CD Projekt refutes Widescreen payment claims over Witcher
CD Projekt CEO Michal Kicinski has claimed that payments to Widescreen in relation to The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf development were met as per contract, despite Widescreen telling VG247 today that CDP failed in its financial obligations with the game.
The following was posted in the comments thread of this article, which contained quoted from Widescreen boss Olivier Masclef on the matter:
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