As you in all probability know, CD Projekt Red’s vastly profitable Witcher video games are primarily based on a sequence of fantasy novels by Polish creator Andrzej Sapkowski. How a lot do you assume they paid for the licence? Go on – have a guess earlier than you learn any additional.
Even after shopping for them from Sapkowski, CD Projekt needed to struggle tooth-and-nail to maintain the rights to the Witcher. Here’s that story.
According to Sebastian Zieliński, former head of CD Projekt, they purchased the licence for 35,000 Polish Zloty. That’s about $9,500 in at this time’s cash.
Zieliński was commenting on a Facebook post by Adrian Chmielarz, CEO of the now-defunct Metropolis Software, who had licensed the Witcher novels earlier than CDPR (although their recreation was by no means made). Chmielarz was debunking a tweet by the journalist Marcin Kosman, who’d urged Metropolis had purchased the licence for simply $four,000. Zieliński then weighed in to elucidate that CDPR’s payment nonetheless didn’t breach 5 figures.
Though $9,500 isn’t nothing, it’s in all probability rather a lot lower than you guessed given Sapkowski’s comments in March, when he dismissed videogames as “stupid” and mentioned he solely bought the rights for “a big bag of money”. That bag appears even much less large – and his resolution to say no CDPR’s supply of royalties much more misguided – when you think about how properly the video games have accomplished.
But hey, Sapkowski is concerned within the forthcoming Netflix series, so he’s in all probability doing positive now. Of course, the success of the video games is the explanation The Witcher is so well-known within the West, and thus a considerable cause why the sequence is occurring.
Thanks to boskee on NeoGAF.
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