The Witcher series became a staple and iconic franchise from CD Projekt Red. There’s plenty of aspects that made the series such a success, but at the root of this franchise is the incredible narrative story. As you might have already known, the Witcher series came from a series of novels from the author Andrzej Sapkowski and while he’s incredibly thrilled over the success, he’s not making a dime from any purchases.
When it comes to the Witcher series, the development team managed to turn a big profit after the three titles went on to sell countless copies in both digital and physical format. One would suspect that the author and original owner of the rights would have some percentage after each sale is made.
It turns out that this isn’t the case after an interview between the author and Eurogamer. Speaking to Eurogamer, author Sapkowski stated that CD Projekt Red came in with two options, a large sum of money for the rights or offered a percentage for each copy sold.
Unfortunately, the author didn’t believe in their success and went for the easy money.
“I was stupid enough to sell them rights to the whole bunch. 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.”
While it may seem like the author is slightly bitter over his decision, he did make statements stating that the success the developers had was well deserved as the game series was very well done.
