Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal
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Witcher Author Demands More Compensation From CD Projekt Red - IGN
Andrzej Sapkowski, the original author of The Witcher series of short stories and novels, has officially demanded further compensation from CD Projekt Red, developers of the highly successful Witcher games based on his work.
I liked the books, but couldn't get into the games. This guy won't admit to hating games, he just thinks they're stupid and worthless for telling stories. Having been proved wrong when they made insane amounts of money telling stories in a video game and making demand for his books in foreign markets increase dramatically, he now wants more money.
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@Magus pic rel
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Yeah, I get a distinct impression that he's a massive knob. There is this "gross discrepancy" Polish copyright law thing, however. I won't pretend understanding it, but as it's been described by various sources reporting on this, it seems like probably a good thing, protecting against scummy publishing houses pulling a fast one over copyright holders.
I'd probably judge this based on the amount of material (characters, places, events) carried from his writings over to the games. This is where I'll have to admit that not only I haven't read the books, but I've never been able to get into Twitcher games either, so I don't know a single thing more about it all. I have them all on Steam, and even the adventure game. But I find Gerald (I insist) so utterly repulsive, for some reason I can't immediately explain, that I can't be arsed to commit to them.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
I'd probably judge this based on the amount of material (characters, places, events) carried from his writings over to the games.
Many. Almost all primary and secondary characters, in fact.
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@Magus said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
he just thinks they're stupid and worthless for telling stories
Yeah, what idiot would think that a fully interactive virtual world could be good for storytelling.
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@anonymous234 surprisingly many. Though they're mostly in the same club as those who think GTA leads to serial killers.
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@Gąska
That rather speaks in his favor, doesn't it?Now, I'm not saying that CDPR intentionally screwed him over. The claim really depends on the exact wording of the original contract. But from reading comments (in before: well, there's your problem) I find that most people tend to blindly defend CDPR pretty much solely because he's a dick. More information is needed.
@Magus said
making demand for his books in foreign markets increase dramatically
This side-effect is orthogonal to the issue, I'm afraid.
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@Gąska said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
@Applied-Mediocrity said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
I'd probably judge this based on the amount of material (characters, places, events) carried from his writings over to the games.
Many. Almost all primary and secondary characters, in fact.
I mean, a large portion of them are dead by the end of the books...
poor Angouleme
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
This side-effect is orthogonal to the issue, I'm afraid.
Well, he argues that the games are ruining everything because there are now a bunch of young people asking about his books, because they played the games, and that the books are what sold the games.
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@Magus said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
@Gąska said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
@Applied-Mediocrity said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
I'd probably judge this based on the amount of material (characters, places, events) carried from his writings over to the games.
Many. Almost all primary and secondary characters, in fact.
I mean, a large portion of them are dead by the end of the books...
They're there too.
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@Gąska That's almost a reason to play it in itself. Except that still seems weird...
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@Magus said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
Well, he argues that the games are ruining everything because there are now a bunch of young people asking about his books, because they played the games, and that the books are what sold the games.
Wait, what? He’s arguing that people who obviously haven’t read the books (else they wouldn’t be asking about them¹), bought the games because they’d read the books?
¹ Unless I misunderstood and you meant: “… are asking questions about things they read in the books”.
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@Gurth He complains about things that are clearly contradictory to what he actually sees, yes.
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@Magus
I suppose what I wanted to say was I didn't see anything about it in the legal document. Now, if he is determined to make a fool of himself publicly by making such obviously dumb statements, I say let him. Doubly so if the case really doesn't have any merit.On the off-chance it does, the defense would do well to respect at least the law, if not the man who did come up with the setting they love so much. And remember that there's no shortage of authors that, politely speaking, are garbage in person.
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@Applied-Mediocrity Oh he may indeed have a case, and I even like his books. I just think he's ridiculous.
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From what I read of the issue, back when CDPR didn't exist and it was just a couple of guys trying to start a game company, they asked him for the rights to make games out of his books. They offered him a percentage of profits or a lump sum, and because he fully expected them to fail he asked for the lump sum (which would have been a significant amount of change for someone starting a company). And supposedly they even offered him to participate in writing for the second and third games, and he turned them down. Now that the company has been successful, he wants a cut of the profits.
I doubt he has a case, it's not like it was an instant boom and the guys screwed him over. If anything, he tried to take advantage of them, getting a quick payout before they went bankrupt. If he'd gone for the percentage fee he'd have what he is now asking for.
