East India Company Patch 1.01
This patch will update your East India Company install to version 1.01, and implements a number of bug fixes.

The Witcher Enhanced Edition Directors Cut Patch
This is the Director’s Cut patch for The Witcher, unlocking all the previously hidden content from the international version of the game.

Following the revelations of earlier today with the Microsoft E3 2009 kickoff events Electronic Arts hits the stage in California at 2PM California time (yes that’s an official time zone… California is more important than the rest of the Pacific time zone… just ask them). We’ve included the embed link to G4TVs JustinTV feed for the event.

I’ll attempt to do a liveblog of the event in the same post as well if you’re interested in my insight into the whole thing.

You can see the embed and the liveblog after the jump. Read the full article

Following up on the rumors of the cancellation of CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf today Adam Kicinski, CEO of CD Projekt RED released an official statement regarding the status of the title:

“This decision was one of the hardest we’ve ever had to make as a company. We have put our hearts, a lot of our time and energy into this project. Because of that, development was in a very advanced stage. However, there was serious danger that we would miss our target release date, but more importantly to us, that the project would not meet our own expectations of quality. Our main goal is always to make every release better than the previous one. Unfortunately, this project was not going in the right direction. We are now looking into all possible scenarios, and we will do all we can to retain our fans’ confidence in us. We simply will not let them down; the quality of our games remains the highest priority.”

It seems the statements made by Widescreen Games last week may have just been a preemptive strike on the developer’s behalf. Widescreen was contracted by CD Projekt to create the adaption of the PC title to the consoles so it would seem the lack of quality that Kicinski is commenting on would rest in its work.

The comment on the official The Witcher website also states that the company is investigating other options to bring the product to fruition and that since the 2007 release of The Witcher the company has been secretly working on unannounced titles soon to be revealed. No mention of the unannounced sequel or the other Witcher related title so far either.

Tom Ohle, long time wordsmith and all around great guy, takes some time on his new public relations blog to talk about how PR nightmares’ evolve and how crisis communication disrupts public relations.

Tom takes time to discuss the process of crisis communication in the PR industry using the example of last weeks rumors of The Witcher related game cancellations and major changes at CD Projekt Red.

One of the best examples from his after-action illustrating the interesting role that good PR reps at game companies play:

This is one of the greatest dilemmas in a PR rep’s day — you have journalists, many of whom are friends, asking you to respond to rather unsavory accusations, and you can’t give them a straight answer. Then the stories — rightfully so — turn to “Company will not deny the rumors, leading us to believe they’re true.” And now, as a PR rep, you’re in a position you don’t want to be in: other people are controlling your messaging for you. It sucks to watch people drag your name through the mud… even consumers who see only one side of the story start to change their opinions of your company. And even if you have a chance to eventually address the rumors formally, a number of those consumers are bound to miss the news update, and their opinion of your organization may have been negatively affected forever.

Tom worked on a lot of big titles for some companies some of you may have heard of, but I first met him when he was representing Bioware and later at E3 2006 when his small PR company – Evolve PR – picked up a little known( in the US anyway) Polish game company called CD Projekt Red and their new as yet unsigned game – The Witcher – based on some obscure but supposedly famous Polish Author’s fantasy novels.

Sometimes its hard to deal with people on a regular basis while covering this industry and not remember that they are often in difficult situations. We work hard to cover the news and give a voracious reading audience information about their and our personal favorite games but we seldom stop to think about the impact we have on companies we report on or developers that are effected by these negative reports. While the role of a “journalist” is to report facts, this isn’t an industry that will bring about world peace or the fall of nations and it makes me wonder if sometimes our reports don’t do more harm than good in pursuit of readers, ads and a click-through.

Reports are coming out across the net that the highly promoted and anticipated console port of Atari and CDProjekt Red’s The Witcher: The Rise of the White Wolf is in limbo. While the studio itself has not officially commented it appears, based on comments from former CDProjekt employees and discussion on the Polish message boards of The Witcher website, that claimed a large portion of the project teams for not only the console port but two other CDProjekt games have been let go in the last few weeks.

Apparently there was also another unannounced Witcher game in the works as well as the sequel to the initial Witcher title, called only Witcher 2 at this point in the conversations, that suffered as a result of an unstable financial situation. Global economic issues are credited with the reasons for the company had to release so many staff members and suspend so many projects.

