CD Projekt and Optimus complete transaction

Poland-based CD Projekt and Optimus S.A. have concluded a deal this week that will see the creator of The Witcher and the owner of the classic games web site Good Old Games get a 23 million dollar injection cash once the deal is complete. As part of the deal CD Projekt will retain control of the company (CD Projekt Group) and gain control of Optimus by acquiring 50 percent of the listed company’s shares. This also makes CD Projekt a publically traded company.

“This transaction represents the full realization of the strategic goals that CD Projekt’s owners set for themselves,” said CDP Investment stockholder Adam Kiciński in a statement of the company’s official web site this morning. “Above all, we will become a publicly listed company, which denotes access to capital. That in turn will spur further company growth. The immediate financing we obtained through the deal will allow us to pursue our operational goals in troubled times. We have gained all this while retaining control of the business, which was essential to us. The added spice of the contract is that we are merging with a corporation that, like CD Projekt, has been at the center of the Polish computer market throughout its history.“

Optimus S.A. is a Warsaw, Poland-based computer company that makes PCs and providing IT solutions for companies. In the 1990s Optimus S.A. was one of the leaders of the Polish computer market.

GameTap expands Atari relationship

Today GameTap announced and extended deal with Atari for distribution rights to several classic and modern Atari titles. This new agreement grants GameTap rights to a selection of Atari’s stellar and renews GameTap’s rights to distribute Atari’s classic console and arcade catalog. Atari’s games will be available through GameTap’s games-on-demand service and digital retail store. A few examples of the new games headed to GameTap thanks to this new arrangement: the 2008 release of Alone In The Dark, Indigo Prophecy, King’s Bounty, the Master Of Orion series, the Neverwinter Nights series, the excellent Test Drive Unlimited, The Witcher and Arma Combat Operations.

Originally launched by TBS in 2005, GameTap went on to merge with Metaboli merged in September of 2008 to form a new global network dedicated to the digital distribution of games. Metaboli has established distribution partnerships with many of the world’s leading internet, gaming, and e-commerce portals including Virgin Media, Game, Orange, Free, Neuf Telecom, AOL, Club-Internet, fnac, Telecom Italia, Wind, Web.de, Gamesradar, Eurogamer, pcgames.de and computec.de.

Steam Sale: The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut

CD Projekt RED and Steam are offering The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut for 30 percent of its retail price. The special promotion is live today and will run until August 12. That’s right around $27.99 for those not waiting to grab a calculator. This deal is only available in North America and Eastern Europe because the game isn’t available on Steam in other regions.

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut, which has found itself on Steam’s top 10 bestsellers list for the past few days, offers re-recorded and rewritten English dialogue, a new inventory system makes item use and organization less complicated, a myriad of technical enhancements and improvements, and a bonus material like a multilingual game disc, the D’jinni Adventure Editor, Two new adventures offering more than 5 hours of additional gameplay, the official soundtrack, music Inspired by The Witcher album, Making Of content and more.

Find out more by visiting store.steampowered.com/app/20900.

The Witcher update 1.5 coming in July

The Witcher version 1.5 update will be released on July 8, reckons CD Projekt RED.

Version 1.5.The patch focuses on dealing with what’s left of the digital rights management software used in the game’s retail release. The update removes it completely and allows play without the game disc. The release will also feature five fan created adventure modules including Deceits, Blight of the Bogs, Wraiths of Quiet Hamlet, Wedding, and Merry Witchmas. The update will also be included in forthcoming The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut. CD Projekt RED says that more info on that product will be released shortly.

Besides adventures, and DRM removal, the update solves problems associated with EAX and blur.

You can read all about it in The Witcher forums..

The Witcher Entrapped module released

A new adventure for CD Projekt’s The Witcher, created by the game’s modding community, is now available. The new adventure module is called Entrapped, and it is the debut module from the community group known as The Bards. According to the official description of this module, The Witcher arrives in an unnamed village after an exhausting journey through Temeria. He wants to simply spend the night at the local inn and move on, but soon realizes that he is trapped in this strange village and must find a way to escape.

Instructions on where to download the module and how to install it can be found at the official The Witcher site. Entrapped is a decent distraction until the company releases the 1.5 update. The free update promises bonus content from The Witcher: Enhanced Edition and five additional fan-made adventures. Most importantly, The Witcher: Enhanced Edition 1.5 will make the game DRM free.

Rise of the White Wolf Production Halted

Wide Screen Games, the developer of The Witcher for Xbox 360 and PS3, has stopped developing the ports of CD Projekt’s popular action role-playing game, according to published reports.

“Basically, after a few months of not being paid, we stopped,” said Wide Screen CEO Olivier Masclef speaking to GamesIndustry.biz. “We’ve not been paid for a few months and we had a very nasty broken payment. We had no choice but to put the product on hold. We’ve not been able to find a solution.”

The company that brought you Dead to Rights 2, says that it has not been paid for the work it has done and had been kept in the dark about milestones that Atari expected of them because CD Projekt did not communicate with them. Of course, all of this is alleged because CD Projekt and Atari are not commenting on the story.

Masclef claims that Rise of the White Wolf was due to go alpha in June but work stopped three weeks ago. This halt in production is a shame if Wide Screen is to be believed, because early pre-sales of the game were allegedly high.

“It’s unfortunate because we have very nice technology, we’re replicated all the features of The Witcher,” said Masclef. “Atari has validated the product and seen that our tech is working. And we’ve heard that the distributors have been committing a very high volume for the title, and it was extremely promising. It’s a very silly situation. I can’t disclose the budget, but it would be a profitable title if it hit the shelves. But at this stage it will not.”

We’ll continue to follow this story as it develops.

The Rundown: Dec. 5, 2008

Fun Fact: Christian Bale, tough guy caped crusader in The Dark Knight and humanity’s last hope in the upcoming Terminator Salvation, played the dancing and prancing newspaper boy, Jack ‘Cowboy’ Kelly in the 1992 musical Newsies. Kind of puts his tough guy persona into question… Here’s all today’s lesser stories..

Remains of the Day
CD Projekt co-founders, Michal Kicinski and Marcin Iwinski, have been named Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of the Year and will represent Poland in the world’s final competition in Monte Carlo next June. “Entrepreneur of the Year” is an international initiative promoting the best entrepreneurs around the world, with more than 10,000 candidates each year. The contest has been organized annually since 1986 and over 30 countries participate. In the United States, where the competition was born, the Ernst & Young awards are often referred to as the business Oscars.

CD Projekt earned this honor by being the largest games distributor in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, with more than 135million PLN (approx. $43 million) in annual revenue. But to the rest of the world, the company is know best for its excellent action RPG, The Witcher. The company also recently launched the classic DRM-free games site, Good Old Games.

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