The Witcher 2 Pirated "Roughly 4.5 Million" Times, Says Dev

Hevva

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Aug 2, 2011
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The Witcher 2 Pirated "Roughly 4.5 Million" Times, Says Dev



Despite an estimated 4.5 million illegal downloads, the studio behind The Witcher 2 says DRM still isn't worthwhile.

CD Projekt, the studio behind anti-pirate [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8905-The-Witcher-2-Assassins-of-Kings-Review]).

In an interview with PCGamer [http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/29/interview-cd-projekts-ceo-on-witcher-2-piracy-why-drms-still-not-worth-it/], Iwinski described the tradeoff between real legal sales figures and guessed illegal download figures. "As of today we have sold over 1 million legal copies, so having only 4.5-5 illegal copies for each legal one would be not a bad ratio," he said, before reiterating that his number is only an estimate. "The reality is probably way worse," he added.

Iwinski also talked about his studio's (failed) experiments with DRM, and the solution he and his workmates arrived at to tackle the piracy problem - namely, proper pricing. "[We] came up with new strategy: we started offering high value with the product - like enhancing the game with additional collectors' items like soundtracks, making-of DVDs, books, walkthroughs, etc.," he said. "This, together with a long process of educating local gamers about why it makes sense to actually buy games legally, worked. And today, we have a reasonably healthy games market."

"DRM does not work and however you would protect it, it will be cracked in no time," he continued. "Plus, the DRM itself is a pain for your legal gamers - this group of honest people, who decided that your game was worth the 50 USD or Euro and went and bought it. Why would you want to make their lives more difficult?"

He also added that, as far as he sees it, gamers should "vote with their wallets" and use social media to get big publishers and studios to stop involving themselves with DRM. "If they hear that they have a couple hundred or thousand negative comments on Amazon, Metacritic, Twitter, etc, they will most probably do something about it. Some of them already did," he said.

While Iwinski might be onto something with the value-added approach to games, estimating up to 4.5 million illegal downloads with the addendum "and it's probably way worse than that" doesn't seem like the best way to assuage community worries about a DRM-free industry. Still, Iwinski does offer up good advice for change; vote with your money and make your opinions known, and change should follow. German gamers who were angered by Battlefield 3's mandatory PC Origin access [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113970-EA-Germany-Origin-Is-Not-Spyware] made some progress towards change, after all.



Source: PCGamer [http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/29/interview-cd-projekts-ceo-on-witcher-2-piracy-why-drms-still-not-worth-it/]







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robert01

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Jul 22, 2011
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This is why I can forgive them for not releasing a SDK for The Witcher 2.
Also they release free DLC.
 

LiquidGrape

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Sep 10, 2008
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They have good policies regarding DRM. That's as far as my praise of CDP will stretch.
But yes, excellent attitude regarding value of product.
 

EHKOS

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Feb 28, 2010
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I like these guys. Still, it sucks how much it got pirated, this studio doesn't really deserve it.
 

ffs-dontcare

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Aug 13, 2009
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I bought The Witcher 2 on Good Old Games a fair while ago. I've not really touched it yet as I've got a crapload of other games at my disposal but what little time I've spent in this game has made me very happy that I acquired it for my games collection, along with the original game.

As long as we have developers/studios like this in the industry, there will always be a glimmer of light, so to speak.
 

LordRoyal

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May 13, 2011
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This makes me sad.

The fact it was pirated after the dev went to such great length to be "For Gamers by Gamers" and everything.
 

Kopikatsu

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May 27, 2010
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LiquidGrape said:
They have good policies regarding DRM. That's as far as my praise of CDP will stretch.
But yes, excellent attitude regarding value of product.
They have bad business sense is what they have. 4,500,000+ copies pirated is kind of a large number. A really large number.

If those people paid even a single penny for the game, that's still $45,000+ lost. More than what most people make in a year.

laryri said:
But adding loads of DRM wouldn't make that number go down. They probably gained loads of sales by not adding tons of DRM because of all the good press it got them.
Unless someone builds a time machine, we'll never know how it would have turned out differently if they'd used DRM.
 

dyre

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Mar 30, 2011
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The "win your enemies over" method does seem more appealing than the "try to stop your enemies with tiny roadblocks that take them a few hours to overcome" method...
 

laryri

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Kopikatsu said:
LiquidGrape said:
They have good policies regarding DRM. That's as far as my praise of CDP will stretch.
But yes, excellent attitude regarding value of product.
They have bad business sense is what they have. 4,500,000+ copies pirated is kind of a large number. A really large number.

If even half of those people paid a single penny for the game, that's still $22,500. Half of what most people make in a year.
But adding loads of DRM wouldn't make that number go down. They probably gained loads of sales by not adding tons of DRM because of all the good press it got them.
 

Iron Lightning

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Oct 19, 2009
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Well I bought The Witcher 2 twice (both new copies near launch) because of CD Projekt Red being so incredibly cool about DRM in an industry that seems continuously posed to fuck with their own customers.

If it weren't for developers like CD Projekt Red then we'd already have another 1983 on our hands.
 

viranimus

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Nov 20, 2009
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Those bastards! Pirating such a great game 5 million times. How dare they have the audacity to take 50 million copies of such a wonderful game. Really, do you people not realize you will cripple all video game development when you steal 500 million copies like what happened with the Witcher 2. How would you like being a starving artist hoping to feed your family when those horrible horrible consumers steal 5 billion copies of your game like what actually happen with the witcher 2. Seriously what does anyone need with 50 billion copies of one game?

Yeah, the numbers seem a more than a little bit over exaggerated to the point of out and out lies.
 

Kahunaburger

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May 6, 2011
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Well, all I know is that I bought Witcher 2, and specifically did not buy Battlefield 3 because of Origin. (And TF2).
 

LiquidGrape

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Kopikatsu said:
LiquidGrape said:
They have good policies regarding DRM. That's as far as my praise of CDP will stretch.
But yes, excellent attitude regarding value of product.
They have bad business sense is what they have. 4,500,000+ copies pirated is kind of a large number. A really large number.

If even half of those people paid a single penny for the game, that's still $22,500 lost. Half of what most people make in a year.
Well, I honestly doubt that truth would have been considerably different even if they *had* imposed strict digital rights management.
If a pirate aims to pirate a game, the pirate will pirate the game. They are predictable that way.

If anything, this whole thing probably earned CDP a lot of consumer goodwill for future projects. I don't understand the adulations for their work myself, but I can recognise they have an audience.
 

dyre

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Mar 30, 2011
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Kopikatsu said:
LiquidGrape said:
They have good policies regarding DRM. That's as far as my praise of CDP will stretch.
But yes, excellent attitude regarding value of product.
They have bad business sense is what they have. 4,500,000+ copies pirated is kind of a large number. A really large number.

If even half of those people paid a single penny for the game, that's still $22,500 lost. Half of what most people make in a year.
And what exactly have they done that shows they have a bad business sense? What they have is an intelligent public relations sense.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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I like the part of the original article where the guy says there are no real statistics, then proceeds to go through a list of assumptions.

Kopikatsu said:
They have bad business sense is what they have. 4,500,000+ copies pirated is kind of a large number. A really large number.
An ass-pulled number, but still. IT'S REALLY REALLY BIG!

If those people paid even a single penny for the game, that's still $45,000+ lost. More than what most people make in a year.
Assuming they would have paid a single cent is still a pretty big assumption.