Giernik Gada - Adam Badowski CD Projekt RED

Yes, hello, hello, hello Michał and hello to the audience.

No, besides that I wasn't the lead designer, I was the project director, which combines organizational functions with setting the game's direction, but the rest is correct. Maybe it's too formal. Okay, no more formalities, just to make it sound nice. So, a person who had a big influence on The Witcher and still has a big influence on what's happening at CD Projekt Red, to put it bluntly, that fits, right?

To be honest, I did have some vacation, but it wasn't very long. I was on a two-week vacation because 2011 was very intense, and it's not over for us yet. At least until the release of The Witcher on Xbox, it will be intense all the time. So we're heading towards that Xbox 360, and then we'll have some things to do with new titles. We're happy about that because there won't be any downtime.

Yes, exactly. On May 17th we released the PC version, then we had to clean up a bit with patches after the premiere, but we quickly moved on to version 2.0, which added new features to the game. And at the same time, we were working on the Xbox version, details of which we'll learn on January 26th, which is soon.

Yes, because the situation was quite complicated. On one hand, we were incredibly happy that we managed to finish the project on time, but on the other hand, we slipped up with the installer, which was a fly in the ointment. But you have to look forward. Wait, if I may interject, it's about the pre-orders, right?

Yes, it was a complicated matter, and it's still ongoing in a sense. We are actively fighting against treating players as customers who are separated from the producers and the product, as if they can be treated statistically. We ourselves are gamers, and we want players to be as satisfied with the game as possible. For example, we wanted to get rid of DRMs, but we couldn't do that for various reasons. That caused the game to run slower and worse. It was the publisher's decision, and it caused us some trouble at the end. On the other hand, there was a problem with the online service that handled the initial activation, which was required to play. Unfortunately, it didn't work out as we wanted, and I think many people were upset about it. We apologized to our players many times, and I apologize again for that rocky start. I think it will never happen again. We learned something from it.

This is very interesting. The game was indeed lacking a tutorial for various reasons. These are some behind-the-scenes insights. We treat the player, especially the PC player, as an elite gamer who can handle many things quite well and is not stupid. So we took a risk and made a rather hardcore entry into the game. Professionally, this is called pacing or a difficulty curve. And we overshot that a bit. We thought it would be easy because we had gotten used to it ourselves. We abandoned a standard tutorial. Tips did appear at the beginning of the game for the first action of a given type, and everything was described in the journal from the start. However, it turned out that wasn't enough. There's no point in digging in your heels, especially if you don't believe in it yourself. So we quickly got to work and decided to fill that gap. As for version 2.0 itself, it wasn't about fixing bugs, because we did that earlier in patches. It was something we wanted to do additionally, besides the tutorial. We added an arena and a few other features, which were completely external, additional elements, consistent with the studio's philosophy that if we had time, and it's not even about money, we would simply try to keep improving the product so that people would want to come back to the game.

It's like with the Enhanced Edition of the first Witcher. I know this might be seen as a policy statement or cheap coquetry, but we genuinely want to change the trends in this market a bit. We are a company that pays its own bills. We are independent. It's our IP. We have distribution deals, not classic publisher deals, so we can afford a bit more freedom in creating our product and in our contact with players. We really care about how our company and our games are received by players. The things we do, as we've declared many times, are focused on the player. I'm saying that every time we are not limited by a publisher or a platform, we will deliver free additions to players. That was the case with 2.0. It's harder with the Xbox version, for example, because Microsoft requires us to pay for every addition. But that's an external factor. If it's up to us, we will always try to do it with the player in mind. We want to make money on the product, of course, but on the main game, and to build trust among players that it's worth playing, that this is something we build together.

