Always bet on Black... Unless you bet on CD Projekt Red... (Gaming)

by Korny , Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Saturday, March 25, 2017, 13:53 (2588 days ago) @ Claude Errera

http://www.pcgamer.com/the-witcher-author-refused-a-profit-sharing-deal-with-cd-projekt-it-was-stupid/

The dude who wrote the stories the Witcher games were based on refused a percentage of the games' profits, because he didn't believe they'd make any. He demanded a lump-sum payment up front instead.

Now he's a little annoyed. :)

That would make him the anti-George Lucas in terms of business deals. It's a bummer, but it goes to show you the difference in long-term investment vs. instant gratification.

Like he said though, the success wasn't very foreseeable. CD Projekt hadn't made anything worthwhile up to that point (pretty much just some game localizations), and the rights had already been sold to a mobile developer who simply sat on them.

The odds of a small developer crafting a hit half as successful as the Witcher series ended up being were slim.
No word on how much he sold the rights for other than "the bag of money" (which in Polish currency couldn't have been a whole lot)... But when you consider that Witcher 3 alone has shipped more than 10 million copies (with a direct profit of nearly $100 million for CD Projekt), it's easy to see why he's awful bitter...