Andrzej Sapkowski, author of The Witcher series is demanding for more than $16 million from royalties from CD Projekt Red game studios. After signing a contract in 1997 pertaining to the licensing agreements to his work, it’s been rumored that it was never clearly disclosed to Sapkowski how much he would gain from selling the rights.
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The studio turned The Witcher into a series of highly successful games and Sapkowski is not happy about it; quite frankly regrets it! An interview with Eurogame, the author said he didn’t think the game would do so well. Sapkowski said
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.”
Engadget reports that Sapkowski is requesting 6% of the profits from the lifetime profit of the game series, which is about more than $16 million solely from just The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt! It’s not clear what the next steps of the negotiation will be because CD Projekt Red are not having it.
The studio reported that Sapkowski has no ground to stand on because “all liabilities payable by the company in association therewith have been properly discharged.” Even though the studio has mainly profited from the success of The Witcher game series, their net worth is now over $2 billion.
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I’m pretty sure $16 million wouldn’t do any serious damage to their pockets, but they have agreed to find a proper resolution that will work with the authors’ needs, however it might not include the money Sapkowski is asking for…
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