Earlier this year Polish developer CD Projekt Red got into a legal scuffle with Namco Bandai over the distribution rights to the Xbox 360 port of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Now a French court has made it quite clear: THQ is out, and Namco Bandai is in.
Despite having had Namco Bandai handle European publishing of the PC version of the award-winning, role-playing sequel, CD Projekt Red decided to go in a different direction for the Xbox 360 version of the game, signing a deal with THQ instead. Flummoxed over that action and some issues involving removing DRM from the PC version without its permission, Namco Bandai took CD Projekt Red to court, and now they’ve won.
In the US, a situation like this would have ended with a substantial financial settlement in Namco Bandai’s favour, leaving CD Projekt free to distribute the game as they pleased once money was passed. In Europe, however, it looks like the judge has the power to tell a software developer who their distribution partner is going to be, and in this case it’s Namco Bandai.
CD Projekt Red must offer Namco Bandai a similar agreement to that originally given THQ within 15 days of the ruling, with a fine of 15 thousand euros for each day they fail to comply beyond that.
Luckily for hopeful Xbox witchers CD Projekt plans on getting the agreement in place as soon as possible so it can shift focus to polishing up the game, due out early next year. THQ, while likely saddened by this turn of events, had yet to take any action towards publishing The Witcher 2, so their losses based on the dropped contract should be light, if any.
What fun that must be, being forced to work with the company you tried to break an agreement with. I bet the feeling of trust there is incredible.
The French court ruled on a dispute CD Projekt Red with Namco Bandai [Parkiet.com - Translated from Polish -- Thanks Vojtas!]
David
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 11:54 AMPoor bastards. Namco are the ones who &*(%’D them down-under.
Inappropriate Kangaroo
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 11:57 AMplease explain
Thom
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 12:04 PMNamco forced them to add DRM and region locking. They weren’t happy about being forced to look like assholes, so they also provided gamers with a work-around. Namco bitched and moaned.
David
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 4:14 PMMoreover, Namco inflated the Australian Boxed retail cost and then went to court to force CDProjekt to increase the price of the product on GOG.com.
GOG.com (and CDProjekt – who are the same company) then went and said any Aussie who gets the game at the inflated price will get store credit to the value of the excess.
One final note was that the ACCC said that as this was a private agreement there was no way they could intervene – despite both CDProjekt and the Australian Consumer being asked to bend over.
allanon10101
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 12:00 PMI fail to see how a court could justify this provided they specified “PC release” in the original distribution agreement. But meh
Sam
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 12:16 PMIs there a legal system in the world that isn’t effing retarded in some way? Wait don’t answer that. Such a brilliant developer that just keeps getting screwed by this crap.
Luis
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 12:22 PMCD Projeckt reneged on a deal, now they have to follow through.
Suck balls, but you gotta consider hwo fair it is to fuck Namco over as well.
GoodOleTones
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 12:39 PMI hope that this sells well on 360, unlike the hugely pirated pc version. I havent played this, but I hear nothing but good things. I know I’d definetly buy this if it came out on PS3 (the key word here is ‘buy’ for all you pc pirates, you sicken me!)
bill
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 12:53 PMDespite being hugely pirated, it still sold over 1.5m on PC alone
GoodOleTones
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 1:44 PMAh sweet, good to hear. Thanks:)
Slek
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 5:23 PMThe piracy figures on PC are woefully overestimated. A “moderate” internet connection would take around 10-14 hours to download TW2, not 6 hours. Immediately that halves the number of pirated copies originally estimated. It’s closer to 2.2 million pirates copies.
Also; piracy is just as rife on consoles as on PC. The difference being that there’s far more console players than PC players to offset the hypothetical loss of money.
Black Dahlia NZ
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 12:45 PMcant wait to play this on 360, anyone know a date, wikipedia says Q1 2012 anything more accurate?
Jake
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 1:07 PMThis seems pretty fair to be honest. They did back out of a deal with a publisher. They should have read the fine print.
Trex
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 1:24 PMWeren’t Namco the reason Steams price for the Witcher 2 doubled for us here in Australia and why you couldn’t buy it digital from overseas until COG gave them a big fat middle finger and removed region checking on check out?
Bloody middle men hey.