Well, The Witcher is a different game than Deus Ex and a different game than Dragon Age. The most interesting product in this competition, the most interesting game this year, is absolutely Skyrim, in my opinion. It's a game that shows the power of a single-player game without any additional services, multiplayer, or anything like that. It shows that a big fantasy world with an old-school approach is something players really like. There are a huge number of people who want to play such a game. On one hand, it's a game in an old style, and on the other hand, it's nice that so many people want to play something like that. We have the same goal. We make single-player games with a better story than probably in other games. But these are still the same market, meaning single-player games. Dark Souls, Demon Souls, those are slightly different games. They are a nice experiment with the player and gameplay. We like them a lot. I like them a lot. Deus Ex, structurally, is also a story-driven game, but from a different universe. So our biggest competitor is probably Skyrim. And here, bravo to the guys at Bethesda, and I wish them further success.

Partly, partly yes. First of all, the console audience is still a new market for us. We're not sure if Xbox players know The Witcher. We assume they probably don't. We want to reach them again. There's probably some number of players who know The Witcher from PC and would like to see how it works on console. But modesty dictates that we assume it will be a new market. That's why we want to make a big impact. The second thing, probably the most important, is that the collaboration with Platige, with Tomek Bagiński and the guys, was really great. Not many such fancy CG films are made, so when the opportunity came to do it together, everyone was really excited and fired up. Working on a film that illustrates our game, and trying to use the progress the guys have made in this field, was extremely exciting. So we just jumped at it. I think the effect is stunning. It will be verified soon, but I think the effect is truly stunning.

No, I'd rather not. We have to carefully dole out information until the release, so I don't want to promise anything here. I think that players who will again reach for The Witcher, the same but different, will be very satisfied. I think a lot of things will be improved and changed there.

No, no, no. The main concept of the third act was a narrative one. It was meant to leave the player with a feeling of incompleteness from a collapsing world, a bit of gloom. Maybe it's not the most commercial solution. From a product point of view, that risk probably doesn't pay off. On the other hand, there's always too little time. You'd always want more time to make better things in the game, but you have to say enough is enough, and unfortunately, we can't negotiate with that. Usually, you make some mistakes that are visible from a certain perspective. As we wrote around the time of the first interview with Game Informer, the game has changed and received new content. The number of four hours was mentioned there. I still confirm that.

We want to do a lot of great things. We really got a big lesson. Our history is relatively short, a history of various successes but also failures. We have to learn from that and not be afraid to invest in the future. That sounds terribly plastic, but it's the truth. One Witcher is not enough for Red. We would like to make at least two big, great titles simultaneously, and we will do that. We are growing; the team is getting bigger. We invite all talents to cooperate because we really have a lot to do in the coming years, and we can do it. So please, I invite you to apply to all our career pages. I saw 11 job offers at Red alone, 11 positions described, so I confirm. We are hiring. We want people to apply to us. And all this is to, as I said, make two big, great titles simultaneously, from a slightly different parish, so to speak. The concept for the studio is quite nice. We will have two different games, but based on our knowledge and experience. They will be RPGs. And from the perspective of developers working at Red, it will be a very nice and comfortable situation. You'll always be able to refresh yourself on the second title, do something different, in a slightly different team. I think this will be a new time for Red. It will be another step, another breakthrough. It's not just about commercial dominance; I think a lot will change in the studio itself. It will be great.

That's simple. The studio worked, of course, people come and go. Nevertheless, there is a larger team of people who work with us permanently. The studio currently has about 100 people. That's about 89 employees in the so-called production, which is developers, and 10 people from administration, marketing, and supporting departments. We will grow to, I think, double that number gradually. That's the goal. Then we'll stop. We don't want to turn Red into some huge factory where people don't know each other. I think we will have to take very good care to ensure the company is a great place to work.

We have to achieve this in a few years. You can calculate that we need to hire several dozen people a year. So once again, I invite you.

Yes, in 2011 you can see a noticeable change for the entire Polish gaming market. First of all, we went public, we are now a joint-stock company. Because of that, you can see a more serious treatment of us as a company. But this applies to the entire Polish market, because it suddenly turned out that people in business noticed that the Polish word for 'game' is not only associated with children's play, but is a efficient part of business, growing incredibly. And suddenly, a lot of people started analyzing it, researching it, checking reports, and the data confirms it. On top of all that, 2011 was a year of success for Polish companies. It's not just CD Projekt; there's also People Can Fly, which made the excellent Bulletstorm. There are other companies on the Polish market, like Techland with two titles, especially Dead Island, which is also selling great. Exactly. It's a fully Western title, and it turns out there are more of these companies. Some are entering NewConnect, some are doing well.

