Witcher Studio Chief Vows No More DRM

[DementedSheep]

A nice sentiment, hopefully they always get that choice. They have already had problems with one publisher from this.

 

[dyre]

It's easy to say "never again" when there's no pressure to actually follow through on it, and Iwinski might be forced to sing a different tune if CDPR ever signs a big deal with EA, Activision or, God forbid, Ubisoft. Releasing games on Steam adds a certain nuance to the "DRM: yes/no?" question too. But what it really comes down to is customer service, and if more developers and publishers treated their customers like CD Projekt, I think we'd all be better for it.

Do you mean there's no pressure against following through on it? That seems to have been the tone of that paragraph. Obviously if he announced publicly that CDProjekt won't use DRM ever again, there's at least some pressure to not go back on a promise.

 

[freaper]

I had to log in at three different locations to activate my legit copy of Mass Effect 3 and it's DLC, while the full game was already available 1 day after launch.

I have no idea why dev's and publishers keep this DRM nonsense up.

 

[lacktheknack]

if CDPR ever signs a big deal with EA, Activision or, God forbid, Ubisoft

AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGHH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHH

WHY WOULD YOU EVER BRING THIS HORRIFIC, TAINTED THOUGHT TO MY MIND, YOU HORRIBLE MONSTER! AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGH!

(Guess who I didn't vote for in March Mayhem!)

Anyways, I support this. This will take a big chunk out of the "justifications" used by pirates.

 

[Valdus]

I want these guys to make a game I'll like so I can give my money to them. It's nice to have a company that doesn't treat it's customers like scheming thieves just looking for a chance.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

This makes me want to fly Poland so I can give everyone at CD Projket Red a hug. Also I need to get round to buying Witcher 2

 

[antipunt]

Wow. Common sense strikes again!

These guys are epic. They understand something that I'm not sure why other PC devs don't. True DRM 'deters' piracy, in like, a very minimalistic way. But most people who pirate know how to use torrents, and people who know how to use torrents aren't idiots. Once a game is cracked, it's pretty much easy 1-2-3, boom, you're DRM free. And to add insult to injury, you have legit buyers of the game still struggling with this : 'wtf is this confusing drm crap, I don't want to kicked off some server, etc'.

So yes, Witcher 2 was pirated. But it sold well. And they didn't waste resources and insult PC-gamers (legit buyers) with useless DRM that would've been cracked and easily avoided anyways. If you're a pirate, chances are, you know how to easily apply a stupid crack.

So in short, DRM doesn't stop pirates. At all. Nothing will. Better to avoid DRM and gain respect from your fan base. Seriously, why do they think this works, do they take us for idiotas?

 

[Le_Lisra]

Fucking heroes.

Even though I haven't spend more than 10mins in the Witcher yet.

 

[Arakasi]

The guys at CD Projekt have never been shy about their feelings toward DRM: they don't like it. As far back as 2008 the company was espousing a remove it [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/86403-CD-Projekt-Encourages-Industry-To-Go-DRM-Free] two weeks after the game launched. And while that DRM may not have done much to keep pirates at bay it turns out that it was very influential in one interesting and somewhat unexpected way.

Stealth puns: You never know where, you never know when.


OT: Good on CD Projekt, hopefully other game companies will follow suit.

 

[Something Amyss]

Now if only they could make a game that treated the customer as well as they do.

Baby steps. I mean, you can't expect them to change completely overnight.

Unless they are some form of bizarre mythical create with chimeric properties...RUN FOR THE HILLS, FOLKS!

 

[Temko Firewing]

This makes me want to fly Poland so I can give everyone at CD Projket Red a hug. Also I need to get round to buying Witcher 2

i'm in the that boat.. actually, i just fcking did exactly this.

Booked a flight, walked up, gave a dude a hand, said thanks and keep up the work and bought the game on GoG when it came out.

I've yet to touch the game. i prolly wont either. but i had a fun 2 weeks in poland!

 

[Iron Lightning]

This is why I bought two new copies of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. CD Projekt Red is officially a cooler company than even lovely Valve.

