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

[Yopaz]

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

Well, even though it got pirated a lot there's a chance some of them ended up buying it afterwards, those are the numbers we don't see.

OT: It's good to see more companies saying that DRM is bullshit. It should be clear to all developers now that DRM makes it slightly harder to pirate and much worse to play legally.

 

[Dastardly]

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

I think we've got to come to a middle-ground on all of this.

On one side, folks should understand:
1. Why a company that spent money to make a product would want to protect it.
2. That "make the game better" does nothing to discourage taking it for free.
3. That piracy is never a justified response to not liking DRM or price.

On the other side, folks should understand:
1. That DRM can often be inconvenient for legal users.
2. That you can still make a profit despite piracy, but perhaps the bajillion-percent profit is an unreasonable expectation.
3. For a lot of folks, it's a question of value -- which includes, but is not limited to, price.

So, if both sides could make certain concessions, we'd be fine.

- Publishers should lower the price of new games to encourage fence-sitters to steer toward legal versus piracy. You're never going to get the die-hard pirates, of course... but the goal is those people who are "pirates of convenience." Make your product a bit cheaper, and you'll get at least some of them. As the free-to-play MMO market has proven, customers get involved in much larger numbers when the price comes down -- and it has always led to more money.

- Those fence-sitting pirates need to realize that, by pirating, they're just continuing the cycle that keeps everything working so poorly. If you want a product, buy it. If not, don't buy or play it. This will allow companies to easily spot what folks like and what they don't, and they won't have any distractions (or scapegoats) pulling away from that necessary learning process. If you want to communicate your displeasure to publishers, send a clear message of "I don't want your product the way it is," rather than, "I want your product, but I do not want to pay."

 

[Drake666]

*DOUBLE POST*

 

[Drake666]

Dear CD Projekt,

I like you guys. So stop making dumb "estimations" on how much you think the game was pirated. Torrent downloads do not equate to a lost sale. Especially when the game has no demo, and didn't have a global release initially. I'm glad you're staying off the DRM, just don't foster ill will with comments like these.

I don't think they saw it as a "lost sale". Only as a "pirated copy" (even if thir estimate is probably VERY off).

EDIT: Am I human? I've had 2 captcha errors :|

EDIT2: And I double posted... damn, not my day...

 

[Dastardly]

Wrong! We have no way of knowing how much they lost because of those 4.5 million pirated copies. Pirated copies of games do not in any way shape or form equate into a lost sale on a 1:1 ratio. It could just as easily be argued none of those people would have bought it if not for piracy that all of them would have. Many of the people pirating the game are doing so because there is no way they could afford it. To claim they lost out on 180 million is simply not true.

But surely you can see how this is exactly the problem? How can we expect any company to learn its lesson if we keep sending mixed messages? The point is that they don't know how many dollars they actually lost -- but you can bet it's more than zero. So, since it's their product and their livelihood, of course they're going to assume the worst.

As to the "can't afford it," nearly every game comes down in price after awhile. No law or natural force demands that they play it at release. I'm sure at least a handful of those pirates could have afforded the game at $40, or $20. And if they had bought it later on, at those prices, it could show developers that price is the big issue -- such market research could lead them to lower prices overall to generate more early-on sales and beat the secondhand market.

But the point is that they'll never know. If someone breaks into your house, and you catch them, and he's trying to tell you that he spotted some home repair issues, are you going to listen? No. First, you're going to deal with the fact that he broke into your house. You're not going to take advice from them on how to fix your house, because they're goddamned thieves.

In short, I agree with the message that you (and I, and many others) want to send to publishers. But piracy isn't just sending the wrong message, it's actually drowning out the right message, too. That's the problem.

It's not like they were physical copies stolen from a warehouse. Those are just people converting 1s and 0s from one computer to another. Sure you could argue that they've lost the time and initial investment they put into making the game but they've made around 50 million off that so far so I'd wager that Witcher 2 is probably already profitable by this point or extremely close to it.

