CD Projekt - DRM does not work

[Wilian]

You got your owners backwards there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOG.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_Projekt

But the point stands.

I stand corrected, thank you.

Still, they are basically the same company driven by same peoole but with different purpose and I still remain correct in the manner of speech. CDP RED created the no DRM mandate (instead of CDP as I said earliel), which the developement studio carried on.

[Profyrion]

Yes, all of that...

But this doesn't feel like a turning point to you? Yes, GOG (and CD Projekt by association) has been working against DRM for a while now, but this is... much more public, and seems far more damning. You made the thread, surely you must see the significance here.

[Wilian]

Yes, all of that...

But this doesn't feel like a turning point to you? Yes, GOG (and CD Projekt by association) has been working against DRM for a while now, but this is... much more public, and seems far more damning. You made the thread, surely you must see the significance here.

Of course I see the significance here, all I was just saying that it was not a thing that just sprung up now, along with aftermath of Witcher 2, but was there for a long time before this moment (Earliel example of this particular branch being Witcher 1 DRM free with all DLC for free aswell) and only now it's only getting more signifigant spotlight, even if it should've had it years ago when this DRM madness went out of control.

[Deleted]

All in all, our job is to make each of our games a must-have. We have spent lots of time and effort to prepare the best offering for both retail and digital. We do the same while developing the game, as the only thing which can increase our sales is the quality of the overall experience the gamer has. We want them to think something like, “Wow this game is really great. I spent 40-50 great hours with it and I want to have it in my collection; it would be embarrassing not to buy it.” Whether they buy it in full price, mid-price or maybe even budget is less important.

This sort of marketing is what all companies strive for. Hell, Dragon Age Origins was excellent example. When it was released, it was mostly hyped amongst the original Baldur Gate fans because of piss poor marketing job EA did at the time and during release wasn't all that known. But the game itself was so excellent that mouth to mouth "marketing" expanded it sales to be many times more than they had ever expected and was a game that sold in following months FAR MORE than the shoddy first month sales, which big companies usually strive for. (And that of course then led to rushjob with DA2 to monetarize on the success, and we all know how that ended).

---------- Post added 2012-05-21 at 11:44 AM ----------



Yeah! CD Projekt is one of the very few companies I'd buy things from even if I didn't really care about the content itself. It's the principle of this case that matters to me more at this point when looking at the industry as a whole.

As a marketing professional I grinched a little when you said mouth to mouth "marketing". Just wanted to point out that its in fact called word-of-mouth marketing. No intention of being a douche but mouth to mouth just sounds something very different :P

Anyway some great points you've gathered about DRM, and in my opinion Diablo 3 DRM is one of those things that makes the gaming industry weep blood.

[Daverid]

I personally think, as they said, DRM is just a waste of time... It's great to see CD Projekt (Red) has finally just said Fuck it.

It's such a waste of Licensing and Programming ETC costs. Games are always going to be pirated, hell even D3 will get pirated eventually it's inevitable.

Now if someone has Never heard of the company making the game before and has no faith or the person simply can't afford to constantly buy new release games at $50-100 then no matter how good the game is they won't be able to stop pirates. The only thing they can do is make a game so GOOD that those who might pirate it out of No Knowledge of the company making it, will fall in love and buy it.

Devs can't stop people with no money from Pirating, but at the very least if you make a game that sucks the player in so much, and is so incredible. Then at least those who pirated because of lack of faith will then realise, "my God this company can make and incredible game", which will more often then not make them buy the game they've pirated and/or have faith in the company in the future.

I was extremely skeptical of Witcher 2 having never heard of CD Projekt Red, but after seeing the incredible graphics and getting to test the awesome gameplay and story, I immediately bought it. Now I will with Blind Faith by every CD Projekt Red game in the future. Witcher 3 shall be a Day 1 purchase and any other games. So piracy isn't all that bad, not only that but now I tell everyone who is into games that Witcher 2 they Should SURE AS HELL buy and play. Word of Mouth does work and everything Witcher 2 has said in the last ~year after releasing Witcher 2 has just made me love the company more and more.

[Deleted]

Piracy is a service problem. If a pirate can provide a service better than the owner can, why should a customer not go to the pirate instead? Ever since Spotify and the like (itunes?) became prominent music piracy has seen a huge drop as the service provided by the pirate is no longer better than the service provided by the owner, or in this case the "publisher" of sorts. Why should I go to a torrent site, download 20+ albums to get the maybe 50 songs I actually want, tuck them into my phone and then start listening when I can download spotify and just browse freely for the music I want? Sure there's a fee to it but I think that people in general aren't against paying for things they enjoy, they just want things to be easily obtained.