Funded in some other way, but there's a lot of it. There's a lot of it. And there's one more very important thing. All these companies completed their projects and released them, which is an achievement in itself, because making a game is one thing, and achieving an appropriate average Metacritic score is another story. The first is already a challenge. Games generate high revenue, but they are difficult to make, especially triple-A. Otherwise, the situation wouldn't be what it is. There are relatively few such developer companies, because it's a difficult, very difficult, and risky field. And we Poles, Polish companies, succeeded in 2011, so suddenly, almost overnight, this market began to be taken seriously. You can see it. Our company, CD Projekt, received awards. The owner, or rather the creators of this project, received awards and were recognized as the best entrepreneurs. Recently, we received an award from the Polish Employers' Association. This shows that we are now treated as full-fledged players in the business. And listen, how do you see it?

Games take a long time to make, and it just so happened that everyone finished their projects in the same year. The reason some games aren't heard of is just that the companies weren't ready or the publishers weren't the best, and there was no marketing buzz about them. Because marketing is a big market; you need to reach people. Marketing matters. So, the fact that games are being made is known in the industry, perhaps not fully to the player, but our gaming journalists still get that information and it appears quickly. It's a bit different with the global market. You have to invest in marketing. Games were being made, they were created, sometimes over a long time. By chance, they all appeared in 2011. 2012 doesn't look like a much worse year in this regard. Maybe fewer triple-A titles, but I'm talking about Polish games only, because there's quite a bit already announced, starting with you, The Witcher 2, but The Witcher 2 on Xbox 360, and also, I don't know, City Interactive, which will be very aggressive after their Sniper game. Now there's a whole host of other titles. So, do you think this trend will continue?

Yes, because it's a great job, a great life's work. I think, I repeat, that this is the best thing you can do in life, because you create something that is in the entertainment industry. It's actually a phenomenon that you do something that is completely unnecessary to people. It's not bread or potatoes. And on the other hand, I won't say it's art or on the border of art, but there is a huge element of creation, and that's an incredible thing. Because it's fun, there will be people who will try. The second thing is that the whole process of creating and releasing a game is improving. There are different possibilities. You no longer need to be very well-connected with the biggest publishers to make and release a game, because there are smaller titles that also do well. Sometimes they are companies that start from, I don't know, garage companies, like Minecraft. These are ventures that didn't exist before. It's an absolute phenomenon that brings great joy to players and great money to creators, and I think we are witnessing a kind of revolution. Even if most of the people who try to ride this wave crash against the wall and their games are not successful, a whole bunch of people will still go into battle and achieve something. It's unstoppable. The market is changing nicely. Very interestingly. We thought the digital distribution market would be the revolution. We started to do very well on that market ourselves. It brings us more money than retail. But on the other hand, it turns out that there are other things, like apps, Android. I don't have a strong opinion on whether that's a good market or not, and also the free-to-play game market. It's easier to reach the player. There are different ways to do it. No one can stop it anymore. No one can put their hands on it. I'm talking about the big publishers and setting the rules. It's becoming a real indie market. Great.

Definitely, because the matter is simple. The American and UK markets are employer markets. There are a lot of employees and creators. In Poland, it's different because it's a young market. Few people invested in this field, so it was scarce. Suddenly, it turns out there are many more developers, and there will be more. We won't have to import talent from the West, though we can. We do it, we have people from abroad on our team, and I think it happens in other Polish companies too. It's great, because it brings knowledge to the company. But if we have a richer, better developer market here in Poland, with more companies making games, then I agree, it will be exactly as you say. There will be many more talented people who, for example, won't want to work in advertising or flee abroad, but will want to join in here because the titles will be great. Not because it's easier, but simply because the titles are great. Working on The Witcher or the other titles I mentioned earlier is really a wild ride, in a positive sense.