If that hypothetical guy that broke into your house didn't steal anything, would that be cool by you? Of course not. It's the fact that he's taking liberties with your home that you didn't permit him to take. Maybe he did steal something, and you just didn't notice yet. Maybe he stole something less tangible, by using your water or power, and it's impossible for you to measure just how much he actually stole. Whatever the case, you're not just going to say, "Oh, well -- no harm done!"

 

[Dastardly]

Also as "bad" as 4-4.5 million pirated copies goes, you also have to ask how many of those people would have paid for the game at full price if they didn't have the option. Not many I'd imagine. The industry has to stop equating piracy with a lost sale, because it's not. It might be stealing, but at the same time it's a kind of theft where there is no definate loss to the person owning the IP and that needs to be understood when it comes to things like this.

The fact that the loss can't be absolutely measured doesn't mean it can be completely ignored. "We're not sure exactly how much we lost," isn't the same as, "We lost nothing." Now, I personally agree with you that companies need to focus on whether or not they made enough money to keep on going. But surely you can understand that someone has the right to expect that everyone enjoying the fruits of their hard work should chip in, right?

 

[Buccura]

I'm still skeptical about just how these numbers gets added up. I'm not saying piracy numbers are not high, but is this 4.5 million people pirating the game, 4.5 million download attempts, or just the total number of downloads that includes downloading from every single peer in the torrent?

 

[Xanthious]

I personally agree with you that companies need to focus on whether or not they made enough money to keep on going. But surely you can understand that someone has the right to expect that everyone enjoying the fruits of their hard work should chip in, right?

I think if game companies are dealing in reality then it's not in any way reasonable to expect everyone playing their game to chip in somehow. Is it right or fair? Likely not but the reality is that if you make a game that it's going to be pirated unless you bog it down with DRM to the point it turns off paying customers and then it only has a punter's chance of not being pirated as quickly.

I think that when developing any game for damn near any system these days companies can not allow themselves to get focused on stopping piracy. Piracy is pretty much akin to a force of nature anymore and trying to stop it is about on par with trying to stop an earthquake, or tornado. Any money spent licensing or developing DRM is simply money lost and or wasted. The best that can be done is to make a good game that people want to buy and treat the paying customers well.

In a perfect world there would be no piracy and developers would get paid by each person playing/watching/listening to their content. However, this is far from a perfect world and piracy isn't going anywhere. At the end of the day developers and publishers are going to get a lot further focusing on the people that are actually paying them than by worrying about those that aren't

 

[Laxman9292]

This guy has the right idea, they don't try to fuck over consumers *cough*ubisoft*cough*

And they still are making headlines for how much they got pirated... If even the good guys are getting punished by pirates then there's definitely a piracy problem that can't be waved away as "Meh, they deserve it."

 

[Aeshi]

I like how the people going "oh you can't prove they'd have bought it anyway" then keep going on to say "if it had DRM even more people would have pirated" like it's a fact.

 

[Ishigami]

Interesting... did they mention that only the copy from Good Old Games was free of DRM?
The retail release shipped with SecuROM. Granted they removed it with patch 1.1 but at first you had to install it.
Not to mention it interfered with the game performance. Witcher 2 without the DRM runs better than with it, so for a few days the pirates had still the ?superior? version.
I compliment their conviction but their actions are no entirely coherent.

 

[Dastardly]

I think if game companies are dealing in reality then it's not in any way reasonable to expect everyone playing their game to chip in somehow. Is it right or fair? Likely not but the reality is that if you make a game that it's going to be pirated unless you bog it down with DRM to the point it turns off paying customers and then it only has a punter's chance of not being pirated as quickly.

And here's where I disagree: the misuse of the word "reasonable."

It is entirely reasonable to expect everyone playing the game to chip in. The belief that people should pay for things that cost money is grounded in solid logic and reason. It may not be realistic, but it's certainly reasonable.

