Witcher 2 Dev Defends Asking €1000 From Pirates

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

This is why I like the move. Record companies are trying to ruin someone's life out of spite, CD Projekt is just imposing a hefty fine for stealing that should be a wake up call.

You can't compare what American record companies do in America to what a Polish company does in Germany.
Over here, the maximum reimbursable sum for first time convictors of minor copyright violation is merely 100?, which would leave 900? for the lawyer writing a letter, far above any reasonable expectation. CD Projekt demands a sum that's above anything that is legally possible.
As such it is apparent that they're just jumping on the C&D train, cranking out the letters hoping (sadly rightfully so) that no one would actually go to court.

Of course, if you don't live in Germany you probably don't know about the Abmahnwelle/C&D wave, its implications, its abuse, how there are entire companies and lawyers who do nothing but tread the internet for even the most minor copyright violation to send a C&D letter and how it goes far beyond "pirates getting just punishment". It's more of a form of extortion, taking advantage of confused individuals, who may or may not even be guilty. Indeed, you don't have to prove anything to send a C&D letter, only if the receiver rejects it goes the case to court. And considering what lawyers cost, how many people do you think go to court over pirating a song or game?
In almost all cases the sum demanded is deemed too high by a court, but since you also have to pay the lawyers you're still much worse off if you try to get justice. That's the issue here, whether or not the pirates deserve it is secondary to this asinine C&D-industry (that's what it has become), how it can basically do whatever the fuck they want and how it by now affects the entire internet in Germany. Seeing CD Projekt go along with that particular practice is more than saddening.
By American standards CD Projekt might seem mild, but by German and especially other-European (where you can't demand anything for C&D letters) standards they've jumped the shark with this.

My apologies for speaking from good ol' American ignorance. In that case, they are definitely in the wrong.

 

[brainslurper]

I like this strategy. People who bought the game get to play it unobstructed, the developer gets their money, and the people who felt they were entitled to someone else's hard work for free get to pay $1300 for it. Everyone wins!

 

[brainslurper]

Crazy idea: CD Projekt may have embedded some sort of tracker or reporting file into the Witcher 2.

Not so crazy, a lot of games have data trackers that report back to the developer to give the developer information on their demographic and how the content might be enjoyed; some developers like to measure player behavior. Its called "metrics." Here's a link to something some people might find familiar on this site: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/metrics

It goes on to talk about how they are used for design and such, but yeah.

I wouldn't send them threats, I'd send them rootkits and malware so I could drain their bank accounts remotely. What are they going to do, sue the company because their stolen software damaged their system?

Interesting idea, but maybe the pirates should just be sniped from afar so that no one has to go through the trouble of directly communicating or dealing with the pirates in the first place? Seize their belongings and take that as your reimbursement.

In all seriousness, it wouldn't work; they would still run into the problem of hitting people that might not have pirated the game. You could just place that dormant rootkit in the code, but that still has the problem of it happening to real users. Though, you could have it happen to all users, but let it only execute if the "piracy" flag is tripped, no one knows it happens, and all is good.

And yet, it doesn't fix the problem of it being just as unethical and illegal as the piracy in the first place...

They seem to be pretty nice about this, and if one out of a thousand didn't pirate it, their loss would be spending a little time proving they didn't pirate it.

 

[brainslurper]

Hmm. I don't really object to what they're doing, but I do wonder what they're trying to accomplish with this. You will never be able to stop piracy. The best you can do is coerce people to buy legally. When they took their "no-DRM" stance, they garnered quite a lot of good-will, even among the pirates. Specifically, the people who pirate because of DRM.

I think it's a wasted effort. This seems to be an attempt at setting an example. However, by doing this, they might have squandered the good-will that they gained. Both the game industry, and those that try to stay involved with its inner-workings, need to stop looking at this issue of piracy in the short-term, and gain a little perspective.



Or maybe I'm just talking out of my ass.

No, it's not. They are getting money from people who, if they weren't tremendous assholes, would have given them money anyways. I don't think their goal was ever to "stop" piracy. I don't see how charging thieves money for stealing something from them would ever affect good will they gained by not punishing people who bought their game legally.