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@Kian said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
From what I read of the issue, back when CDPR didn't exist and it was just a couple of guys trying to start a game company, they asked him for the rights to make games out of his books. They offered him a percentage of profits or a lump sum, and because he fully expected them to fail he asked for the lump sum (which would have been a significant amount of change for someone starting a company). And supposedly they even offered him to participate in writing for the second and third games, and he turned them down. Now that the company has been successful, he wants a cut of the profits.
I doubt he has a case, it's not like it was an instant boom and the guys screwed him over. If anything, he tried to take advantage of them, getting a quick payout before they went bankrupt. If he'd gone for the percentage fee he'd have what he is now asking for.
So, not only did he make a bad deal, he's bad with finances too.
There's just too much risk with lump sums.
The only risk with a % is that another company could have done it better.
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@Kian said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
I doubt he has a case, it's not like it was an instant boom and the guys screwed him over. If anything, he tried to take advantage of them, getting a quick payout before they went bankrupt. If he'd gone for the percentage fee he'd have what he is now asking for.
I wouldn't doubt a story that CDPR screwed him over, but the linked article even mentions a specific quote from him:
According to an interview with Eurogamer, Sapkowski declined the offer, saying "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."
Assuming it's real ... though luck. You made the wrong call. Sucks to be you. (Enjoy the profits from selling more books.)
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@xaade said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
@Kian said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
From what I read of the issue, back when CDPR didn't exist and it was just a couple of guys trying to start a game company, they asked him for the rights to make games out of his books. They offered him a percentage of profits or a lump sum, and because he fully expected them to fail he asked for the lump sum (which would have been a significant amount of change for someone starting a company). And supposedly they even offered him to participate in writing for the second and third games, and he turned them down. Now that the company has been successful, he wants a cut of the profits.
I doubt he has a case, it's not like it was an instant boom and the guys screwed him over. If anything, he tried to take advantage of them, getting a quick payout before they went bankrupt. If he'd gone for the percentage fee he'd have what he is now asking for.
So, not only did he make a bad deal, he's bad with finances too.
There's just too much risk with lump sums.
The only risk with a % is that another company could have done it better.
There's risk both ways. Go for the percentage and you might get nothing (whether through the company failing or through funky accounting) but go for the lump sum and you end up with a pittance if they succeed a lot (this case). If you can, get both a lump sum and a percentage and win enough either way.
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@dkf said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
There's risk both ways. Go for the percentage and you might get nothing (whether through the company failing or through funky accounting)
That’s not really a risk, that’s just not getting much money for what amounts to no effort on your part anyway. You can get no money for no effort all day long, so any percentage you do get, is basically profit. It would be a risk if he needed to invest money himself in order to get a percentage out, especially if the alternative would be getting a lump sum without any investment of his own.
But then, IANAE, and since one of their definitions of “loss” is “money you didn’t make” rather than the common-sense “money you once had but not anymore”, taking a percentage probably counts as a risk to them.
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@Gurth Certainly they seem to see "Last year this company increased their profit by 2%, and this year profits increased by only 1.8%" as a sign of certain doom.
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@Gurth said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
That’s not really a risk, that’s just not getting much money for what amounts to no effort on your part anyway.
It is a risk, though it is a missed-opportunity risk; the author has now found out all about how that risk can bite.
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@PleegWat said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
@Gurth Certainly they seem to see "Last year this company increased their profit by 2%, and this year profits increased by only 1.8%" as a sign of certain doom.
We could've sold 7 billion copies at $15 apiece, if not for that one bittorrent guy.
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@topspin said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
We could've sold 7 billion copies at $15 apiece, if not for that one bittorrent guy.
You don't usually get compensated for missed opportunity risk, FWIW. You just get to live with the fact that you could have been living on a private island in the Bahamas (or whatever other fun place to while away the years you'd prefer) and are instead stuck in a leaking tenement in Bumfukistan.
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@dkf said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
It is a risk, though it is a missed-opportunity risk; the author has now found out all about how that risk can bite.
I still can’t see why this is considered a risk. Bad luck or poor choice, sure. But he’s not taking a chance that would actually cost him anything — not getting anything out isn’t a loss if you didn’t need to put anything in yourself, it’s a missed opportunity. (See above what I said about economists, though.)