According to a press release from CDProjekt’s French development partner Widescreen Games confirming the suspension/cancellation of the White Wolf console port these rumors appear to be less rumor and more unconfirmed fact. Its unfortunate to see such a promising studio and great intellectual property affected by these sorts of financial issues. Reportedly the Witcher 2 product will be multi-platform and not merely a PC version so hope exists that console owners can enjoy the game series like their PC buddies in the near future – I just hope it doesn’t require a dumbing down/retelling of the core story that eats into the new title’s storyline.

Thanks to the guys over at GameBanshee for being the tip of the spear in reporting this one. Its a sad day for Witcher and CDProjekt Red fans to be sure.

UPDATE: It appears as though there is a semi-official comment over on VG247 from CDProjekt’s Joint CEO Michal Kicinski regarding the status of these projects and the work stoppage on the part of Widescreen. It seems the story is still evolving though no “official” statements have been issues by CDProjekt or US Publisher Atari on this subject.

CD Projekt, the studio behind The Witcher and Good Old Games is making the Holidays extra special this year. Not only are Beneath a Steel Sky and Lure of the Temptress free on GOG.com, but CD Projekt is throwing in an extra 10% off first time orders. The discount code is WITCHER.

There are a number of other contests that could net gamers free games and promotional discounts. Visit the GOG.com site for information on how to become a fan of GOG on Facebook and on entering the Win Good Old Games at BigDownload contest.

CD Projekt co-founders Michal Kicinski and Marcin Iwinski have been honored with this year’s Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. CD Projekt has had great success with The Witcher and it’s new Good Old Games (GOG.com) service. The Polish development company under Kicinski and Iwinski has recently announced its foray into console games with the revelation of The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf coming Fall 2009 to the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

Michal Kicinski and Marcin Iwinski were honored with the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year out of dozens of Polish business candidates of all types for their innovation and resourcefulness as well as the quality of their work in both publishing and development. They go on to represent Poland in the world finals for their shot at what has come to be known as the “business Oscars” in Monte Carlos June 2009.

CD Projekt RED officially announced the coming of The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf to consoles. The original story is intact, but delivered via a brand new engine with dynamic action-based combat system. Here’s the trailer which explains all the work going into translating this RPG for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

For any of you that have fears about CD Projekt RED dumbing down the console version or moving away from PC games, here’s word directly from The Witcher Community news.

“Console gamers don’t want to be treated like kids; they’re ready for deep story-driven games, and we think we’re delivering one of the deepest console RPGs ever with The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf,” said Adam Kicinski, CEO of CD Projekt RED. “The only thing we’re taking directly from The Witcher is the story; everything else is being created from scratch or significantly reworked to get us to our end goal of delivering the ultimate console RPG.”

“We’re not about to dumb down our games for anyone. We want to give players the best games, regardless of platform,” added Michal Kicinski, co-founder of CD Projekt. “It’s important to us that each game plays to the platform’s strengths while treating our players with respect. That was our development philosophy with The Witcher and it’s our philosophy on all three of the games in development at CD Projekt RED, including Rise of the White Wolf. Anyone concerned that we’re going to somehow offer a shallow RPG or abandon the PC platform simply because we’re working on consoles can stop worrying.”

The trailer was leaked early ruining the official surprise. Gamers and game developers are an impatient bunch. However sneaking a premature peak at your gifts is still surprising and can actually heighten the anticipation of claiming the package. Console gamers will be opening The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf Fall 2009.

For PC gamers who are disappointed the fuss wasn’t about a sequel… don’t forget there are two more games in the works to speculate about.

A video is circulating around the Internet advertising consoles versions of the award winning PC RPG, The Witcher. According to the trailer, The Witcher: Rise of the Wolf has been retooled with a new engine, more dynamic combat system and Sixaxis compatibility.

Gaming Today spoke with Tom Ole, VP of Public Relations and Marketing for North America and the UK, who confirmed that the video was not officially released by CD Projekt RED.

“We haven’t made an official statement yet. CD Projekt RED has three games in development at this point.”

The Witcher Community website has been running a Hunt for inside information on CD Projekt RED’s latest projects. The Hunt is officially over, but little has been revealed. The official website for The Witcher has a new opening page that reveals pieces of an image as you remove chunks of the old.

Whatever “deepest, darkest secrets” CD Projekt RED reveals, it will be at the time of its own choosing.

CD Projekt RED has publicized a new fan-made adventure for The Witcher. The module is called Tribute. Players will step out of Geralt’s sizable shoes to play a brawny lush who must stop the villainous Basar from torching your home away from home, the inn.

You can find more adventures as well as details and installation instructions for Tribute on The Witcher Community site.