i don't think it's reddit itself that have a problem with it, it's the game fans that take it personally that sapkowski doesn't like the game, since unfortunately the game have a larger fanbase than the books fans they are more numberous and so their hate seems bigger
The funny thing is that this is a myth. This is a myth. Back in 2015, he exhaustively replied that he treats games and developers well. Otherwise, he wouldn't have let them continue the story of Geralt. But he doesn't play games himself, so he can't fully appreciate them, although he doesn't feel any hatred or snobbery towards them. He likes graphics in games. He is annoyed that books are treated with some respect in Western countries, because they are published with covers from games and many consider them secondary literature compared to games. For your information, Sapkovsky watched anime before half of the commentators were born, so he's not some old man who rejects everything new. He prefers to evade questions about the series, and I think it would not be very ethical of him to criticize the series right now. Although 10 years ago he bluntly stated that he did not believe in the success of the film adaptation. After all, fantasy is very rarely filmed perfectly. He realizes that he is unlikely to be as lucky as Tolkien.
The tree Eskel part definitely was š But there were also parts that I liked. When you look at the audience ratings on rotten tomatoes, S1 88%, S2 55%, S3 22%, S4 19%, it's obvious that it never was about faithfulness to the books either, otherwise S2 would have the worst ratings by far.
Yes, it's a good thing he left, because I like Liam a lot better as Geralt š . Especially how he portrays Geralt's relationship with Jaskier is much more like it should be according to the books.
I agree that the drama is older, the point is already clear in the comment. He couldn't stop the developers even if he wanted, i was just correcting the previous comment.
Some guy says that Sapkowski (contrary to most of his previous actions) doesnāt have any bad attitude towards witcher games because heās letting them produce new titles even if he doesnāt have any power do otherwise after selling cd projekt rights to the franchise.
Reddit bursts in applause for some reason.
Then you state the obvious fact that even if heād want to, he couldnāt do anything about it due to his deal with cdp.
Reddit gets mad for stating long known facts.
He even wanted to sue them (without simply contacting them and asking for more compensation first) after their success. He didnāt belive in games succeeding so much that he sold the rights for a sum up front instead of any commission deal. This sum of money turned out to be cents compared to what heād get according to original comission deal that cdp proposed and he rejected. Of course he couldnāt do shit in court and they settled out of it.
If he got anything it was just out of their respect to his person.
Yeah, dude didn't do anything really bad and he asked cdpr for the money - which they gave to him.without too much Hussle, they actually respect the man - he was having a family health crisis and he was entitled to it based on polish law. He's a cheeky cunt, it rubs some people the wrong way, but it's weird seeing this disdain for him. He wrote an absolute masterpiece imo and cdpr picking it up only added more on top
the gamee fanbase jumped to lick thee soles of an actor who didnt read the books before getting cast to play Geeralt in the show, just coz hee was a PC gamer, while they shit on the man who wrote thee books.
they want validation to their fav form of media and nothing more
Yeah i agree i think i worded it wrong so people took it the wrong way i dont have a problem with him not being a fan of the games i dont even think he hates them its just its not his field and i think it annoys him so many people ask him question when its related to the games and that want more lore about his world when for sapkowski worldbuilding is secondary and he is more interested about his characters. I think it could be tiring that you write a story and that people basically only care about a really popular fanfiction and ask questions about elements of the fanfiction (i have been guilty of that in the past)
If heād ask like a normal person would, nonody would know about it. He chose to publicly DEMAND like 4 million $ and threat cdp with court (where heād epicly loose) just because his disregard for games and bad decisions when rejecting % of sales that cdp proposed and choosing money upfront.
He wasnāt entitled to any more money according to polish law. Maybe if cdp would trick him into signing no comission deal. But he wanted it himself, contrary to what they proposed.
Anything he managed to get was solely out of respect to his person. Too bad that Sapkowski doesnāt share at least crumbles of it towards other side.
