“This is not entertainment for me”: the author of The Witcher has a strong opinion about video games

The author and creator of the universe of The Witcher, Andrzej Sapkowski, had already shown in the past his lack of enthusiasm for media adaptations of his worksbe it the Netflix series or, especially, the world-famous role-playing game series from CD Projekt.

Now, he has again expressed criticism of video games as a medium. In an interview at the Vienna Comic Con, which recently took place on November 23-24, 2023, Sapkowski offered a interview. In it, he made it clear how he sees game adaptations…

“Each adaptation was strange for me”

It all starts with the interviewer asking if there are any characters in the series and game adaptations so far that come close to Sapkowski’s vision for writing in terms of appearance.

Sapkowski lets out a brief laugh, then becomes clear: “Every adaptation I’ve seen seemed strange to me.“. But the author does not necessarily mean it in a negative way, He just doesn’t think about images when writing, so he’s never worried about it..

He then rates some of the visual interpretations he has seen as sometimes very pleasant, likeable and sometimes not, without going into details. This leaves up in the air what you think of CD Projekt’s role-playing games.

However, he drops a revealing clue in the last seconds of the video: in the interview he is asked if he has ever played video games:

“No no, I don’t have time for that and it’s not entertainment for me.. […] I have never played and I don’t intend to either. For me, they are more advertising than entertainment.”

This sounds like Andrzej Sapkowski has no appreciation for either CD Projekt’s highly praised work or Netflix’s adaptation of his novels.