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

[Nikolaz72]

I have no shame in saying I was one of those many people who pirated it. However, it didn't run well on my computer, so I promptly uninstalled it and deleted the file. Had it run, I would have gone straight to steam and picked up the copy. As I usually do with high end games like that. I probably still will, once I get the money to rebuild my rig. Would I have the same reaction if I knew I was facing some shitty DRM that had me jumping through hoops or getting in my way? Probably not. In fact, hell no. Sure, you can use that whole "Steam is DRM" argument, but it's really not... and even in the ways it is, the benefits far outweigh everything else.

Go ahead and flame me, btw. Like I said, I have no shame.

Oh btw, I bought Witcher 2 over steam, guess what. It doesnt actually use steam, you can launch it directly from the common folder. And when you launch it via steam, it is just the launcher that is merged with the program, witcher 2 itself is still completely untouched by any kind of DRM. Steam or not. Aka, bought it over steam. But dont need steam to run it.

 

[Sexy Devil]

*deleted*

 

[irishda]

I don't buy this argument that everyone who pirates wouldn't buy the game anyways, so no customer base is lost anyways by combating it. What subset of piracy though would buy the game if it was unavailable as a free pirated copy immediately? What subset of pirates would've bought the game but didn't because the option to NOT have to pay was there? It takes time to crack DRMs, and people, by nature, don't like being left out of a fad (i.e. being among the first to play a well-marketed/hyped game). Some people just HAVE to play a game when it's available. But we can never know just who would or wouldn't buy the game.

Name one game that had extended success with DRM that saw statistically significant higher sales?

As far as I'm aware there has never been one instance of a game having higher sales during a period of Piracy drought.

When I say extended success I mean what game has seen better sales per capita on the PS3 versus the 360 (where you can currently pirate games).

What game has had better sales per capita on the PC before the DRM was cracked? I'm not aware of a single one. What I have seen is sales lower than expected on games that had vicious DRM, I've also seen forums of legitimate customers complaining about DRM.

As for the other part about gamer entitlement, /shrug, it's a weak point. By necessity a person needs to be a gamer to game, its the person part that is entitled and it is something that carries into all facets of life. Loss Aversion and a plethora of other cognitive biases.

Assassin's Creed 2 sold over 9 million units, but it's impossible to separate the numbers because I haven't been able to find a listing on which of that number is from PC and which is from consoles. But there's too many factors to take into account. What percentage of PC owners play games as compared to the percentage of PS3 or Xbox owners? Is the game better suited for consoles instead of PC? (RTS on a console anyone?) Does the game series have an earlier title that's exclusive therefore having an established fan base on that particular platform? There's simply not good enough data out there available in order for us to make a good judgment on whether or not it saves a company money. But it does tell me that a company would be better to err on the side of caution when their game is pirated 450% times more than their legitimate sales.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

"...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?"

...this is what the whole games industry should be thinking. The worst part of DRM has always been the way it treats paying customers - those who should be esteemed by the publisher - as pirates. Treat the pirates as pirates, and the customers as customers. That's marketing 101.

 

[LordRoyal]

"...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?"

...this is what the whole games industry should be thinking. The worst part of DRM has always been the way it treats paying customers - those who should be esteemed by the publisher - as pirates. Treat the pirates as pirates, and the customers as customers. That's marketing 101.

The big problem is a lot of companies don't choose to put DRM on their games, they see it as a last resort. They are also corporations and have things like stockholders that want to be reassured they are going to see a return on their investment. It isn't just as black and white as "all corporations are greedy and want to maximize as much profit as possible by treating the customer like shit"

I think the biggest problem with the whole Witcher 2 debacle is no matter how well the Witcher 2 sold there were still a lot more people that pirated it instead of buying. That's the saddest part with CD Projekt is they tried so hard to be a good sport about it and this is how they were repayed.

 

[klausaidon]

One thing I've always wondered about DRM, is how much does it cost to actually implement it? All that money, with a real number on it's expense, and than if it ends up getting cracked anyway? All that money down the toilet.

 

[snfonseka]

This is why I support them and bought their games and didn't buy anything Ubisoft has released recently.

 

[sinterklaas]

Wow, one million to more than four million is a gigantic amount of money lost.

Way to go guys, developer gives up DRM, pirate the shit out of their games... This sure gives of the right message to other developers.

 

[lRookiel]

hmmmm, not sure why anyone would want to download that boring game -.-

/prepares flameshield

I just really found it so boring when I tried the copy my brother bought (Aswell as the first witcher game)

EDIT: despite this I do love what these guys are doing, please could other devs follow suit (Fuck you EA -.-)

 

[UbarElite]

I hope more people in the industry see the problem of piracy in a similar light...With always on DRM now, it really cannot get any more constrictive, and hopefully they realize that they probably lose more money with DRM than it creates in sales (if it even creates any).

 

[Charli]

Haven't pirated but can't afford the game right now *shrug* whut are you gonna do... Most of my games are either legitly bought or if I DO have an emulator, it's a game I've already purchased in the distant past and cannot acquire again.

I feel like a sucker most days but I stick with it.

 

[The Madman]

Oh they are such great guys because they do not believe in DRM! oooooh!

Give me a break... They are lying to people saying that their game is copied nearly 5 million times. THEY ARE LYING! That is worse than pirating.

I like the game, I do not like that man though... I will buy it once it is out for consoles because even if it was made for a PC, it is clearly better suited for a console.

Did you even read the article? It's a number the Marcin Iwinski made up on the spot to try one of the interviewers questions, a rough estimate for which his reasoning is sound, still he even says so himself that it's a guess at best. He's not lying, it isn't a grand conspiracy or nefarious plotting, it's a guy throwing a ballpark guess as part of an interview...

This is why I'm annoyed the Escaping are reporting on it like this. Of all the interesting things talked about in the interview he casually mentions a number and now suddenly that's the focus of attention everyone's talking about.

*grumble grumble*

 

[Voltano]

You think that is bad? How about the menu screen saying "You can't connect to our servers so you can't play our game," on a 360 where piracy is less of a problem. Better yet, the problem has been well documented for over a year and no one has done anything about fixing the server issue.

From what I heard "Battlefield 3" does something like that even for the Xbox 360 version. Some people mentioned you literally have to play it through a browser to play that game--and there is the whole Origin drama associated with it.

I grew to like "Dragon Age" here and completed it with my elf-mage, but I really can't appreciate the game when it feels like an extension from EA to treat me like a criminal. That is where I draw the comparison toward the "Witcher" developers who at least give you a great deal of content in their game without tearing your wallet apart for "money-meat."

 

[Vkmies]

Thanks alot CD Projekt. I love you guys! *European bro-fist*

 

[RanD00M]

This is just abominable im sorry but this is why i believe the pc gaming market should just die quickly and painlessly.

Console gamers pirate too you windbag.

OT: Good statement there. I did pirate it, I will not deny that. However after I had played it for some hours I bought it because I couldn't let such marvel of a game go unrewarded.

 

[Moeez]

Sounds like they watched the Extra Credits episode on Piracy [http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/piracy] about tackling it by offering a higher value product than what you can get on the pirated version.

 

[Gatx]

It's all well and good to see some devs express such a viewpoint, but it's really repressing to see the ratio. It's probably more convincing evidence FOR DRM if anything.