CD Projekt hits back in Witcher row
Michal Kicinski admits that payments were late - but only because of production delays
The joint CEO of Polish publisher-developer CD Projekt has hit back at comments made previously by Widescreen Games boss Olivier Masclef regarding a financial dispute over the console editions of hit PC RPG The Witcher.
Masclef previously alleged that payments from Atari and CD Projekt had ceased "after a few months" and that as a result production on the title's conversion had also been put on hold.
But now CD Projekt boss Michal Kicinski has spoken publicly about the situation, and asserted that "all payments were done on time according to [the] milestone plan", and that while it was true that some payments were "later than originally planned but this was solely due to delays in production."
He added, in a statement from the company received by GamesIndustry.biz, that CD Projekt was "evaluating all possible options to continue the production," but that risks to the "planned quality" of the conversions were deemed "absolutely unacceptable" and so "this brought to an end in our cooperation with WSG."
Kicinski also rued the fact that this 'conversation' between the two parties had to take place through the media, but that "we answer here as we feel forced to do this to clarify the unclear information."
The Witcher, an RPG based on the books by Andrzej Sapkowski, was originally released in 2007 for the PC and proved a big hit for the Polish company, selling over 1 million units along the way.
The console editions of the game were announced at an Atari event in the UK late last year, and were expected to have seen a release towards the end of 2009.