Why Sapkowski shows resentment and hostility towards Witcher games?
Why Sapkowski dislikes the Witcher video games? In a recent interview he once again demonstrated his dislike towards them. Keep reading to find out.
It is a sad day when I have to write a post about such unbelievably controversial topic. How is it possible that the creator of Geralt and his adventures and author of the Witcher series of books, Andrzej Sapkowski, has managed to accumulate this hate and resentment towards the (unofficial) addition to this incredible world he created ~20 years ago – the Witcher video games by CD Projekt Red.
During a meeting with Andrzej Sapkowski on 19th August 2016, he talked a lot about the Witcher series and the games that followed up after that. There is a video (I’ve embedded it below too), but since it’s in Polish and I understand it just as well as I tank in SWTOR (inside joke for the fans of my SWTOR content :P), I dug up an article describing the event and sharing some quotes from the author. It was also in Polish (D’oh!).
Here I present to you some of the most important quotes from Sapkowski’s words. In the bottom of the article I will share a link to a DOC file of the same article in English. Huge thanks to Jan Władeczek for translating it!
All my translations were done much earlier than the game, all of them. And this used my popularity, I did not use the popularity of the game.
After all, he agreed to allow the game developers to create content based on this license. These games helped the books to become even more popular. Until the first Witcher game, only one book was translated in English.
The game has caused me a lot of stink and shit … because the foreign publishers started to use the graphics of the game on the covers. And people rejected the book, saying that it is not new, it is game-related . In the sense that a book was written for the game, which – especially in the fantasy genre – we have plenty. I had to fight to prove who was the first.
There is some logic about the covers of the later editions and publications of the Witcher books. In a recent poll, shared in the Witchr Subreddit, it became clear that the vast majority of Geralt’s fans these days learned about him and his adventures from the 3 games, created by CD Projekt Red.
I’m sure there was some so-called ‘readers group’ which became the target audience for my books only after someone played the game and then picked up the book. Let’s say I agree that this happened. But how big was the audience that was eliminated, because they said they will not read books written “on the basis of the game
He does have a good point, though, regarding the book based on a fantasy game. These days every popular game spawns tons of comics and novels based on it to make the most out of its popularity among the gamers.
I know some people who played this game, but only a few of them, because I rub shoulders mostly with intelligent people
There is absolutely no need, however, to insult all of us, who are both fans of his books and the video games. I consider myself intelligent and at the same time love both Sapkowski books (they received translations in Bulgarian years ago) and the CD Projekt Red’s 3 video games.
While Sapkowski is one of the most translated writers world-wide, he seems to be a bit odd with his behavior regarding his books and the popularity of the series thanks to the video games. I dare not judge too harshly all based on an article and translation of it. His words could be extracted out of context just to create some drama, but this isn’t the first time he shares his negativism towards the video games that not only extended the life of his books, but brought thousands and millions of new fans into the world of The Witcher. I think it’s important to mention here the fact that Sapkowski trashes the games, but never has he said a single bad word about CDPR.
What do YOU think?
► Source: http://polygamia.pl
Here you can find the whole Polish article I used as a source, translated to English, thanks (again) to Jan Władeczek : LINK
Here is the full video. You would probably not find it useful or interesting unless you speak Polish ^^
