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

[Frostbite3789]

This makes me sad.

The fact it was pirated after the dev went to such great length to be "For Gamers by Gamers" and everything.

Yeah, it's too bad the gaming public at large are selfish pricks.

 

[Frostbite3789]

These kind of messages need to be expressed before a games release.

If a developer comes across genuinely and cares for the fans then it really is a good incentive to buy their game as you do feel that they are worth your money and that you are giving it to a good studio with good people.

Hell after reading this I'm thinking of buying Witcher 2 just to support them.

All this was expressed before the game's release. Unless you were under a rock.

 

[Pandabearparade]

They have bad business sense is what they have. 4,500,000+ copies pirated is kind of a large number. A really large number.

Most games are pirated pretty heavily, since there is no barrier of entry to a pirate. Most of those pirates wouldn't have payed for the game if the piracy option was taken away, because the piracy mentality is one of (...and I despise this word and how often it is thrown around) entitlement. It isn't bad business sense not to try to prevent the inevitable by punishing your actual customers.

Further, I'm willing to bet that Assassin's Creed has been pirated just as much if not more despite the ridiculous DRM. DRM gets cracked every single time.

 

[somonels]

What? How can this be? I bought a total of five copies >_<
I still have a few left for christmas pressies. Stalking gog.com paid off.

 

[Ubermetalhed]

These kind of messages need to be expressed before a games release.

If a developer comes across genuinely and cares for the fans then it really is a good incentive to buy their game as you do feel that they are worth your money and that you are giving it to a good studio with good people.

Hell after reading this I'm thinking of buying Witcher 2 just to support them.

All this was expressed before the game's release. Unless you were under a rock.

Expressed where? They talked about anti-piracy before.

But I don't remember them talking so sincerely about it and how they hope to help stop piracy by offering more content.

Under a rock? Implying this game was a massive release. With huge build up. And a massive advertising campaign. And that their views on anti-piracy were publicised everywhere for months on end.

 

[Something Amyss]

Under a rock? Implying this game was a massive release.

Or that it was news on the site you're posting on now. And since you're in the news room, evidently you can find news on this site.

 

[FoolKiller]

They have good policies regarding DRM. That's as far as my praise of CDP will stretch.
But yes, excellent attitude regarding value of product.

They have bad business sense is what they have. 4,500,000+ copies pirated is kind of a large number. A really large number.

If those people paid even a single penny for the game, that's still $45,000+ lost. More than what most people make in a year.

But adding loads of DRM wouldn't make that number go down. They probably gained loads of sales by not adding tons of DRM because of all the good press it got them.

Unless someone builds a time machine, we'll never know how it would have turned out differently if they'd used DRM.

And your assumptions are no more based on anything than either of the posts you quote. 4.5 million may seem like a large number but you have no way of knowing how many copies of things like Skyrim are floating around illegally.

The way I see it, they realized that DRM wasn't doing anything except maybe deterring actual paying customers. If someone was going to get a pirated version, the DRM wouldn't stop anybody from doing so, therefore, the base number of people pirating would still be 4.5 million. Add to that anyone who now decides to get a copy that works instead of paying for a DRM nightmare and you increase ratio of pirates to consumers.

 

[Ubermetalhed]

Under a rock? Implying this game was a massive release.

Or that it was news on the site you're posting on now. And since you're in the news room, evidently you can find news on this site.

Implying that everyone reads every article on this site. And their views on piracy were the biggest news and should have been read.

Anyway this is really dumb, your rock comment was dumb and arguing about it is dumb. So the end.

 

[bfgmetalhead]

I have no particullar problem with pirates that actully only pirate to "Demo" the game first. However the ones who actully take a copy through pirating without paying, are assholes

 

[Something Amyss]

Implying that everyone reads every article on this site.

Or just that they were mentioned several times and the frequency was meaningful.

And their views on piracy were the biggest news and should have been read.

Not implying that at all.

Anyway this is really dumb, your rock comment was dumb and arguing about it is dumb. So the end.

I didn't make a rock comment. Did you see someone reply to you and assume it was the same person?

The guy you're complaining about is named Frostbite3789. Maybe instead of flying into a blind rage, you'll take a peek next time.

Though, if you can't tell the difference between usernames...Maybe that explains why you thought this was some huge secret.