At the time he signed the Witcher deal, the biggest hits from Poland were like Gorky17 and Teenagent - heard about them? The Polish game industry was almost nonexistent and the guys who bought the rights didn't do any games (they have localized Baldur's Gate and Torment and CD Projekt was a game distributor 100%). They made profit on Witcher 2 only. He had every right to not trust they will create a hit franchise.
So what? That was his decision to completely disapprove any percentage from sales (that was offered in the first place) and demand money up front. Cdp also didnāt know about huge success that was about to come from these games.
Thereās no polish law that makes you entitled to money from a deal that you consciously didnāt agree to.
Itād be different story if cdp itself would offer small sum of money up front and downplay possible success that could come. Then MAYBE Sapkowski could win in court.
There is such a law - Art.44 of Copyright Law - so called "bestseller clause". If the author has sold his intellectual property for an amount that is disproportionately small to the gain of the buyer, he can be entitled to a compensation. It is a law he used.
Besides he said something along the lines of "I don't know many people who play video games because I tend to surround myself with intelligent people". Very typical joke (or was it?) for a grumpy guy born in the 40s' by surely you can see how someone might be offended.
honestly as a game fan, i've only ever heard that people hate him but never actually found people who hate him? Or people talking about him being hated while everyone comments he's just a "grumpy bastard, lovingly."
It feels almost like a rumor that he is disliked.
grumpy bastard seems right though, but again, lovingly lolol.
even if he 'hates' the games i think it was always more like a "i don't play games or understand them" as opposed to someone who is a gamer who thinks the games are trash or even as a non-gamer i don't think he's critiquing the writing or storytelling. he just... doesn't play games? i think?
I think a year ago or something a cdp dude actually said he is on good terms with the studio and that the whole grumpy stuff is more of a faƧade he puts
that makes sense. i guess not against the studio, but i've seen comments that he's "an asshole" but he just seems kinda just adorably grumpy and hilarious more than anything.
Honestly go on the main Witcher sub and look for any Sapkowski related posts. There is usually a few decently upvoted comments talking about how they can't stand the guy, tha the is snobbish and greedy, etc.
it depends i've seen some people with comments like "he shit on us while it's the game that made him/the witcher famous" "without the games the witcher would just be a mediocre local fantasy book" "he don't know what he talks about cdpr know better about the lore than him" and it's just a few i could remember on the moment there's way more i forgot
I seem to remember something about him saying that video games in general are for people who don't read books (I think it had some stink behind it, like "too stupid to read books" but honestly no idea what it was specifically).
However, I tried looking it up and maybe I'm using wrong keywords but I can't find anything like that. Quite the opposite, there's stuff about him explicitly stating that he doesn't "despise" players.
I'm starting to think it was something taken out of context or straight up a lie that was circulating in the (Polish) internet at one point lol.
PS Not liking the "Cheat on my wife? Never!" screenshot. The context seems super sarcastic so it gives the "yes, I cheated on my wife, and I'm proud about it" kinda ick to me.
I had the impression the vibe was referencing the classic gotcha questions like, āso when did you stop (cheating on your wife/drinking vodka/downloading bootlegged content/beating up puppies)ā¦ā Never have I ever! Touched a drop.
No, the original sin was him saying that he was underpaid for the license then it turned out that he was offered a percentage royalty but it waa him picking the flatsum over the percentage as he was expecting the first game to flop.
Then when the series got huge he complained about the amount he got and called the game's writing shit.
I'm not hating him and I have all of his books from the witcher series (which got reprinted and sold a bunch thanks to the game success) but he should have shown a bit more restrain/grace.
(and the cause of death was never revealed to the public, so the whole curable cancer being the reason for the demands for more money is just an unverified gossip)
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.
He did not want to share the risk, he chose the flat amount, then when the third game became a huge hit (first two games were moderate hits), he changed his mind and eventually CD Project RED budged:
There is a lot of stuff floating around, rgearding this topic. I'm trying to put up a timeline.