 

[brainslurper]

On the one hand there is now 1 more company frantically suing pirates.

On the other hand the usual amount asked is tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. I could get hit with a 1300 dollar fine and survive it easily. If I got hit with a 200,000 fine I would go under and since I am a dependent on my parents healthcare they would have to pay what I can't. If I made my parents go broke I would literally have to kill myself.

So yeah the reason I don't mind this is CDred's penalty for pirating a game 1 time is 1300 dollars. The music industry will force you to kill yourself.

Heres a bright idea, don't steal things, then you don't have to worry about people holding you accountable for it.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

This is why I like the move. Record companies are trying to ruin someone's life out of spite, CD Projekt is just imposing a hefty fine for stealing that should be a wake up call.

1300$ ist not a ''wake up call'' it's a plea of ''please never ever buy one of our games''.

In other words, it's stupid. I'm willing to bet that every single one of you has pirated software on their PC. Sometimes you need a Software and the makers are asking for a laughable amount of money for it.

If I ''were'' to pirate something, it wouldn't be because I don't want to spend money on it, but because I don't want to waste money on it. Game developers should stop whinning and complaining until they let customers that legitmately are not happy with the product return it. Until then, all I have to say to them is ''Fuck you''. I didn't like Witcher 2 but I gave it a shot because of all the hub-bub about it at the time, after pulling this kind of shit, they have lost all hope for a second chance from me. A second chance that Skyrim got after Oblivion sucked some major ass with it's buginess.

But talking about those title, Oblivion and Skyrim. I started Oblivion out, played for awhile, was in a dungeon and picked a lock with my only lockpick, upon entering the room I found it to be empty, so I wanted to exit it...but whats this? The door I just entered is suddenly locked again...and I only have that one autosave that the game just saved over as I entered the room. Well fucking splendid. I payed them good money for oblivion and they gave me a buggy product which I couldn't use correctly, in other words, they cheated me. I feel that they would actually owe me a copy of Skyrim for that reason. But thats one of the biggest problems, isn't it. Even Gamer have adopted this mentality that consumers are accountable for their actions...but not those poor multimillion dollar corporations.

If you consider the product to be a waste of money then theres a simple way to go about it without resorting piracy, its called not playing the fucking game. Seriously, you cant use the, "Oh i wouldnt have bought it anyway" excuse because if you download and play it, then you clearly have enough interest to pay money for it. Also you feel they owe you a copy of Skyrim? That right there is entitlement at its finest, gaming is a luxury, not a necessity, so please grow up.
Gaming companies can be at fault as well, i.e. Activision, and Ubisoft, and a lot of those other big name studios have fucked up in the past, but there are a lot of people out there who are content with just pirating games instead of paying for them.

OT: This is quite fair, I've had an issue with fines issued by companies in the past but this is the most reasonable one i've seen, $1300 wont ruin someones life like a $200,000 fine would, but its enough to scare them off not doing it again, and if CD Projekt actually succeeds in getting money off a few then hopefully it will deter potential pirates from doing it as well

 

[Starke]

Uh. You can demand only 3 times the software's worth on the current market.

$120 per game is at most what they can get.

Not more.

That really depends on where they file. In the states I know you can ask for at least fifty thousand times the product's fair market value.

 

[Joccaren]

This is a disgusting heavy handed corporate law-suit. I can not believe how many of you people support this kind of shit.

Why shouldn't we?
They are suing pirates for the cost of the game they stole and the cost of having to make them go to court. Lawyers aren't free, and say they did win every case and only charged $120 or something, they would be broke. Why? Because they're lawyers would say 'Ok, we won this one case. $900 please'. Charging this amount is making the pirate pay for the game they have stolen, and the court case they have caused happen. Perfectly reasonable. Far more reasonable than the hundreds of thousand dollar fines the music industry tried to put out, and the DRM some companies enforce. If you don't pirate, you shouldn't get affected. If you do pirate, you are F'd, and rightfully so, but your life is not ruined. What would you rather them do? Take the Ubisoft route and say '90% of PC users are pirates, so we're not giving you our games anymore'. No, that is stupid. This is the best method of dealing with Piracy I have seen so far, and it is not unreasonable in the slightest.

