Andrzej Sapkowski doesn't like computer games, hasn't played The Witcher series
Andrzej Sapkowski doesn't like computer games, hasn't played The Witcher series
Interview - posted by Infinitron on Wed 14 November 2012, 14:28:13
Tags: Andrzej Sapkowski; CD Projekt; Witcher, TheThere's an interview of sorts with Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski over at Eurogamer. Actually, it's more like a series of rants. Some snippets:
Read the entire thing for more entertaining Polish curmudgeonry. There's also an official response from CD Projekt RED.
"I've never played any computer games, be it fantasy or others. Sometimes I read through dedicated gaming magazines or watch television programmes. Graphics and technology, sometimes, I admire. I cannot say anything about the plots, though. Apart from the fact that some types of games seem to lack any story whatsoever. Those seem to be all about the hack and slash."
"The game - with all due respect to it, but let's finally say it openly - is not an 'alternative version', nor a sequel. The game is a free adaptation containing elements of my work; an adaptation created by different authors," he noted.
"Adaptations - although they can in a way relate to the story told in the books - can never aspire to the role of a follow-up. They can never add prologues nor prequels, let alone epilogues and sequels.
"If we level the field between books and their adaptations in other media, only the former can be the ones telling a story," he stated. "There can never be a different relation between a book and its adaptation, other than the one that without the book the adaptation would not exist at all.
"I realise that current times accustom us - which I find terrible - to the strange convergence of media and the freedom of mixing them. To me as a writer, the idea to write 'adjuvant content' and create something 'complementary' to a game or a comic is an absolute pinnacle of idiocy."
"I believe it is the success of my books that significantly affects the popularity of the games," he returned. "That in reality, the games used this fact, as my success beat the games to the punch.
"The translations of my books into most European languages - including English - preceded the release of the first game. Long before the game - and it's a known fact - I was a well known writer, even there, where there have been no translations of my work.
Read the entire thing for more entertaining Polish curmudgeonry. There's also an official response from CD Projekt RED.