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@Gurth it basically comes down to whether you consider number zero to be special or not. In decision making process, when you decide to take one of several actions or none at all, it doesn't really make sense to make zero special - not doing anything can also be considered as a kind of choice, and then risk basically becomes about how likely it is that your choice turns out to be suboptimal; that you end up with less money than otherwise. Whereas in context of legal liability, having a static point of reference makes sense, as it enables you to tell if something affected you in positive or negative way. While zero makes sense as point of reference most of the time, it's not universal - for example, if someone gets you fired, you don't lose any money but you still have been negatively affected, and you'd be right to demand compensation.
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@Gąska said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
not doing anything can also be considered as a kind of choice, and then risk basically becomes about how likely it is that your choice turns out to be suboptimal
That’s basically what I’m talking about: the strange definition of “risk”. Not doing something is clearly a choice, but from my perspective, a risk is when there’s a chance of something actually bad happening — not when nothing changes as a result of your choice.
if someone gets you fired, you don't lose any money but you still have been negatively affected, and you'd be right to demand compensation.
I’m not sure how this relates to taking a risk, unless you got fired for something you did yourself (or didn’t do).
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@Gurth said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
@Gąska said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
not doing anything can also be considered as a kind of choice, and then risk basically becomes about how likely it is that your choice turns out to be suboptimal
That’s basically what I’m talking about: the strange definition of “risk”.
It is. Though I'd call it different rather than strange. If only to avoid the associated emotional charge. It's basically a generalization of the common understanding of that word.
Not doing something is clearly a choice, but from my perspective, a risk is when there’s a chance of something actually bad happening — not when nothing changes as a result of your choice.
And how do you tell whether something is bad or merely "not good"? You need a static reference point for that. And "no change" isn't always a good one. Also, chosen reference point affects your decision process, so needlessly including it may lead to bad decisions.
if someone gets you fired, you don't lose any money but you still have been negatively affected, and you'd be right to demand compensation.
I’m not sure how this relates to taking a risk, unless you got fired for something you did yourself (or didn’t do).
Well, I didn't really mean to say it's related to risk. It's just an example that zero change in balance isn't the only valid reference point for determining loss/damages.
And just to be sure nobody gets the wrong idea - I think Sapkowski is full of shit in this case.
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@Gurth said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
That’s basically what I’m talking about: the strange definition of “risk”.
What's weird about it? It's the risk of not getting what you want.
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@Gąska said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
That’s basically what I’m talking about: the strange definition of “risk”.
It is. Though I'd call it different rather than strange.
Which is what leads to confusion. Ask most people, and I think they’ll define “risk” as different from “chance”, but in economics the two seem to be synonymous.
And how do you tell whether something is bad or merely "not good"? You need a static reference point for that. And "no change" isn't always a good one.
If you’re talking about financial risks, like here, then I’d say “bad” is ending with less money than you started with but nothing to show for it, “good” is ending with more money than you started with. I still don’t see how “no change” (not making or losing any money) would be bad, which is what “risk” suggests to me.
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@dkf said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
@Gurth said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
That’s basically what I’m talking about: the strange definition of “risk”.
What's weird about it? It's the risk of not getting what you want.
That’s what I would call the chance of not getting what you want. His situation doesn’t get worse from not having royalties from the games — my situation doesn’t get worse from not playing the lottery, but I wouldn’t call that a risk of losing out on winning the lottery. Buying a lottery ticket is a risk, in my book: I pay money for the ticket and stand to lose it if I don’t win at least as much in that lottery.
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@Gurth said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
@Gąska said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
That’s basically what I’m talking about: the strange definition of “risk”.
It is. Though I'd call it different rather than strange.
Which is what leads to confusion. Ask most people, and I think they’ll define “risk” as different from “chance”, but in economics the two seem to be synonymous.
Because they are the same concept. It's just that the result is on the other side of your chosen reference point, which in practice is rarely relevant.
And how do you tell whether something is bad or merely "not good"? You need a static reference point for that. And "no change" isn't always a good one.
If you’re talking about financial risks, like here, then I’d say “bad” is ending with less money than you started with but nothing to show for it, “good” is ending with more money than you started with. I still don’t see how “no change” (not making or losing any money) would be bad, which is what “risk” suggests to me.
No result is inherently good or bad. They're only better or worse than each other. It's only when you pick one of possible results as your static reference point that the terms "good" and "bad" start making sense. And if you choose "no change" as your reference point, saying that "no change" isn't bad becomes tautology.
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@dkf said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
@Gurth said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
That’s basically what I’m talking about: the strange definition of “risk”.