 

[Kingjackl]

Agree 100% with this guy. What's more, I love how these pirates have to pay $1300 for trying to weasel out of paying for an $80-ish game. Bunch of wankers who deserve no sympathy.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

the best solution would then have to be console exclusivety, a step which you PC players will not hear of

When I can get PC-quality performance and game-complexity on a console that easily upgrades to meet the rising standards, and when publishers stop trying to sell to mass-market sensibilities via those consoles, then I'll hear of it. Sadly, PC gamers are the "large, but not nearly vocal enough minority".

Also, to think console piracy doesn't exist or isn't a significant-enough problem to not go on the public record and officially care about, is a bit short-sighted. *shrug*

I'm sorry I think I misread what you said, PC gamers are VERY vocal and pricks (Which hurts to type since I think I own more PC games then console games for any one system).

 

[Strazdas]

It's a tricky one. On one hand, yes, DRM probably is bad and does often punish the honest buyers.

But when there's no DRM at all on your game, it's inevitably going to be pirated. The DLC and stuff is surely DRM-free as well, so that'll just be pirated in as well.

It seems to me that CD Projekt had this "no-DRM" idea, then when they realised that they were losing literally MILLIONS of dollars, suddenly they need to start threatening people. I'm not saying that DRM is good by any means, but I think this specific approach is a tad short sighted.

I say that immortal, pink machine-gun death-scorpions should be the de-facto copy protection.

But why would DRM matter? DRM only matters for legal custumers. pirates dont care about DRM, they disable it the next day. so DRM only harm legal costumers. it does nto harm pirates AT ALL.
Well i see how thier strategy is going to work. for legal costumers they provide a great service. for pirates they chase them. to each is given the correct response.

drm gets cracked within a week (sometimes before the release)
but what people seem to ignore is that especially inexperienced (young) pirates often tend to buy the game because its too complicated and therefore too risky to try and apply the crack.
and most often young people (11-14) often make some mistakes when they applied the crack on the software like calling tech support (i was laughing my ass off when i heard this one) so they get easily caught.
in my opinion it repels at least 4% off all pirates from becoming a pirate.

but the bad thing about drm is when you change your system(upgrade) you most often can't install your game on it because of its draconian drm. it happened to me once.

but then again you could just write a letter to the game company and explain yourself so they might loose up the drm a bit so you could be able to install it again. in the end they are just people you can talk to.

but then again(don't worry its the last but then again) i know some people who abused this system and legalized pirated copies by telling them that they had brought the game but the key seemed to be already in use. (it was in the time where you had only to type in the cd key i dont know if this flaw persist)

Really, tell me how is ctrl+c ctrl+v ONCE a too complicated or too risky to crack? there are big names in cracking world that ensure you 100% virus free too. i wont name them due to this forum rules. Yes there are some people who call tech support on cracked games, but there is no cure for stupidity is there? Natural selection should have repelled those 4% form being born.

About the upgrade i have to agree. far cry 2 had 3 installs. you install game 3 times you can throw the dvd out, its worthless. The company does not return emails, so yeah pointless.

as for the selling pirated copies, that used to be mroe prominent before internet, now there is far less of that.

 

[gurall200]

Hold up, a developer releasing a game with little to no drm, actively supporting said game, which by the way has been given out as a diplomatic gift (no joke), and they ask that you not pirate it, and going after the people who choose to pirate it anyway?

I fail to see the problem, it's no small wonder the PC gets less and less support, it is, bar none, the most uncompromising, irritating and thankless group to develop for, why bother protecting your product, if you do, they hate you, if you choose to go after the people who knowingly (and illegally) pirate said game without buying it, they hate you, if you choose to release your product whilst trusting your fans to buy it, it's pirated and distributed anyways,

given the option of relentlessly intrusive drm, or the devs actually going after those who break the law, why not pick the second, 1000 euro (to lazy to convert it to US monies, but that's like 1300-2000 US, some thing like that...lol wide margin of error), is steep, but not impossible nor unreasonable, you broke the law, you pay a fine, deal with it, it's how things work. Consider the punishment Activision-Blizzard levied against someone running a custom wow server, which was somewhere in the millions, 1000 euro is chump change next to it (by no means cheap mind), or the epic-fail that was the RIAA enforcing music copyright, mistakenly suing the elderly, and continuing to do so as a show of force.

