Tensions seem to be brewing between "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" developer/publisher CD Projekt RED and digital videogame distribution service Green Man Gaming (GMG). The main bone of contention was the "Witcher 3" creator's reservations against the GMG selling retail codes for the game for an irresistible price of $40. That's a substantial $20 worth of discount, which is virtually unheard for a AAA title that is in great demand.

The Polish developer had gone to the extent of saying that the severely discounted copies of "Witcher 3" are originating from an "unknown source," according to a PC Gamer report. The studio argues that it will not gain any profits from GMG's promotional offer that is being enabled by unverified sources. The developer has explicitly advised gamers to avoid buying the game through GMG in a post on the official forums. Rafal Jaki, Business Development Manager for CD Projekt RED, reiterated that the company hasn't sold any "Witcher 3" keys to GMG. The post warns gamers that the company is unsure of the origin of the keys.

Although CD project RED hasn't explicitly said this, it essentially warns potential buyers to be wary of keys that have been obtained through questionable means. In January 2015, Ubisoft had revoked several "Far Cry 4" licences sold by similar digital videogame key resellers such as Kinguin, G2A and G2Play. As reported in an earlier International Business Times story, these licences were later found to be purchased using stolen credit cards.

Green Man Gaming, however, has issued a statement clarifying that the discounted codes sold by it are legitimate. In a response to Gamespot, it has stated that the retailer had originally contacted CD Projekt RED to work out a deal. The publisher purportedly wasn't willing to enagage in a distribution deal with GMG despite offering "significant cash advances." This prompted GMG to circumvent the publisher and seek out digital copies of the game from CD Projekt RED approved third-party retailers. The digital distributor claims that not only is the "Witcher 3" publisher earning revenue from the sales, but GMG itself is absorbing the monetary impact of the discount in order to bring value to its customers.

"Following a six-month dialogue with [CD Projekt RED] about the launch of The Witcher 3, we were disappointed that despite the offer of significant cash advances, and other opportunities to officially work together, (we even offered to fly to Poland to discuss in detail how we could and wanted to support this launch), CDPR chose not to engage with a number of significant, reputable, and successful retailers, including ourselves, as they instead focused on supporting their own platform GOG," said Green Man Gaming CEO Paul Sulyok in a statement issued to Gamespot. "We believe that CDPR’s desire to support their own platform by working with retail outlets that would not conflict with their own is greater than that of meeting the demands of their audience, therefore we made the decision to indirectly secure the product and deliver it to our customers."

Green Man Gaming is a London-based online videogame retailer that is known to operate videogame licence keys for significantly lower prices. The retailer achieves this by purchasing licences in bulk and passing on the discount to its customers. This is in addition to hosting its own digital catalogue of videogame, much like rival digital distribution portal Steam. Selling region unlocked games and allowing gamers to trade in their digital videogames is also one of the reasons why some gamers prefer it over Steam.

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The Witcher: Wild Hunt (Credit: The Witcher channel)

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