CD Projekt RED: Generosity Works

[The Wooster]

CD Projekt RED: Generosity Works

CD Projekt RED's Marcin Iwinski warns against "over-exploiting" gamers.

The Witcher developer, CD Projekt RED's, habit of dishing out free content updates for its games makes the small Polish developer stand out amongst its paid-DLC-pushing peers. The studio isn't releasing them out of the goodness of its heart, however. The content updates are part of an, apparently quite successful, business plan. The free DLC for the The Witcher helped drive sales of the Enhanced Edition of the game.

"When we put it out for free, we saw a boost in the sales with the Enhanced Edition because it just created good will, and it refreshes the product," joint-CEO, Marcin Iwinski, told Gamasutra.

"You can always do it from two angles, and sadly I see the industry trending toward over-exploiting the gamer," he continued, "and I think this will come back to the publishers that are doing that, and eventually, people will stop buying their stuff. That's just not the way things work."

Iwinski added that the publishers CD Projekt spoke to just couldn't get their heads around giving away stuff for free.

"When we had that publishing deal, we went to the publisher, and said, 'So we have this idea where we make all this stuff, all this new content, and you don't pay anything for it, we give it away for free. How about that?'" he said. "The publisher went all big-eyed and said, 'Whoa! Let's charge 10 dollars! 10 Euro!' But we believed that we would sell more units if we put it out for free."

Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/174151/what_the_witcher_taught_cd_projekt_.php]

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[Neofishie]

Dear CD Projekt RED,

Please release a new game that I can give you money for to help prove you're right.

Sincerely,
A human being (but you already knew that and treat me as such. I just added it to make a point to third parties who may be watching. Please don't take it personally.)

 

[JuliusMagnus]

Actually, Witcher DLC hasn't been that amazing. It's free but because of that they probably can't go to a huge expense to create it because of that.

 

[Luftwaffles]

Actually, Witcher DLC hasn't been that amazing. It's free but because of that they probably can't go to a huge expense to create it because of that.

The recent patch for assasins of kings was a whopping 10gigs alone.

Added 4 hours of new gameplay, numerous tweaks and fixes, more animations and cutscenes for every chpter ending

also this bad boy

Seems like plenty of hard work to me.

 

[Tamrin]

Iwinski added that the publishers CD Projekt spoke to just couldn't get their heads around giving away stuff for free.

Really? Go back to the 90's or early 2000. The gaming industry was doing just fine with cheat codes that changed skins or allowed different playable characters. There were unlockables for completing something that sometimes was very difficult. Now we have to pay for stuff that was fun and free with the worst of it paying for stuff that is already on the disc we purchased and the unlockables have been replaced with bullshit trophies like this.

I could not give less of a shit about a symbolic thumbs up.
​

Remember Spider-Man: The Movie video game back in 2002? Remember when you beat the game you could play as Green Goblin? Today you would be charged 5~10 bucks for that. BTW, that game sold something around 2.4 million copies. Wrap your head around that publishers.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Tomorrow's headlines: EA to take over CD Projekt RED.
"Don't worry CD Projekt, we'll show you silly Poles how to make money the right way!"

Honestly I love CD Projekt. I can't say they've ever done anything that might piss me off. Hell look at the way they run GoG, can't be bad guys right?

 

[Murmillos]

I honestly have no problem paying $3-4 for most extra content. But when they just start slapping $10 on stuff that isn't even 1/20 of the original content, it just makes developers/publishers look like money grabbing scum, which, most of them already are; EA, Capcom...

 

[ArcossG]

A worthy succesor to the once great Bioware has been found, hurray

 

[Falterfire]

Look, let's not say that paid DLC is something done by huge publishers to milk every possible dollar out of a game.

Trendy Entertainment has used Dungeon Defenders to show us that an Indie Game Dev is perfectly capable of doing exactly the same thing.

 

[nodlimax]

If CDProject Red will do good work on future games, I'll always buy them @ FULL PRICE!

This is a developer that needs the support of gamers. I don't want to see people copying their stuff from illegal sources!

 

[Worgen]

Actually, Witcher DLC hasn't been that amazing. It's free but because of that they probably can't go to a huge expense to create it because of that.

The funny thing about that is that most dlc that is paid is rather lame, there are only a few paid dlc things that are really that impressive and the main 2 that come to mind are both gta 4 things.

 

[Falterfire]

If we're discussing paid DLC that's worth it, I submit The Shivering Isles for Oblivion and The Secret Armory of General Knoxx for Borderlands.

 

[Something Amyss]

Take a page out of our book:
Don't exploit them, Punish them instead.

Woah woah woah....

The Witcher 2 wasn't THAT bad!

Tomorrow's headlines: EA to take over CD Projekt RED.

One week later: Witcher 3 to charge real money for potions!

Actually, Witcher DLC hasn't been that amazing. It's free but because of that they probably can't go to a huge expense to create it because of that.

You seem to get more playtime out of the new free DLC than the paid content for Saints Row the Third, more support than 90% of EA's games, and the less said about Capcom the better. Further, they claim they spent a million dollars on it, which is no small expense if true.

Then again, if it's as accurate as their piracy claims, they spent about a buck fifty on it.

 

[cerebus23]

These guys are smart, whats better selling some dlc or selling whole game when that dlc interests new people.

these guys and valve are about kindred spirits, maybe if they can continue to grow and make money with this model, no drm, no garbage dlc, free expansion pack size "dlc." would be nice of valve gave us no drm period.

 

[CrazyBlaze]

Now if only they would release the Witcher 2 to PS3 so I could support them. And they are right. I mean reward the player, don't punish them. I know that I would buy a game used and get everything in that game, and not have to buy an online pass, and if I enjoyed it I would buy a future game or sequel from that company when it came out new. I bought AC and ACII used and enjoyed them so much I got ACB and ACR new.

 

[Vicarious Reality]

That is it, i am buying witcher 2 right now

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I have to say, he's right. I went and bought the Enhanced Edition for the Xbox for the extra content, even though I already had TW2 on PC. They put a lot of work into making it a fantastic port AND adding extra content, and I thanked them by giving them lots of money. It works on me, it really does.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I haven't played The Witcher 2 yet, but is it better than the first? I got to chapter IV I believe and I just got so tired with it. The game itself was just repetitive and boring. Please tell me Witcher 2 fixes that?

To be perfectly honest, I keep stopping and starting TW2 because I can't really get into it. I haven't even finished the game yet. But I've loved every minute of it I have played, which is pretty odd.