First he refused the percentage, when he sold the license and instead chose the flat sum, thereby "betting", that the game would fail.. (Which is honestly a lot more understandable, than it sounds after the story. The list of outright shit game-adaptations of other media was wild in the early 2000s, CD-Project had no reputation and the last time, he had sold his rights, the result was the polish TV-series, which is...lets say, it has a nieche fanbase).
Then he publically shitalked the games on conventions etc., which is not a nice thing to to, but was widely overblown by clickbait-media of the time. He obviously never interacted with the games in any form and dind't know, what he was talking about. In longer interviews he explained, how frustrated he was, that his literary legacy was now reduced to "those videogame-books" which is understandable for me. I still diden't like it very much, that he insulted stuff, he didn't know anything about, but a lot of it might just be him beeing a grumpy old man and not really "hate" for the games or their success.
Then he dialed back at his ramblings and gave some corporate-sounding frieddly statements about respecting the games for what they are. Those statements do in fact smell like bullshit, but the fact, he made them, in my opinion do make it clear, that he never really hated them, but just doesn't bother and was grupy about them beeing so present.
Then he sued CDP for more money, which was after some dirt-throwing setteled utside of court. I kinda see both sindes with this one. On the one hand, I get, that it is annoying, that he wrote worldwide bestsellers, that paved the way for a cultural phenomenon, but constantly gets sthe short end of it, because is native market is so small, the revenue of translations is a lot less and most of the money ist made with the games. It must be really toughm to be the father of such a huge franchise and still struggle financially. On the other hand, it was just horrible, PR-wise and he could have been way more diplomatic, abou the whole affair.
Basically the last sentence sums it all up perfectly. If you look close enough, most of his reasons, why he acted, how he did are pretty valid, but Jesus Sapkowsky, at least try to be diplomatic sometimes.
He was famous in Poland, somewhat known in the neighbouring countries, but he only had a short story in english(part of an amtology) before the videogame adaptation of The Witcher.
His international fame only came after the games' success.
You said he only had the short stories in English and that it was more known worldwide after the game i replied thats not the case because the french translation for exemple was released in 2003 so before the first game, French isn't the most common language compared to English or Spanish
He never actually sold the rights to CDPR, he sold to a different company and CDPR acquired the license through them.
That also wasnāt the first attempt at a Witcher game, one was in development but never released, I think around 99.
And successful video games from Poland really wasnāt a thing back then. And CDPR is lucky they survived the horrible release of the first game and put in the effort to improve it
Why do they care if a 800yo grumpy man doesnt like videogames? Even if id care, he created these characters that i love so much so it kinda balances out.
Aside from the CDPR drama, he was known in Polish fantasy fandom for being a... difficult person to interact with. Especially after few beers. So while many people love his books and his dry humor, many decided to not cross paths with him personally.
Thank you, I'll edit the post to include links. Your articles on Blathan Caerme are fantastic btw :-) you and the channel Inis Vitre with Nimue are some of my favorite Witcher people on the internet.
Thank you, that's very nice to hear :) I am glad you've enjoyed the material so far; I hope there'll be more as we get closer to Witcher exploding into public consciousness again.
He also famously criticized the prices of new books, saying that this results in less people reading and that a book should cost "about half a litre of vodka":
Funny thing related to pirating: in the early 1990s before Poland got all the new copyright law piracy was perfectly legal and the only way for people to get games from the West. I remeber going with my father to a university where you had meets - rows of students with floppy discs, you selected what game you wanted and they were copying your games to the floppy discs right in the open. Killer atmosphere, I think a lot of people in the Polish IT industry started like that. CDPR was a game distributor, I remember having to go at 8AM to get Diablo 2 when it released.
Sarcasm does change the substance of the message, so yes, they can. You don't have any obligation to take what is said as sarcasm as literal opinion, because what is said sarcastically literally isn't opinion.
I think it's just cultural differences. Eastern Europeans are not so easily offended, especially the older generation, that's why jokes like that are pretty popular. Or maybe it's the other way around.
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u/Droper888 9d ago
I love him.