I don't remember who said it, I think it was Grzegorz from 11 bit studios in an interview. I'll use that. Rates in game dev are different all over the world, and they range from minimum to maximum. That's really the case, and it's not just about Poland. Of course, there is some standardization that applies to different countries. Definitely, the most money can be made in the US game dev, but it varies. I think in Poland, slowly, from what I know, and I follow this market, although this information is usually hidden by companies, we are approaching a situation where all companies have similar, quite attractive salary bands, and I think it pays to work in Poland. I think that gradually, this dilemma of whether to stay or leave will be resolved in Poland's favor.

I think Renegade, because he has more liberal views. But you know, he's a Nobel laureate. I know, I know. Nobel Peace Prize. So, damn, maybe not, but a rebel, I think, is hidden in every man in a white collar. But, you play games at home, in the privacy of your home, you can be who you can't be outside. I think he was Iorveth. Of course, this question is because he received The Witcher 2 from our Prime Minister at the end of his visit. And now, do you consider The Witcher 2 to be a Polish cultural good? Because on such a visit, you give what's best in the country, right?

You know, we are invited by the Ministry of Economy, we are invited by officials, and it's great because it turns out they are nice people in most cases, which you sometimes don't see on TV. But of course, we won't make games with state money. That's a completely different story. But we think it's great that games, which usually, as I've said, are associated with entertainment for children, even though our first and second games had an 18 or 16 rating on the box depending on the country, this information doesn't reach most of Polish society. Games are associated with something stupid, unwise, and sometimes harmful. They are seen as a completely improper fringe of entertainment. And we are fighting against that a bit. I think we are fighting effectively, because The Witcher is talked about in Poland. We made a game based on the quite powerful literature of Mr. Andrzej Sapkowski. So, that's a good start. And secondly, we have the internal ambition to create twisted, double-layered stories. First, it's great entertainment for players, but secondly, if someone looks closely at the jokes or the stories told, they are a bit deeper. We have that ambition to tell such stories. So, we are not ashamed that Poland is known through The Witcher. If that's the case, we are very happy.

But we approach it differently. We want to use it consciously. We know what we're doing. If you use it as a great... because we all grew up on RPGs, but we also grew up on European culture. We know it, we know perfectly well what happened in the history of not only our country but the region. That knowledge isn't that popular, I think, in the West. If you do it consistently, it's very cool. Of course, we were inspired by Andrzej Sapkowski, who showed that all these legends, that kind of postmodernism in approaching fantasy, works and is fun. We went down that path, inspired by him, and it turns out we found a way to reach the Western audience with this Slavicness. A bit of luck, a bit of credit to the great literature, and also some conclusions from observation, and it worked. We will definitely continue in this direction. If you look at Japanese games, they have a similar trait. That is, the Japanese really want to make something European. They consider European culture terribly interesting and fascinating. And at the same time, in each of their best games, there is an admixture of their own culture, which for us is again fascinating. You see it in Dark Souls and in Kojima's games. On one hand, they have vehicles and everyone is shooting M4s, but on the other hand, inside, they tell darker stories rooted in Japanese legends and culture. I think it's a very successful combination. And I think as we go forward, not making another fantasy game, we will also use these cool legends and the knowledge we have.

The Witcher 2 is somewhat of an experiment. The first Witcher was different from the second. The Witcher 2 is a bit more modern in its construction, and I think it will be easy for the Western audience to accept. And at the same time, this otherness, I think, can be a plus. If we were reaching them with a completely hermetic product that had no commercial features, it probably wouldn't be so obvious. But as I said, the second game is a marriage of... it's not about the game being simpler. We've said this many times in interviews before the PC release. It's not about dumbing down the console market. No, it doesn't have to be that way. It's not. But you have to approach the player a bit differently, because they have different habits. So we tried to think about that when creating the second game. We tried to think about those habits. I hope it will pay off. And in future projects, we will take further steps forward.