 

[Phlakes]

They are squandering the good will they have gained for themselves.

By asking software counterfeiters (remember it's not theft, it's fraud) to do the right thing and pay up? How is that being a dick?

It's not fraud or counterfeiting, it's copyright infringement.

Edit: And they're being dicks by asking for such a stupidly high amount that is no way commensurate with the price of the game.

How much did the game sell? A million copies? And there are about 4.5 million pirated copies. I see an amount that's stupidly high, but it's definitely not from CD Projekt.

I started Oblivion out, played for awhile... I payed them good money for oblivion and they gave me a buggy product which I couldn't use correctly, in other words, they cheated me. I feel that they would actually owe me a copy of Skyrim for that reason.

I don't care if I get a warning for this, but you are exactly the kind of self-entitled prick we all hate. You should have known what you were getting into. You willingly paid for their product, so if it doesn't live up to your standards, that's your problem. They don't owe you anything because getting stuck in a room made you ragequit. If you go see a movie you don't like, does the production company owe you a DVD of their next film? Hell no. You deal with it and don't ***** about how you were "cheated".

 

[Phlakes]

You got any proper proof for that figure? In the interview they said it was a made up figure. Even if you could prove that number was correct, you can't prove that they would have bought the game at all. Their whole strategy is a complete joke and I seriously regret giving them any money because of it, they won't be getting any more from me.

Even if it's off by 2 million, that's still 2.5 times their sales. And remind me again how punishing people who break the law is a joke.

 

[Phlakes]

You got any proper proof for that figure? In the interview they said it was a made up figure. Even if you could prove that number was correct, you can't prove that they would have bought the game at all. Their whole strategy is a complete joke and I seriously regret giving them any money because of it, they won't be getting any more from me.

Even if it's off by 2 million, that's still 2.5 times their sales. And remind me again how punishing people who break the law is a joke.

You have literally no idea how much it is off by, and that's the problem, neither do cdprojekt.

No, they obviously have a pretty good idea. The CEO himself said this- "I was checking regularly the number of concurrent downloads on torrent aggregating sites, and for the first 6-8 weeks there was around 20-30k ppl downloading it at the same time". And I'll take your word on the UK law, but in most other countries it is a criminal offense.

And still, what should they have done? Let the pirates get away clean knowing they can do the same with the next game?

 

[Phlakes]

You got any proper proof for that figure? In the interview they said it was a made up figure. Even if you could prove that number was correct, you can't prove that they would have bought the game at all. Their whole strategy is a complete joke and I seriously regret giving them any money because of it, they won't be getting any more from me.

Even if it's off by 2 million, that's still 2.5 times their sales. And remind me again how punishing people who break the law is a joke.

You have literally no idea how much it is off by, and that's the problem, neither do cdprojekt.

And still, what should they have done? Let the pirates get away clean knowing they can do the same with the next game?

Pretty much. Just ignore them. They're not going to stop. DRM doesn't work and legal options are expensive, time consuming and a logistical nightmare. They, and other companies, should focus their efforts on the people who do pay and providing the best possible product that they can to encourage sales that way.

And if they won't stop, wouldn't it be better to get something back? And possibly keep the more casual pirates from doing it again? Plus, the only resources this takes is of their legal team and executives who don't actually work on the games.

 

[hubert]

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[hubert]

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[RagTagBand]

15 times market value is absurd. 3-4 times is sufficient.

And I don't know how they can possibly be "100%" sure. The only plausible way I can think of they can be "100%" sure is if CDPR uploaded a "Pirate" copy of The Witcher 2 themselves to a torrent site (a tactic which I can personally guarantee businesses do) which contains some sort of unique marker (that would separate it from a ripped retail version).

But that would be only half the "Proof", they would then have to be able to find the people who downloaded it, get to their computer before their HDD can be nuked, and point to this unique identifier.

IP traces are bullshit.

 

[hubert]

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