CD Projekt Red swears off DRM

mindcycle

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Jan 9, 2008
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The Witcher 2 developer CD Projekt Red has had a love-hate relationship with digital rights management before, but now the CEO has thrown down the gauntlet. At the Game Developers Conference, company co-founder Marcin Iwinski committed to never use DRM again.

"Every subsequent game we will never use any DRM anymore, it's just over-complicating things," Iwinski said at a presentation on the success of The Witcher 2. "We release the game. It's cracked in two hours, it was no time for Witcher 2."

"DRM does not protect your game," Iwinski told Joystiq. "If there are examples that it does, then people maybe should consider it, but then there are complications with legit users."

Iwinski also said he was "surprised" that the pirates cracked the SecuROM version of the game rather than distributing the DRM-free GOG version. The company had previously threatened to sue pirates of the game, but halted that plan upon concerns that innocent users could be falsely accused.

His statements echo earlier comments that have been skeptical of DRM's efficacy, but this is the first time he's outright committed to a DRM policy for the future of the company. The Witcher 2 was Shacknews' Game of the Year, and is scheduled to hit the Xbox 360 on April 17.

via: http://www.shacknews.com/article/72823/cd-projekt-red-swears-off-drm
 

terry107

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Dec 8, 2005
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CDPR and GOG will continue to get a large share of my disposable income.

Edit - Also, on April 17th, CDPR is releasing The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition for the PC in conjunction with the 360 launch. CDPR is sticking to their free DLC policy and the enhanced edition is no exception. Just another reason to like the company.
 
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mindcycle

Golden Member
Jan 9, 2008
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Yep I preordered W2 and I will do the same for their next game.

Same here.
thumb.gif
 

gorcorps

aka Brandon
Jul 18, 2004
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:thumbsup: These guys get it. Please continue to give me reasons to give you my money.

The weird thing is they almost DIDN'T get it. That whole "we can prove who pirated the game and we're going after them" debacle was a huge PR nightmare. Luckily they wised up and didn't go after it, but it was still one of the more aggressive announcements I've seen about such a thing.

This is a good way of covering their ass, but I'm going to skip a game or two until they show they truly do get it. I'm not convinced they're not trying to just save face. :hmm:
 

VashHT

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2007
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The weird thing is they almost DIDN'T get it. That whole "we can prove who pirated the game and we're going after them" debacle was a huge PR nightmare. Luckily they wised up and didn't go after it, but it was still one of the more aggressive announcements I've seen about such a thing.

This is a good way of covering their ass, but I'm going to skip a game or two until they show they truly do get it. I'm not convinced they're not trying to just save face. :hmm:

I'll continue to buy their games because they are willing to give out free updates unlike so many other companies who have jumped on the DLC bandwagon.

I'm glad to see them swear off DRM completely though, my copy of the witcher has tages on it because it was the original retail version and AFAIK the original retail version of TW2 has DRM on it as well.
 

busydude

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2010
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The weird thing is they almost DIDN'T get it. That whole "we can prove who pirated the game and we're going after them" debacle was a huge PR nightmare. Luckily they wised up and didn't go after it, but it was still one of the more aggressive announcements I've seen about such a thing.

This is a good way of covering their ass, but I'm going to skip a game or two until they show they truly do get it. I'm not convinced they're not trying to just save face. :hmm:

lol wut?

Anyway, I love them.
 

KaOTiK

Lifer
Feb 5, 2001
10,877
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I'll continue to buy their games because they are willing to give out free updates unlike so many other companies who have jumped on the DLC bandwagon.

I'm glad to see them swear off DRM completely though, my copy of the witcher has tages on it because it was the original retail version and AFAIK the original retail version of TW2 has DRM on it as well.

IIRC they patched out the DRM on the second patch a few weeks after the game was out.
 

JamesV

Platinum Member
Jul 9, 2011
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CDPR and GOG will continue to get a large share of my disposable income.

Edit - Also, on April 17th, CDPR is releasing The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition for the PC in conjunction with the 360 launch. CDPR is sticking to their free DLC policy and the enhanced edition is no exception. Just another reason to like the company.

CDPR are high at the top of my list for 'good devs'. They did the same thing for the first Witcher, putting out a huge (almost expansion-like) update to the old game. They did this a long time after the game was released, when literally all other devs would have stopped working, or would only be working paid-for DLC.