 

[Otaku World Order]

I'm not a fan of The Witcher, but I do give big props to CD Projekt for their attitude. I'm sure they aren't happy about all those illegal downloads, but they aren't whining and crying and slapping PC Gamers in the face with DRM like Ubisoft or EA.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

This makes me sad.

The fact it was pirated after the dev went to such great length to be "For Gamers by Gamers" and everything.

It all tends to boil down to one thing:

People just want free stuff.

Personally, it's on my to-get list but requires I update my current rig. My processor is way out of date. I also need to play through the first one, but likely won't do that unless it appears on the GOG Christmas sale. I have the Witcher EE on Steam, but it's far too large to download just to get a message saying it's broken.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

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?

 

[Frostbite3789]

These kind of messages need to be expressed before a games release.

If a developer comes across genuinely and cares for the fans then it really is a good incentive to buy their game as you do feel that they are worth your money and that you are giving it to a good studio with good people.

Hell after reading this I'm thinking of buying Witcher 2 just to support them.

All this was expressed before the game's release. Unless you were under a rock.

Expressed where? They talked about anti-piracy before.

But I don't remember them talking so sincerely about it and how they hope to help stop piracy by offering more content.

Under a rock? Implying this game was a massive release. With huge build up. And a massive advertising campaign. And that their views on anti-piracy were publicised everywhere for months on end.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105428-The-Witcher-2-Epic-Everywhere-and-No-DRM

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/110422-Witcher-2-Patch-Fixes-Bugs-Removes-DRM

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.249968-Witcher-2-to-be-DRM-free-on-GOG-com

So with one search of Wither 2 DRM I found 2 news stories and 1 topic. And I remember seeing more before the game was released. This wasn't some big secret.

Here's a handy thing that should shed a lot of light on the subject: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Witcher+2+DRM

 

[Frostbite3789]

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?

Should I in turn assume every console player is a 13 year old CoD player? I think that's a fair turn and roundabout.

 

[Xanthious]

This company GETS IT! DRM will never work because it simply punishes the wrong people. The best example of DRM I've heard was this. You have two dogs. One dog shits on the floor the other is housebroken. In order to keep the dog that isn't housebroken from shitting on the floor you decide to beat the one that is. DRM is the exact same they are punishing the people that are doing the right thing while totally ignoring the ones doing the wrong thing.

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)

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. 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.

 

[GeorgW]

Aaand this is why I absolutely adore CD projekt. Not because they make awesome games, which I'm sure they do (never played them myself), and it's not because of GoG, which is a great service and requires a lot of work. No, it's cuz of stuff like this. They believe in something that I just happen to support very firmly, and they stand by it no matter what. Still sucks about all those pirates, but it's just the world we live in. The humble bundle pissed me off way more.
Also, that social media thing is a good idea, someone should get on that. Not me, mind you, I don't use social media.

 

[Something Amyss]

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.

Assuming they would have bothered at all.

Looking at it as lost revenue they stand to earn is silly and presumptuous.

So with one search of Wither 2 DRM I found 2 news stories and 1 topic.

Yeah, but you can find the search bar. That's hard work. >.>

 

[Keava]

I still don't get why people look at the number of pirated copies and go "oh my that's so unfortunate".

Well, I DO get it. They're misjudging the situation. The most conclusive thing a high pirated copies number says about the game is that it's popular. Mostly everything else is decided by the actual sales figures. Those are the ones you should look at, not how many people pirated the game.
And a game being popular is by all means not unfortunate if you happen to be a fan of the game or company.

I'm going so far as to ask myself if there's any pirate out there going "man, if only this game didn't have DRM, I could get it for free. Now I'm forced to buy it because of that pesky DRM".
I mean, seriously. What's this number compared to other games? Do we have conclusive evidence that DRM would have made the number of pirated copies significantly lower?

Well yes. But not in a way some publishers think about it. Good example would be Darkspore. One of few games that doesn't have any real crack for it because of the online nature of it. It was not pirated, but also it did not sell all that well.

Majority of pirates won't stop doing it only because a crack may take weeks or even months to develop. Sure, a company can show off nice charts saying how their super efficient DRM stopped 10 million from downloading the game, but how many of those 10 million actually added to sales and how many just decided it's not worth the wait and moved on to different title?
And how many sales were lost because some people who buy their games legally decided to not support DRM? I haven't bought Settlers7, HOMMVI or Anno2070 due to how Ubisoft handles DRM. Those are 3 actually lost sales there.