousand years ago...
 

Ezeekiel

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Is he the one responsible for Geralt's fighting style resembling that of a drunk ballerina? That's the one part of the canon I wish CDPR had fucking ignored...
 

Popiel

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well he's personally from Łódź so it's hardly justified
Nasty ad personam, he hardly needed that one. He's more than everything a dumb, vain, fat motherfucker, a drunkard and a hack, his prose is at best serviceable for target group consisted mainly of teenagers and edgelords.
 

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When he mentions in the interview that he might write another Witcher novel, I almost got excited that he would finally write a sequel to Lady of the Lake. Then I remembered he wrote Season of Storms. :(
 

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To be fair it was less his writing and more the game development team's writing that made it a success.

Without that it could as well be shit. Also imagine if he was actively involved and went all George Lucas "creative vision" on it.

I think its great they amiably parted with just bags of money rather then give a percent and give the author funny ideas.
For a while after I took an interest in the witcher games, I thought Witcher 3's dialogues and story exposition were so good because Sapkowski was actively involved in writing and character concepts. When I learned that it was in fact the opposite case, I was really impressed with CDPR. I haven't read anything of the books but from what I know, they seem to have outdone him and then some.
 

Gerrard

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"I was stupid enough to sell them rights to the whole bunch," he says. "They offered me a percentage of their profits. I said, 'No, there will be no profit at all - give me all my money right now! The whole amount.' It was stupid. I was stupid enough to leave everything in their hands because I didn't believe in their success. But who could foresee their success? I couldn't."
Fucking told you.

You realize that this is a fake sub, right?

E: fucking newfags
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On January 25th 2015, Tumblr blog old-japanese-men posted two animated GIFs containing images of Miyazaki from 2013 documentary The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness. They are captioned with made-up quotes expressing extreme dissatisfaction with the state of anime and otaku culture. As of March 11th 2016 the post has 271,725 notes.[9]
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/anime-was-a-mistake#fn9
 
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Beastro

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A grumpy old drunk bastard who thinks all games are shit...Is he a Codexer?

This bit seals the deal:

To him, everyone is a dumb dipshit and he's the only genius in the world.

Given the usual fate of sci fi and fantasy writers, I can't blame him. Not everyone gets to be Neil Gaiman.

If you really want and old butthurt fucker, go read Michael Moorcock's opinions on many things. He believes GRRM and Sapkowski ripped his shtick off, and to be honest, he's kinda right when it comes to GRRM. But (coming from his own words) the thing that makes him rage like an idiot is that Sapkowksi had the gall to nickname his character "white wolf". He might be right but it's not like it's a super weird nickname for a fantasy character.

My appreciation of the series has gone up if it riled Moorcock that much.
 
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laclongquan

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GRRM, back in the days, was a niche writer whose claim to fame is the willingness to kill major, and beloved, characters. No one is safe from authors' hand, was the praise we handed out about him.

Writings? So-so. He's good but about same level as Robert Jordan, though not as rereadable as that. Big universe? Eh, RJ and Terry Pratchett, as well as others, has that cover. Incest? Bah humbug. Mostly because that get solved in one novel I think.

His rising to fame, from a niche writer, good but too slow, to a famous author, is all thank to the HBO movies.
 

Frozen

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If he wants more money he should sell rights on writing Witcher books (read: Ciri )
He is almost 70 and will die soon so grab what you can.
 

Frozen

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For a while after I took an interest in the witcher games, I thought Witcher 3's dialogues and story exposition were so good because Sapkowski was actively involved in writing and character concepts. When I learned that it was in fact the opposite case, I was really impressed with CDPR. I haven't read anything of the books but from what I know, they seem to have outdone him and then some.

Not really. Books as flawed as they may be are superior story-wise in everything compared to games. Especially TW3 that has the weakest plot of them all.
Books will always >>>>>>> games because they have infinitely stronger processor to rely upon- your brain.
 

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