CD Projekt Gets Up Close With The Witcher 2

[Irridium]

Witcher 2 has Securom.

Securom.


Securom is fucking awful, I fucking hate online checks at install, I hate having to ask permission to play a game I already fucking bought, I fucking hate, hate, hate it!! I am not a pirate, let me play the game I bought without making me ask for permission.

Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit!

"We know you want to play the game, but we must check with the internet to see if your legally purchased disk is legit". Thats the fucking logic Securom uses.

Alright, I gotta calm down. It does seem better then most. It does seem like it'll go away after you install it(or at least it better fucking go away). But the fact that I have to ask permission to play a game I legally bought is just fucking infuriating. You don't have to do that with any other piece of media, why just games?

 

[BloodSquirrel]

"It's pretty much the only way we could make sure that the game is going to be safe until May 17 and it's not the pirates who are going to play the game first,"

You know what I care about a hell of a lot more than when pirates are playing the game? Not having online activation in my games.

 

[Irridium]

That might just be for purchases on the PC game from other places, but yeah... it isn't exactly something I wanted to hear. Hopefully the Steam version of the game doesn't have that bullshit in it.

Steam is exactly that 'bullshit' tho. I really don't get how people who praise Steam can same time bash on one time online activation. Seriously? What difference does it make?

Steam actually offers reasons to use it. Integrated friends list, auto-patching, achievements, ability to re-download/install the game anywhere, stupidly amazing deals. Its a trade-off. Yes there are reasons to not use Steam, but there are also reasons to use Steam.

No other DRM solution does this. Every other DRM solution is a negative, offers no perks for using them, and are just awful.

 

[Wolfram23]

I don't see this nudy calendar listed on the site:
http://www.gog.com/en/page/tw2v3

It's included with the GOG version of The Witcher Enhanced Edition, which goes on sale May 10. (And which I am totally buying.)

Ohhh the original Witcher! I see! Well that's wierd. I already own the Enhanced Edition... maybe they can reimburse me?

 

[Keava]

Steam actually offers reasons to use it. Integrated friends list, auto-patching, achievements, ability to re-download/install the game anywhere, stupidly amazing deals. Its a trade-off. Yes there are reasons to not use Steam, but there are also reasons to use Steam.

No other DRM solution does this. Every other DRM solution is a negative, offers no perks for using them, and only offer negatives.

And how do you plan to give any of the said perks to pure retail box sales? A phone number to personal tech-assistant that will come to your house and pat you on your back? The one time activation is mostly to at least put a bump for those wannabe leakers that get hold of hardcopy of the game somewhere between the developer and you as customer.

Also, i'm yet to find a reason to use Steam other than the fact some games forced it on me. Retail is cheaper in Poland (inlcuding the deals, <3 CDP as retailer), achievements i don't care about and most of my online friends are not even using it regularly so to contact them i use other IMs.
And Steam spies on you too! Every game you bought, every minute of your playtime is recorded.
They are Watching!

 

[icyneesan]

Ahhh Geralt, you wouldn't be the same without titties, booze, and drugs. Now lets get high and wasted and go beat up dudes at the bar and then pay for some good ol' sex.

Or as I like to call it, 'That thing I did ever 20 minutes when playing The Witcher 1"

 

[Irridium]

Steam actually offers reasons to use it. Integrated friends list, auto-patching, achievements, ability to re-download/install the game anywhere, stupidly amazing deals. Its a trade-off. Yes there are reasons to not use Steam, but there are also reasons to use Steam.

No other DRM solution does this. Every other DRM solution is a negative, offers no perks for using them, and only offer negatives.

And how do you plan to give any of the said perks to pure retail box sales? A phone number to personal tech-assistant that will come to your house and pat you on your back? The one time activation is mostly to at least put a bump for those wannabe leakers that get hold of hardcopy of the game somewhere between the developer and you as customer.

Also, i'm yet to find a reason to use Steam other than the fact some games forced it on me. Retail is cheaper in Poland (inlcuding the deals, <3 CDP as retailer), achievements i don't care about and most of my online friends are not even using it regularly so to contact them i use other IMs.
And Steam spies on you too! Every game you bought, every minute of your playtime is recorded.
They are Watching!

I know. As I said, some people like those things, and of course how you buy and what you use depends on where you live. I understand why people don't use Steam. However, it at least tries to do something decent. Everything else doesn't.

What could publishers do to offer some perks? Well, dropping all their stupid-ass DRM would be a nice start. Perhaps selling the games for a bit less would also be good(very few price by region, or take into account the differences in currency, which results in hilariously overpriced games in some countries). Basically just not being dicks to their customers.

