Financial dispute puts Witcher on hold

By Games Industry.biz Published 29 April, 2009

Work stops on console versions.

The console versions of highly-anticipated RPG The Witcher have been put on hold by developer Widescreen Games after over a year of work, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

French studio Widescreen had been developing Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the PC game, complete with new exclusive material, for Polish developer CD Projekt since March 2008, but a lack of payment has left Widescreen with no other option but to suspend development, claims CEO Olivier Masclef.

"Basically, after a few months of not being paid, we stopped," said Masclef speaking to GamesIndustry.biz. "We've not been paid for a few months and we had a very nasty broken payment. We had no choice but to put the product on hold. We've not been able to find a solution."

Masclef claims Widescreen was also kept in the dark and not informed of new milestone dates for the project, along with added features, which publisher Atari was expecting following discussions with CD Projekt.

"We were not involved in discussions with Atari and CD Projekt. The financial situation seems to have grown more and more difficult," he said.

The game, The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf, was due to go alpha in June, but work stopped three weeks ago. A frustrated Mesclef told GamesIndustry.biz that the troubles have also harmed Widescreen's relationship with distributor Namco Bandai, after early indication that the title would sell well at retail.

"It's unfortunate because we have very nice technology, we've replicated all the features of The Witcher," he detailed. "Atari has validated the product and seen that our tech is working. And we've heard that the distributors have been committing a very high volume for the title, and it was extremely promising. It's a very silly situation. I can't disclose the budget, but it would be a profitable title if it hit the shelves. But at this stage it will not."

He added: "I really don't like the situation because we've also had a good relationship with Namco Bandai, and it's a huge chunk of their portfolio. Historically we've always had extremely good relationship, we really respect them and we've worked with them in the past, they have a lot of time for developers. I feel sorry for them because they're not going to have this title."

CD Projekt told GamesIndustry.biz that it would not comment on the situation.

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Comments (15) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • suicida #1 3 years ago

    Nooooooooo! Sort it out as I was really looking forward to this :-(

  • Eraysor #2 3 years ago

    Shame really, I've been waiting for this in the hope that they'll polish it some more for console release, owing to patching being slightly more difficult.

  • bdc #3 3 years ago

    Red tape is such bullshit in the industry. You pay the people to make the game for you, end of story, no exceptions. These people need food on the table and a roof over their heads too. Don't take the piss.

  • Baranga #4 3 years ago

    Console game is dying, folks.

  • dudefella #5 3 years ago

    nooooooooooooo!

    Someone pick this up please!

  • st.anger #6 3 years ago

    RIP

  • OdinsEinherjer #7 3 years ago

    I hope they fix this issue soon,i was really looking forward to playing this game...

  • Gnort #8 3 years ago

    Lol @ Baranga

    Seriously, though, this sounds horrible. I really hope CD Projekt isn't about to go belly-up, they were doing some really great things.

  • metalangel #9 3 years ago

    While I'd love to play as Albino Viggo Mortensen and go around knobbing all the redheads in the land... I'll settle for Dragon Age.

  • thesombrerokid #10 3 years ago

    @dudefella
    this isn't a matter of being picked up, this is a dispute between the licence owner and the developer and so is unlikely to be resolved quickly

  • TuftyMcTavish #11 3 years ago

    Dammnnnn, I was *really* looking forward to trying this out on Xbox. I've held off buying the (enhanced) PC version for this reason as I'd rather play on my Xbox than on my PC.

  • BastoJ #12 3 years ago

    In fairness you might enjoy it more on PC, unless it's a brilliant port I imagine it'll be very fiddly on console. Having said that I've got the PC version and was planning to get the 360 version just to play it through again. Preferably this time with faster loads :D

  • marty_k #13 3 years ago

    I suggest checking out what both parties have to say on this matter before drawing any assumptions.

    CDP's Michal commented whole mess on VG247:

    It is sad that we cannot talk with WSG in normal business way, but communicate through media. It is absolutely not our style of making business, and we answer here as we feel forced to do this to clarify the unclear information:
    1. All payments were done on time according to milestone plan.
    2. Truth is that payments were later than originally planned but this was solely due to delays in production. The delays were growing in the project due to WSG continued to miss the deadlines.
    3. Delays and risks of further development by WSG were unacceptable by CD Projekt (this happened even though CDProjekt RED was constantly increasing main team involvement to help in the production). The most important fact is that development process didn’t make planned release date possible and moreover propositions of the new release date were changing few times. Besides the schedule, technical incapability created a risk of missing planned quality which is absolutely unacceptable. And this brought an end in our cooperation with WSG.
    4. Currently the works are on hold. We are evaluating all possible options to continue the production.
    Making this decision was extremely difficult and sad as we know that many people are waiting for this project. We do our best to find a way out of this situation. But final decision must guarantee high quality of the product, otherwise we won’t continue the production no matter what consequences it will bring. We are committed to the highest quality of all our games, and this is unnegotiable for us.
    So no matter what the final decision or solution we will find, please be sure that it will be the best for the game quality, and satisfaction of gamers, which is the most important for us!

    Michal Kicinski
    Joint CEO
    CD Projekt Group

  • michaelius #14 3 years ago

    [link url=http://polygamia.pl/Po lygamia/1,95338,6556537,Ekskluzywny_wywiad_z_Michalem_Kicins kim.html
    ]http://po lygamia.pl/Polygamia/1,95338,65...[/link]

    < - english translation at the end

    cd project responce : lack of payment was caused by not reaching milestones in production and lack of possibility to publish game in planned time.

  • w00t #15 3 years ago

    But... I want it :(