 

[Knight Templar]

That is good. But since they need to work through publishers it's going to cause some trouble.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

That is good. But since they need to work through publishers it's going to cause some trouble.

They don't need to work through publishers per se, CD Projekt self-publishes (or more precisely CD Projekt is the publisher for CD Projekt Red) but they do need to work with them for physical distribution outside of Eastern/Central Europe (where they're the biggest distributor), something that has already led to a problem or two, such as Namco Bandai forcing them to raise the price on their gog.com version for Australian customers because of contractual agreements (NB being the game's distributor in Oz).

Of course a few days later gog.com stopped IP checking against customer purchases, which goes to show that CD Projekt aren't afraid of pissing off a distributor to do things the way they want them done. Hell, if none of the big distributors want to do things CD Projekt's way I wouldn't be surprised to see them distributing via the mobs who usually handle bargin bin re-releases (and let's face it, in certain markets it would closer match CD Projekt's own pricing policies).

 

[Jaeger_CDN]

Namco Bandai forcing them to raise the price on their gog.com version for Australian customers because of contractual agreements (NB being the game's distributor in Oz).

The fact that they were willing to step up like that and even risk potentially expensive law suits means that they are worthy of your money.

 

[infohippie]

I'm more pleased than ever I bought the Collector's Edition of TW2. This is a game studio that deserves my money. Keep it up, CDPR, I love you all!

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Namco Bandai forcing them to raise the price on their gog.com version for Australian customers because of contractual agreements (NB being the game's distributor in Oz).

The fact that they were willing to step up like that and even risk potentially expensive law suits means that they are worthy of your money.

Even before that, when CD Projekt/gog.com were made to raise a price higher than they wanted in any region they added in extra stuff with the purchase to make up the price difference (or there abouts).

It's a pity other digital distributors stay with regional pricing schemes.

 

[Alma Mare]

Unfortunately, DRM was never the issue with The Witcher 2. Being developed as a console game through and through - poorly - was the issue.

But, credit where credit is due, these guys have more of a collective brain than most others.

Did you pull that out of your ass?
The witcher 2 is a PC rpg through and through why would the console version come out later if it was a console game?

I pulled that out of the countless design decisions, including the radial action wheel, list-based inventory with countless filters, the complete change of the control scheme from mouse-oriented to what pretty much all 3rd person action adventure games use and them saying they're working on a console version right after publishing the PC one.

Translation: the UI didn't look like a spreadsheet, so Q_Q
Ontopic: CDProjekt still on the ball, nothing new to see here. I was going to delay my purchase of TW2 since my computer can't handle it, but when I saw they had patched out the DRM AND added the retailer DLC I had a knee-jerk reaction and bought the collector's edition. Something right, they must be doing.

 

[Alma Mare]

Unfortunately, DRM was never the issue with The Witcher 2. Being developed as a console game through and through - poorly - was the issue.

But, credit where credit is due, these guys have more of a collective brain than most others.

Did you pull that out of your ass?
The witcher 2 is a PC rpg through and through why would the console version come out later if it was a console game?

I pulled that out of the countless design decisions, including the radial action wheel, list-based inventory with countless filters, the complete change of the control scheme from mouse-oriented to what pretty much all 3rd person action adventure games use and them saying they're working on a console version right after publishing the PC one.

Translation: the UI didn't look like a spreadsheet, so Q_Q
Ontopic: CDProjekt still on the ball, nothing new to see here. I was going to delay my purchase of TW2 since my computer can't handle it, but when I saw they had patched out the DRM AND added the retailer DLC I had a knee-jerk reaction and bought the collector's edition. Something right, they must be doing.

The only intelligence insulted here with your witty remark is your own.

It wasn't like there was any other involved.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

I think the ironic thing is that DRM was invented to stop piracy, and pirates took is as a bit of a personal challenge to take down DRM games to show that it's just a waste of time and a fun thing for them to play around with.

If we take away DRM and just lower the prices, people might actually go out and rent or buy these things instead of trying to find ways to circumvent the awful DRM. Plus, for some people who don't like being connected to the internet 24/7, like people who play games on the laptop, this would be a great boon to them.