Will it stop piracy? No. But its just as effective as any form of DRM they can come up with, with the benefit of being cheaper and not pissing off their customers.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

I don't see this nudy calendar listed on the site:
http://www.gog.com/en/page/tw2v3

It's included with the GOG version of The Witcher Enhanced Edition, which goes on sale May 10. (And which I am totally buying.)

Ohhh the original Witcher! I see! Well that's wierd. I already own the Enhanced Edition... maybe they can reimburse me?

You really want to be reimbursed for $5? I mean, sure, you already own the original game (as do I), so I can see why you might not want to buy it again just for that one addition, but still, it's $5.

On Topic: Everything but the SecuRom bit sounds awesome, shame I have to put up with it since I kind of have my heart set (and my money already spent) on a pre-order of the physical collector's edition of the game (sure you can offer digital equivalents for some of those physical goodies, but not stuff like playing cards or imitation marble busts of Geralt). Still, at least it is probably the least obtrusive form you're likely to find, and CD Projekt has a track record of actually patching out DRM and not just promising they are going to "at some point", so I'm less annoyed than I otherwise would be.

 

[Keava]

I know. As I said, some people like those things, and of course how you buy and what you use depends on where you live. I understand why people don't use Steam. However, it at least tries to do something decent. Everything else doesn't.

What could publishers do to offer some perks? Well, dropping all their stupid-ass DRM would be a nice start. Perhaps selling the games for a bit less would also be good(very few price by region, or take into account the differences in currency, which results in hilariously overpriced games in some countries). Basically just not being dicks to their customers.

Will it stop piracy? No. But its just as effective as any form of DRM they can come up with, with the benefit of being cheaper and not pissing off their customers.

Problem is, assuming you buy retail there are costs along the way that don't exaclty fill neither developers nor even publishers pocket, and gaming is not charity business, everyone wants to make profit.

Out of 50$ you pay 5-10$ goes to the middle man. If you would lower the price by 10$ the biggest hit would be on developer part. In theory, the digital distribution was supposed to be the answer to that but it didn't exactly work out.
The price is usually same or near the box. In theory you often even pay more because you do not get the physical product with box which used to be a package full of goods in ye old times (thick manuals, posters, maps... today you only get it with CE in most cases)

Why? Well imagine if price on digital distribution was always at least 10$ lower, retailers would get pissed because it's undercutting, threaten you to not stock your games any more, hardcopy sales still make majority of the market, ergo as a studio you loose on it.

In all fairness, as much as i hate DRM, 1 time online activation is way better than what we used to have in old days with constant CD checks, especially with games that used to take 3-4 cds and even some were released on 10+ CDs.
In case of retail sales it might have even been part of agreement with publishers, they are not really cheerful about the whole no DRM idea since the promotion and all retail deals is their money being at risk. Keep in mind, in case of Witcher2, CDP is only publisher for the central/eastern Europe region, most of EU is under NAMCO BANDAI and US is handled by Atari.

 

[TheIronRuler]

I will get this.
I will definetly get this.
I MUST get this.
*May 17th* I have it!

 

[Wolfram23]

I don't see this nudy calendar listed on the site:
http://www.gog.com/en/page/tw2v3

It's included with the GOG version of The Witcher Enhanced Edition, which goes on sale May 10. (And which I am totally buying.)

Ohhh the original Witcher! I see! Well that's wierd. I already own the Enhanced Edition... maybe they can reimburse me?

You really want to be reimbursed for $5? I mean, sure, you already own the original game (as do I), so I can see why you might not want to buy it again just for that one addition, but still, it's $5.

I don't mean the money but I just want the nudy calendar lol. I already own the EE edition so it would be cool to just register it with them and get all the goodies.

 

[Irridium]

I know. As I said, some people like those things, and of course how you buy and what you use depends on where you live. I understand why people don't use Steam. However, it at least tries to do something decent. Everything else doesn't.

What could publishers do to offer some perks? Well, dropping all their stupid-ass DRM would be a nice start. Perhaps selling the games for a bit less would also be good(very few price by region, or take into account the differences in currency, which results in hilariously overpriced games in some countries). Basically just not being dicks to their customers.

Will it stop piracy? No. But its just as effective as any form of DRM they can come up with, with the benefit of being cheaper and not pissing off their customers.

Problem is, assuming you buy retail there are costs along the way that don't exaclty fill neither developers nor even publishers pocket, and gaming is not charity business, everyone wants to make profit.

