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gnatsaredancing t1_j1m4jll wrote

So underrated that it resulted in a whole bunch of games and tv series while making the writer very wealthy indeed and growing the game studio into a billion dollar business.

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dornwolf t1_j1m5ud8 wrote

To be fair at the time despite being well know in his home country, the the witcher wasn’t well known. It took to at least the second games release to even start getting English translations which just up and stopped at one point. Finally took till the third game to actually find that mainstream success. That’s when the books all got translated before it’s release, Netflix took interest in it again probably due to 3s popularity more than anything. Most people I think get them mixed up and think the games came first.

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nevereatpears t1_j1p8xhm wrote

Yeah the copies I read were ones that had actually been translated on Reddit. Apparently for years that's the only way fans could read the series, via the subreddit's own translations.

I've looked at the official translation and the fan translation side by side and they are near identical in fact. I'd even say that the fan one is better as the writing is less formal and stilted and more fluid and colloquial.

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_AverageBookEnjoyer_ t1_j1mb214 wrote

It’s also fair to point out the first two Witcher games (the first in particular) were very niche games. The third game was the true gateway drug for most of the people who got interested in The Witcher.

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[deleted] OP t1_j1m9sty wrote

Lmao. I was more saying they are underrated in comparison to the games and show. Apologies for not editing my post sooner.

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[deleted] OP t1_j1m51m5 wrote

I might edit my post to make it a little more clear what I mean. I think that more people should read the books considering how overshadowed they are in comparison to the show and games. Which is why I consider them "Underrated"

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gnatsaredancing t1_j1m5pb1 wrote

The books resulted in a billion dollar merchandise and media industry exactly because the stories were quite popular already.

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zedatkinszed t1_j1m9fda wrote

No that's factually inaccurate. The games "resulted in a billion dollar merchandise and media industry" more specifically Witcher 2 & 3.

Up till then outside Eastern Europe the books were relatively unlnown. Proof of this is that they only finished translating the books into English after the Witcher 3 was released.

After Witcher 2 was released there was 1 set of short stories and maybe 2 of the novels in English.

So no. This is just not true. At least in English speaking world.

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[deleted] OP t1_j1m69xe wrote

Nope. Quite the opposite. CDPR was a relatively small publishing company that saw an opportunity in a video game license with Andrez as he was "The Pride of Poland" at the time, despite not being very popular outside of his home country. Sapkowski even decided to take a flat payment instead of a percentage-based payment due to his lack of faith in the success of the game outside Poland.

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theburiedxme t1_j1m7bt6 wrote

Flat instead of % is a big ouch :( Seems many here aren't getting it for some reason.

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[deleted] OP t1_j1m7r1b wrote

Yeah, he still got 16 mill out of it. Also, I expected to get downvoted into the shadow realm, despite my disclaimer at the end. Mostly because Reddit can't read lmao.

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BankshotVanguard t1_j1m67uo wrote

I agree with OP, if you consider the popularity of the games and show and other spinoff media, by comparison, the books are underrated.

But I think, without comparing them, the books themselves are popular in comparison to books that didn't receive any spinoff media.

Like, I really like The Tapestry series by Henry Neff, and I'd consider it underrated, and. It's definitely less read known than The Witcher.

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