It is, however, unreasonable to say that, because a company can't stop all piracy that they should instead do nothing about piracy at all. I can't stop it from raining, but using an umbrella can stop it from raining on me -- it would be unreasonable to say, "Because you can't stop the weather, you shouldn't bother with that umbrella."

So, while I agree that publishers/developers shouldn't allow piracy to govern how they create the game, I think we can also understand why it is that piracy bothers them so much, and why they might want to at least do a little to prevent it.

 

[DataSnake]

For the guy saying "they have bad business sense", a simple thought experiment: Imagine you have written a game. A single copy costs $50, and there's no used market since it's on PC. Would you rather have:
a)1,000,000 paying customers and 100,000,000 pirates (you get $50,000,000), or
b)500,000 paying customers and 0 pirates? (you get $25,000,000)

And that's not even getting into the fact that DRM can actually be an INCENTIVE to pirate, since legitimate buyers have to put up with it and pirates DON'T.

 

[Laxman9292]

1 in six people (probably more) have pirated the Witcher.

4.5 million sales of a game that retails at somewhere between 20-60 GBP. This game has lost £180,000,000 (approx)

And PC Gamers wonder why no one wants to develop for them anymore? If a game was on the console (I know there is still console piracy, but it's much rarer) then it had the potential to make nearly two hundred million instead of lose it.

Maybe if PC Gamers stopped pirating 60-90% of their games people might feel a bit nicer towards them. After all it's been proven that PC Gamers will pirate a game which would otherwise cost them a single penny, so why exactly should I believe they are nice wholesome folk?

Where do you get your information that it is much rarer? It is as easy as pirating on the PC and much harder to get the actual numbers (get yor pirated copies from the guy who mods your console in 20minutes, you don't even need internet and as long as you are not stupid enough to connect the console to the internet = win)?

Also, thank you for calling me a pirate. May I call you prick for that?

It actually is much more of a hassle to mod your console and get pirated games for it. At least when compared to PC which literally only requires a connection to the internet. Also bear in mind that PSN and Xbox Live ban people for modding their consoles and most people using consoles are at least connected to online services in some manner and you have a pretty effective deterrent to modding consoles. Not to say that it doesn't happen, of course.

 

[Skeleon]

THANK YOU, the worst thing about this DRM stuff are the incredible hoops it forces legal owners to jump through.
Anyway, maybe I'm incredibly naive, but I'd hope that pirates still buy the games they enjoy at least to support their particular developers.

 

[XDravond]

This makes me want to have money to buy more games. If I would be rich I'd bought at least 5 copies of the witcher 2... But Christmas is coming and well don't have that big budget for games every year....

And I wonder if he thinks that DRM might have decreased those numbers if they would implemented it...

However it is good to see some studios seeing that you should not punish your customers for what pirates do...

 

[Continuity]

The thing to bear in mind with large numbers like this for pirate downloads is that 1 illegal download does not = 1 lost sale. In fact I would guess that as few as 1 in 1000 pirated game would have been bought at retail if piracy wasn't an option, which is a drop in the ocean in terms of over all sales.

You have to remember that the reason most people pirate is because they are either unable to pay (kids and students) or unwilling to pay, thats why they jump though the hoops required to illegally download and crack games. Most of the time your average person with money to buy the game will buy the game, they are the core sales demographic and they remain largely unaffected by piracy no matter how ridiculously large those illegal download figures get.

 

[TokenRupee]

Just their attitude toward games makes me want to rush out and buy The Witcher 2.

 

[Max_imus]

May I say I love these guys? The Witcher 2 is an incredible game, and they are an incredible studio.

Generally, people should stop thinkin in terms of "boo hoo, this game lost (insert ridiculous amount of money) because of piracy". That, logically speaking, I'm not much of an economics guy, isn't the case! The studio still made a good profit with their game, it's just that they COULD have made more money if there was no piracy.
The people who DID buy their game legally love the company all the more and will stay willing to pay for their products. Try to say that for Ubisoft clients.