Out of 50$ you pay 5-10$ goes to the middle man. If you would lower the price by 10$ the biggest hit would be on developer part. In theory, the digital distribution was supposed to be the answer to that but it didn't exactly work out.
The price is usually same or near the box. In theory you often even pay more because you do not get the physical product with box which used to be a package full of goods in ye old times (thick manuals, posters, maps... today you only get it with CE in most cases)

Why? Well imagine if price on digital distribution was always at least 10$ lower, retailers would get pissed because it's undercutting, threaten you to not stock your games any more, hardcopy sales still make majority of the market, ergo as a studio you loose on it.

In all fairness, as much as i hate DRM, 1 time online activation is way better than what we used to have in old days with constant CD checks, especially with games that used to take 3-4 cds and even some were released on 10+ CDs.
In case of retail sales it might have even been part of agreement with publishers, they are not really cheerful about the whole no DRM idea since the promotion and all retail deals is their money being at risk. Keep in mind, in case of Witcher2, CDP is only publisher for the central/eastern Europe region, most of EU is under NAMCO BANDAI and US is handled by Atari.

With PC games, retail is getting less and less important. Pretty much every store has a large section for console games, but a small shelf in the back for PC games. PC retail isn't really doing much better, and isn't getting better. And the price of digital games is actually increasing. They're going up to $60 for some reason, even though publishers are saving more money by not having to deal with retail. If retail stores stopped stocking PC games, I doubt it'd make much of a difference. Since they may as well be gone considering the space for them is getting smaller and smaller.

At least in the US. Things may be different in other countries.

 

[Keava]

I don't mean the money but I just want the nudy calendar lol. I already own the EE edition so it would be cool to just register it with them and get all the goodies.

Well if you live in EU and pre order Witcher2 from GoG.com you get 16$ credit for any other games there to make up for the price difference between EU and US. You could spend 5$ on EE just to get the nudie! *roll eyes*

 

[fierydemise]

I don't buy the hyper zealous anti-DRM brigade. I get it, and I agree overzealous DRM is bad and DRM is probably not a great business decision (with license costs and all) but this concept that any DRM is unacceptable is to ignore that there are varying degrees of wrongness. Constant connection/authentication is bad (see the DA:O mess from last weekend) but I don't see the harm in a one time online check, is it any worse then a simple CD check that we've all put up with since time immemorial?

In general the industry is coming around on DRM, after a couple of the major DRM disasters a few years back (Bioshock, ME1, Spore) there is starting to be a realization that DRM actually isn't that effective and strong DRM can produce some really nasty backlash. That said DRM is likely to remain a fixture for the immediate future if only so publishers can point to it to assuage the fears of investors.

 

[Vrach]

I'm just wondering exactly how the new combat system will feel. Cause the first game pretty much threw it as a massive roadblock in terms of boredom right at the start of the game and I couldn't bring myself to try and play it for more than some 20 minutes.

 

[Yossarian1507]

Witcher 2 has Securom.

Securom.


Securom is fucking awful, I fucking hate online checks at install, I hate having to ask permission to play a game I already fucking bought, I fucking hate, hate, hate it!! I am not a pirate, let me play the game I bought without making me ask for permission.

Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit!

"We know you want to play the game, but we must check with the internet to see if your legally purchased disk is legit". Thats the fucking logic Securom uses.

Alright, I gotta calm down. It does seem better then most. It does seem like it'll go away after you install it(or at least it better fucking go away). But the fact that I have to ask permission to play a game I legally bought is just fucking infuriating. You don't have to do that with any other piece of media, why just games?

Dude, chill... Judging from the infos, you won't even notice it's there, unless you'll want to play before May 17th.

Plus, you can order it from GoG, and don't have to deal it at all.

Adding up to your discussion about Steam with my fellow countryman: Poland is one of those few countries in the world, where PC gaming is still the king (for example - CoD: BlOps. 75% of sold copies in Poland are PC versions). And yeah, over here, it's way cheaper to buy the retail version that Steam version. In fact, I don't like Steam at all, because I'm not really using it's features, and it has to be on whenever I want to play Metro 2033 (the retail version).

 

[tzimize]

Er...what exactly does that mean? Will the GoG version have this check too?

 

[Keava]

Er...what exactly does that mean? Will the GoG version have this check too?

Only retail, as in boxed copies. GoG version is 100% DRM free, Steam version has Steam DRM.

 

[fierydemise]

Er...what exactly does that mean? Will the GoG version have this check too?

No, the GoG version will be entirely DRM free. Also you can start downloading the game on May 10th so GoG servers don't die on the 17th.

I suspect that the date check is a physical media only thing since its much easier to control access to digital distribution content, the Steam version will probably just have basic Steam DRM although if you are going digital unless you are really wedded to the steam platform there is no real reason not to buy from GoG.