What happened in the CD Projekt lawsuits?

CD Projekt frequently came up with the Witcher and then Cyberpunk 2077 lawsuits. So what happened during these processes?
CD Projekt Lawsuit
CD Projekt has survived many lawsuits.

CD Projekt lawsuits are one of the long-standing topics in the game agenda. CD Projekt, which stole the hearts of the masses, especially with the Witcher 3 game, created a high expectation for Cyberpunk 2077. But different lawsuits were filed against the company regarding both Witcher and Cyberpunk games.

CD Projekt Witcher Lawsuit

Polish game company CD Projekt has a turbulent history. Founded by two Polish game lovers in the 1980s, the company’s origin is based on pirated games. At that time, when digital games were not standard, it was tough to access the games. People who wanted to play games had to turn to pirated games to access these games. In such an environment, CD Projekt was first established in the pirated game industry.

Towards the end of the pirate era, CD Projekt began legally accessing and selling games in Poland. In its time, this business was quite innovative. In fact, the word “CD” in the company’s name comes from CDs (Compact Disk), which was a new storage technology at that time.

The name CD Projekt comes from Compact Disks, a new technology at that time.

CD Projekt turned into a game distributor at the end of this journey. It started selling original games imported from other countries and studios in Poland. For example, Baldur’s Gate’s game at that time was distributed in Poland by CD Projekt. This distribution industry has gradually transformed CD Projekt into a game studio.

As it is known, the Witcher game series is one of the most important products of CD Projekt. When the company first considered making the Witcher game, it spoke to Andrzej Sapkowski, author of the Witcher novel. The founders of CD Projekt first offered Andrzej Sapkowski a fee commensurate with the profits they would make from the game. The author did not accept this. After long negotiations, CD Projekt bought the rights to the Witcher game from the author for £10,000.

With the Witcher 3 game, CD Projekt became one of the big game companies known worldwide. But the writer Andrzej Sapkowski was not satisfied with his current situation and felt that he should be paid more. CD Projekt, which earned a huge income after the Witcher 3 game, said that Andrzej Sapkowski was unfair because it had already bought the game rights.

Things escalated quickly, and writer Sapkowski filed a copyright lawsuit against CD Projekt for $16 million in 2018. This lawsuit seemed to take quite a long time. That’s why CD Projekt and Andrzej Sapkowski made a deal. CD Projekt paid an undisclosed amount of money as part of the deal, so the author dropped the lawsuit. All we know here is that the author was paid less than $16 million.

Andrzej-Sapkowsk-Witcher-CD-Project
Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski

CD Projekt Cyberpunk Lawsuits

CD Projekt also came to the fore with the Cyberpunk 2077 lawsuits. After The Witcher 3, expectations were quite high for Cyberpunk 2077, another game made by CD Projekt. Unfortunately, Cyberpunk was released “almost unplayable” specifically on the Playstation platform.

There were so many technical problems with the game called “bugs” that CD Projekt met with great anger from its fans. Players who have waited for years for the Cyberpunk 2077 game have frequently expressed that they are not at all satisfied with the product they encounter.

The fact that the game had so many technical flaws caused losses of some platforms, players, and CD Projekt. For example, Sony removed Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store a week after its release. Users who bought the game with a prepayment or after it was released thought that they could not get their money’s worth.

Cyberpunk-CD-Project-Lawsuit
Cyberpunk game was almost unplayable, especially on older generation consoles.

Seeing the mistakes and reactions, CD Projekt had the game recalled from some platforms and went to fulfill their refund requests. It released back-to-back updates and patches for Cyberpunk while the game was still on the market. During this “repair” period of nearly six months, some problems were still unresolved.

It was at this time that the dissatisfied company investors chose to sue CD Projekt. Multiple lawsuits filed against Cyberpunk were combined and presented to the court. Meanwhile, statements and reports came one after another from CD Projekt.

For CD Projekt, the settlement process with some of these plaintiffs is still ongoing. A settlement and update period was granted until January 13, 2022, for consolidated lawsuits against the company. During this time, new agreements, evidence, and records were collected presented to the company and the court. Meanwhile, Cyberpunk 2077 updates for next-generation consoles have been postponed to 2022.

Long negotiations took place between CD Projekt and its investors who sued it. According to the latest news, CD Projekt has chosen a solution similar to the one in the Witcher case. CD Projekt agreed to pay the plaintiffs $1.85 million. However, some leading plaintiffs have consented to this, but objections have also risen. At this point, CD Projekt reported that many cases brought against it were resolved out of court.

These statements, however, provoked other reactions. Considering the approximately $316 million allocated for Cyberpunk’s development budget, the $1.85 million payment was deemed insufficient. With all these details, some of the Cyberpunk lawsuits filed against CD Projekt continue.

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