Um... no. While Sapkowski is certainly a piece of work...
1) The books were pretty famous already in Eastern Europe, he was a cult author in Poland and Russia. And he wasn't exactly unknown in Germany too - the books were all available in German before the games. There were English fan translations of at least the short stories too.
Of course the success of the games made the books known in rest of the world... but "no one gave a shit" is simply not true.
2) Sapkowski did not demand a "huge sum". The problem was CDP offered him profit sharing which he declined not believing in the success of the game. He took a - for what Witcher became - ridiculously low fixed sum for the rights instead and of course regretted it later.
Some argue that CDP screwed him over because the contract was for one game, but they made three. At least they came to a new agreement with him, paid him an unknown amount of money last year and will in some way continue the franchise - everyone is happy now.

He is being an ass for denying how the game made his books popular in the west, agreed. He's a quirky old man though. Another Polish legend - Stanislaw Lem - also was a piece of work with some strange view in his old age.

I was scrolling through this thread waiting for someone to mention Chronicles of Riddick, and was surprised to have to wait till the 11th post :D. The movies were perhaps goofy fun with some interesting ideas, but the game was way better.

I hadn't even thought of the Witcher, but I have to agree there as well. While I haven't completed a single Witcher game, I've gotten a lot further than I did with the book I tried reading (Blood of Elves). That was mainly due to the writing style, however.

I definitely agree that TMNT games are much better (even in terms of the story) than 80-s TMNT cartoon.

I'm also inclined to rate Blade Runner game better than the movie. But it's mostly because the movie is really inferior to the book and can only be praized for it's visual design.

Witcher games are as good as the books. I like both equally, even if Sapkowskii himself is indeed a dick.

I haven't played Voyager: Elite Force, but considering how boring tv-show was, I wouldn't be surprised if the game surpasses any of it's episodes.

As my contribution to this thread, I would name Total War series. Devs from Creative Assembly said numerous times that their game is based on (or at least inspired by) Sun Tzu's "Art of War". The book describes military doctrines and conventions and it's actually a good read. But in Total War you actually apply all those ideas in practice, which is so much better and fun!

At least we can agree on this. As an aside I remember reading an article from a famous danish journalist who was a big fan of Lech Wałęsa, the polish union person and statesman, and the journalist said he was extremely moody and very hard to interview as well so maybe this is just a polish trait? Though to be fair I guess you can easily find danish or german old geezers who are also moody and difficult to be around so maybe we shouldn't generalize too much here.

I'm totally in favor of Sapkowski being compensated for his work and given the respect he deserve but what really got to me was his dismissal of video games as an artistic medium and him just trying to cash in on it while not acknowledging the games being a huge reason for the books success in the west. But you did make a strong argument for why I was too harsh in my original post.

I think it's mostly a trait of older people... especially if they are or have been of some importance. I remember reading an interview with Stanislaw Lem (whom I hold in the greatest regards as an author) where he essentially grumbled about the internet and how it would have no future... with such a high-horse attitude and feeling of self-importance. It was so embarrassing to read that it was painful.

That so reminded me of Lem in the nineties...

Grumpy and quirky as he might be, the Witcher books are IMO excellent on so many levels, I would really consider myself a fan, and I don't say this lightly any more. I didn't like the medieval trilogy that much and found it a bit of a disappointment, so I'm a pure Witcher fanboy, not a Sapkowski fanboy ;-)
His short stories (in Something Ends, Something Begins) are pretty great too though.
The first book is actually The Last Wish, followed by Sword of Destiny.

What translation did you read?

Are you one of those who quit after first 3 seasons ? I agree those were not good, but the last 4 season were a lot better. I especially liked the bigger focus on Borg and later species 8472 and Seven Of Nine ended up being one of the best characters. One thing I like better than in TNG and originals is that it has on overarching plot and an end goal, they weren't just goofing around in space. I think the show's biggest problems were poor characters like Kes, Chakotay, Tom, Kim who were very uninteresting.

Voyager Elite Force would definitely make one of the best episodes, but not only Voyager, but entire Star Trek. It was very well made, but I can't say the gameplay was very special. The expansion pack was cool where you could walk around a 3D Voyager. I didn't like the sequel though.

Are you sure that they weren't? Most episodes had nothing to do with end goal and were just "anomaly of the week" that could easily be in original series. There were a few moderately interesting story arcs, but they were never finished. Krenim altering timeline, Hologram rebellion, Vaadvar, Suspiria's Okampa - everything was just left hanging as a lose thread.

I never watched an episode of Star Trek Voyager, but Elite Force was such a great game! I never played the sequel though.

Another one worth mentioning is Command & Conquer: Renegade. I never really got into the Command & Conquer series, but this spinoff was such a blast to play.

Saying no future is obviously wrong, even without hindsight. That said, I read that he was worried about the influence of combination of capitalism and constant technological development for the human species. That however might have been his musings in his younger years so maybe he just got grumpy in old age. He was a great author though, I recently read 2 of his works and I was surprised by the level of clarity and humour it was in his books. I tried to find his non-fiction work but it was tricky. I should check my local library.

Coincidentally, I continued reading the Witcher Saga recently after a 3 year break, finished Baptism of Fire today and I liked it a lot. I am also currently playing Witcher 3 a second play through and finished the Netflix series 2 weeks ago. It was okay but it helped spark my interest to continue with the books and the game hehe.

What's juvenile about Feist? I've only read the Riftwar trilogy novels but I don't remember anything that I would consider juvenile.

My wife always says it's a Baptism of Fire for the reader... because nothing positive ever happens (story progress is really slow compared to the other books), Geralt is grumpy and whining, Ciri... well... It's the book my wife liked the least.
I think she has a point, but for me it was not as painful to read somehow. I would agree that it's the least "entertaining" of the novels though.

Well, I liked Magician the first time I read it, shortly after it was published. A few years ago I reread it and read the rest of the Riftwar trilogy. In the meantime I had read GRR Martin, Bakker and others, and the style of the Riftwar novels was very juvenile in comparison. Also, with one exception IIRC, none of the good guys die. All very neat and tidy. And the first book is also a coming-of-age story.

Yeah, I recently picked up the Krondor novels for about .25 cents each at a library sale. While far from the grimdark of Abercrombie or dark fantasy of Martin and probably would live in the B tier of epic fantasy, I'm quite enjoying them. To each their own.

I liked the Blue Dragon Games more then the anime