The Witcher 2 regular retail edition is like a collectors edition you would expect to pay $79.99+ for. It came with the game, user manual, guide (like a small walkthrough), metal coin, bonus DVD with the game soundtrack/movies/art/etc, and a map.

Huge support way past expected, great game bundles that are not overpriced, and now no DRM... I hope they start making more games.
 

Dankk

Diamond Member
Jul 7, 2008
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Yep I believe the Enhanced Edition didn't have any DRM.

I believe he was referring to TW2, which had it's SecuROM patched out just a couple weeks after it's release last spring. I wasn't around during TW1's release in 2007, but that's cool if they patched out the DRM for it as well. :p

I think the reason they did it was to avoid Day-0 piracy. After a little while, they said, "ok, it's been out for long enough now, get rid of it". Or something like that.
 

VashHT

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2007
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IIRC they patched out the DRM on the second patch a few weeks after the game was out.

Yeah it's nice that the DRM is gone after you update but you still have to deal with it if you reinstall the game. I had to find an update for tages for the first Witcher because it wouldn't let me update it until I ran it with tages once and of course the version of tages they shipped was 32 bit only. It's a pretty minor annoyance but I don't like to think that there could be a time in the future when I couldn't play the game because the DRM won't work anymore and I can't update to remove it because of the DRM. I'm not sure if the Witcher 2 behaves the same way but I'd rather just see the game come with no DRM whatsoever.
 

coloumb

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Good for them - release a high quality game and people will buy it. Sure - there will be a few who will download it and never pay for the game - but that's the risk you have to accept.

It's so damn easy to circumvent DRM these days - but it's mainly in place to prevent non-technical johnny sharing his game with non-technical jane.
 

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
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Kudos to them, they make a great game.

With the decline of Bioware, I think CDP's going to be the premiere developer out there.
 

Dankk

Diamond Member
Jul 7, 2008
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Kudos to them, they make a great game.

With the decline of Bioware, I think CDP's going to be the premiere developer out there.

They're gonna have to develop for consoles to reach that sort of fame.

(Not saying they haven't started though, TW2 is coming out on 360 this spring)
 

Bateluer

Lifer
Jun 23, 2001
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There was a pretty long thread about this when it happened. CDP created an amazing game, supported it beyond what most modern companies do, and released it DRM-free on GoG. If they want to target pirates for a mere 1200 dollars after bending over backwards to create such an awesome product, they bloody well should. If they were the RIAA, pirating that one copy of TW2 would get you a suit in the tens of millions.
 

gorcorps

aka Brandon
Jul 18, 2004
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There was a pretty long thread about this when it happened. CDP created an amazing game, supported it beyond what most modern companies do, and released it DRM-free on GoG. If they want to target pirates for a mere 1200 dollars after bending over backwards to create such an awesome product, they bloody well should. If they were the RIAA, pirating that one copy of TW2 would get you a suit in the tens of millions.

Except they DIDN'T do anything. They folded under pressure... all talk. I like the company and their product, but they've double backed on DRM decisions before. In one article the CEO talks about how "DRM doesn't work, so we shouldn't even bother anymore" right before they sent out collection letters claiming 100% piracy detection. If they were right about the 100% detection then they would have followed through with the collection, but they realized they weren't as certain as they thought. Now he's swearing off DRM entirely. It's a bunch of shenanigans when it comes to this CEO and DRM, so I'm on the "wait and see" plan. Everything else they do with DLC and such is gold though.
 

busydude

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Feb 5, 2010
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motsm

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Except they DIDN'T do anything. They folded under pressure... all talk. I like the company and their product, but they've double backed on DRM decisions before. In one article the CEO talks about how "DRM doesn't work, so we shouldn't even bother anymore" right before they sent out collection letters claiming 100% piracy detection. If they were right about the 100% detection then they would have followed through with the collection, but they realized they weren't as certain as they thought. Now he's swearing off DRM entirely. It's a bunch of shenanigans when it comes to this CEO and DRM, so I'm on the "wait and see" plan. Everything else they do with DLC and such is gold though.
Your just assuming all of that actually, ever think you might be wrong? It's also quite possible the only reason they didn't follow through is because loud people on the internet got butt hurt for no reason and they didn't want the press.