What's weird about it? It's the risk of not getting what you want.
A null result still isn't risk. There has to be actual loss involved. At least in common language.
We need to separate that from the mathematical definition, of course.
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@Rhywden said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
A null result still isn't risk. There has to be actual loss involved. At least in common language.
I'm arguing that there only has to be perceived loss involved. (The courts usually only deal with actual loss when assessing compensation because perceptions are horribly difficult to prove reasonable; people are advised to keep their perceptions realistic, but they don't. Errare humanum est.) The author perceives that he could have earned a lot more if he had taken different choices, so he views those choices as having been bad. He's not necessarily right because of the other risks that he's now conveniently forgetting about and so on, but that's how it goes. Risk and opportunity are just two faces of the same concept; the differences we erect between them are truly artificial.
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@dkf That's a bit too broad for my tastes. I'll stick with "objective loss", thank you very much.
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@Rhywden that still works in this case because you can work that out once you see how well the game sold. Not really that different from the risk involved in any other investment.
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@boomzilla Well, I meant loss as in "state before the deal > state after the deal"
From the philosophical school of: "If you never possessed something to begin with can you lose it?"
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@Rhywden if you never physically held money on your bank account in your pocket, can you lose it?
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I don't know the details (and am too lazy to read TFA) but given the mediocre reception the first witcher game got, they would quite possibly not have made the second if they'd had to re-enter license negotiations for it.
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@Gąska Since the money in question is legally in my possession, yes?
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@Rhywden the money is legally in possession of the bank vault (or not - fractional reserve etc.) You're just allowed to withdraw such and such amount, at which point you become the owner of the coins and bills you've withdrawn.
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@Gąska said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
@Rhywden the money is legally in possession of the bank vault (or not - fractional reserve etc.) You're just allowed to withdraw such and such amount, at which point you become the owner of the coins and bills you've withdrawn.
I don’t feel like trying to read up on laws etc. to find out if what you’ve just written is true, but I doubt it is. Because what you appear to be saying is that money someone deposits in a bank, becomes the property of the bank until the depositor withdraws it again with the bank’s permission. Shirley the situation is the other way around: the money is the possession of the person who deposits it, and who thereby allows the bank to hold onto it until he or she claims it back.
Unless, of course, you’re going to argue that with “possession” you meant “physically in possession of.”
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@Gurth said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
@Gąska said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
@Rhywden the money is legally in possession of the bank vault (or not - fractional reserve etc.) You're just allowed to withdraw such and such amount, at which point you become the owner of the coins and bills you've withdrawn.
I don’t feel like trying to read up on laws etc. to find out if what you’ve just written is true, but I doubt it is.
Who said anything about laws? @Rhywden wanted to go philosophical, so I went philosophical. As most philosophy, it has nothing to do with real life.
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He was offered % of profits and participation in creation of the games - he declined it, took the lump sum and talked about it multiple times (as a good decision at first).
He also bad mouthed Witcher games many times as not true adaptation of his work.
He doesn't have a case on those things alone, but also, as I understand it, there's no case at all, because
copyright paragraph 40 doesn't apply here. It is about profiting disproportionally from someones work - like when you record a song, sell it for 10$ and record label makes millions on it, or write a book, sell it and publisher makes 1000 times more than he payed you. It's not the case here, he sold stories, characters and names, not the books which were the real 'work' here. He didn't work on the games at all.And he knows it very well. I don't know if it's described in IGN article, but the claim he sent to CDPR was not public (CDPR published it) and contained phrases like "it wouldn't be good for your public image if my claims of mistreatment went to the media, would it?". Timing of the claim is also not random - Gwent comes out of beta in few weeks.
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@Rhywden said in Polish Man Gets Mad Because He Made A Bad Deal:
@boomzilla Well, I meant loss as in "state before the deal > state after the deal"
From the philosophical school of: "If you never possessed something to begin with can you lose it?"
That's not a very good school if it ignores opportunities as being something that you can lose.
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@boomzilla it all really depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to make profit, you're right. But if your goal is to be a pedantic dickweed on online forum, then @Rhywden's philosophical school is probably the best you can find.
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@boomzilla I would define it as "missed opportunity" but not as "risk".
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@Gąska By that logic, we actually don't possess money we only have discs made of metal and paper someone printed something on.
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@Rhywden what's the definition of money? Last I checked, it was designated metal disks and pieces of paper.