I've already answered some of these questions, but I never feel I've answered them fully. First of all, I think the best games were from the year before. For me, the games this year are good, but not as good as in 2010. I mentioned L.A. Noire, Demon's Souls, which was groundbreaking. Dark Souls is okay, but it's a continuation. As for 2011, I really liked Skyrim and L.A. Noire. I already said that L.A. Noire is a noir game, and it was an experiment. It's a shame the studio had problems and disbanded, but everything can have two sides. Let's focus on the game. It was cool, had great music, a great atmosphere, and was innovative. The way dialogue was conducted was impressive. The fact that the creators used actors we know from TV series gave credibility to the whole story. It was a huge logistical undertaking. A great thing. Skyrim, which returned to its roots. Minecraft, which isn't really my game, but honestly, I can't stop watching people play it on YouTube. There's something magical about it. I have the same feeling. I prefer watching to playing Minecraft. That's also a kind of RPG. Besides that, I like games from different genres, so I like shooters. There's a big war, a big storm, about which game is better: Battlefield or Modern Warfare. Of course, Modern Warfare, because of its huge commercial success, is very disliked in Europe, but I think on the old engine, it made a very good progression compared to the previous titles. Of course, Battlefield has a better multiplayer, that's obvious. But I would also appreciate Modern Warfare. Batman: Arkham City is brilliant in terms of gameplay. It's cosmic for me how many different gameplay elements are in that game. The developers really pushed forward with that title compared to the previous one. Although the story isn't as good as in the first part, mainly because Batman isn't the real Batman. And all the RPG games, because RPGs are the best.

I would like Red Dead Redemption 2, for example, to be next year, but it probably won't be. I wish for it too. It's a great game, but that's probably still two years away, right? Because Rockstar has a game for this year and one for the next. I would like the sequel to keep the atmosphere of the first game. I'm very much looking forward to it.

I played the Diablo 3 beta, and of course I'll play it, but I don't know, I wasn't that blown away by it. I could be wrong, I should probably play it longer. One more thing just came to me. I lied a bit when I said those were the last questions. I have to ask you about this. You mentioned that Minecraft is partly an RPG. How do you understand the essence of an RPG? Because it's not about the tables, but about the possibility of immersion, of experiencing the world.

A successful computer RPG, I'll break it down simply without philosophizing, is a game that has a very large potential for an open world. That's ideal because it gives a sense of freedom that we've always wanted since the Atari days. Now we can have that sense of freedom. The second thing, in our version, RPG is story. We captivate the player not only with the effect of the next round, new armor, or new skill, but also with the immersion of the world. That's characteristic of other game types too, even games like multiplayer ones, but in RPGs it's very important for us. The next thing, I wouldn't be afraid of the tables. That old-school feeling of having a character composed of many different statistics is cool if it works. I don't know if you're a tabletop RPG player, but in computer RPGs, this 'table' aspect holds up much better for one simple reason: you don't have to do the math. In tabletop games, there was a quick revolution towards abandoning that type of character description and often the dice. Like Vampire: The Masquerade, for example. That kind of 'school' feel in computer RPGs is cool and desirable lately. Then, what else? Creating a character is cool. In our games, we don't have that. In our Witcher games, we have a strongly defined character. On the other hand, that allows us to build a story more strongly around that character. But creating a character is cool. And what's great, what's great about Minecraft, is that you can have an impact on the surrounding world. The Witcher also has something like that, but when it comes to the story, we try to hide a lot of meanings and important decisions so that the player has the feeling, and is sometimes surprised, that the world doesn't react in a completely logical way. But that surprise itself creates the impression that it's worth it, that I want to discover this story. In Minecraft, it's a very distant association, you can do everything. For example, build the Eiffel Tower. That sense of freedom is huge, and it's cool, and it characterizes RPGs.

We will be making cool things, even very cool things. I'm not saying this to build some marketing. I'm just privately very excited about the coming years, because we have cool ideas, cool things. I hope the players will be equally excited, which I wish for all of you listening. See you then.