The same with games. Right now, in light of Diablo 3, Blizzard isn't providing a service that is superior to that of a hypothetical pirate. If a hacker somehow managed to make Diablo 3 DRM-free and available for LAN and offline play that would be a better service than what battlenet is. Battlenet crashes, consistently, at least right now. DRM is intrusive, annoying and most of all unbenificial to the customer. You feel like the publisher/developer from the get-go sees you as a potential thief and not the customer you are. You are treated like a potential thief, hence why all the EULA text where you agree to sell your soul, activation and verification codes and so on. DRM hurts revenue far more than piracy does, because DRM incites piracy or just flat out lowers sales. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

While we're giving shout-outs to CDProjekt for believing in their customers, I think we should do so for Paradox as well. You can buy their games on Steam and it's still DRM free.

[Badpaladin]

You know, I'm thinking there could potentially be a (limited in number and time) market for creating video games and hoping sales are high simply because they don't have DRM. The existence of DRM could potentially help sales in that case - it would only stop working when DRM stops becoming the norm, though.

[Deleted]

It's such a waste of Licensing and Programming ETC costs. Games are always going to be pirated, hell even D3 will get pirated eventually it's inevitable.

On a crappy emulator just like WoW was "pirated". It's actually pretty decent way to protect game from piracy, because you're not doing it at all.

Anyway some great points you've gathered about DRM, and in my opinion Diablo 3 DRM is one of those things that makes the gaming industry weep blood

There is no DRM involved, you are simply not getting standalone game, but instead you are licensed to log in using your battle net account. If anyone did his own copy of battle net, then we could see what kind of DRM would be used to counter that.
I'd have more problem with forms of DRM used on steam games, because honestly I'm never going to trust my money to them nor install their software, which prevents me from playing some games completely, unless I'd pirate them, which is stupid.

[Edge-]

There is no DRM involved, you are simply not getting standalone game, but instead you are licensed to log in using your battle net account. If anyone did his own copy of battle net, then we could see what kind of DRM would be used to counter that.
I'd have more problem with forms of DRM used on steam games, because honestly I'm never going to trust my money to them nor install their software, which prevents me from playing some games completely, unless I'd pirate them, which is stupid.

There is DRM involved, that's the required connection to Bnet even if you're playing single player. If your connection is slow or if you lose connection you disconnect from the single player. It's the same thing that happens with games like Bionic Commando 2 and it's nonsense.

As for Steam, what forms of DRM are you talking about? The only DRM on steam is the requirement to log into Steam (which can be run in offline mode, which I do agree is a bit too difficult to do and should be made easier). It's actually far less restrictive (it doesn't force close if you lose connection while playing a game) than Diablo 3.

[Ishu]

Scientists: "The sun is really damn hot."

I mean, really, is there anyone, besides head-in-the-sand marketing executives and money whores like EA and Ubisoft, who doesn't know this?

Well, just look at all the people defending the always online DRM of Diablo 3. There's still plenty of consumers who's been brainwashed into believing that DRM is the way forward.

[Deleted]

There is DRM involved, that's the required connection to Bnet even if you're playing single player. If your connection is slow or if you lose connection you disconnect from the single player. It's the same thing that happens with games like Bionic Commando 2 and it's nonsense.

As for Steam, what forms of DRM are you talking about? The only DRM on steam is the requirement to log into Steam (which can be run in offline mode, which I do agree is a bit too difficult to do and should be made easier). It's actually far less restrictive (it doesn't force close if you lose connection while playing a game) than Diablo 3.

Steam provides API for verification, which is DRM involvement. You don't have to use it to publish game on Steam, but many do. Steam serves literally no purpose for the game, it's used just to verify that you bought the game.
On other hand as I said, you are not getting standalone game with D3, you are only verified on the service that the game is running on. There is no check whether you bought the game or pirated it. The connection to BNET serves more purposes no matter how you like it. WoW is very much the same story, although it does not offer option to play on the server alone, the mechanism is exactly the same.

But the point really is, that connection requirement is not really hard burden to punish legal users (look it's important for the multiplayer part of the game). I do not deny there are people who don't care about multiplayer part ever, and want to play without any connection to internet whatsoever. But compared to number of people being bothered to run additional FAT layer just to run games, this number must be really SO small. If the only purpose of the connection was to check your license, I'd too have problem with that, but it's not the case.

[PizzaSHARK]

All in all, our job is to make each of our games a must-have. We have spent lots of time and effort to prepare the best offering for both retail and digital. We do the same while developing the game, as the only thing which can increase our sales is the quality of the overall experience the gamer has. We want them to think something like, “Wow this game is really great. I spent 40-50 great hours with it and I want to have it in my collection; it would be embarrassing not to buy it.” Whether they buy it in full price, mid-price or maybe even budget is less important.

This sort of marketing is what all companies strive for. Hell, Dragon Age Origins was excellent example. When it was released, it was mostly hyped amongst the original Baldur Gate fans because of piss poor marketing job EA did at the time and during release wasn't all that known. But the game itself was so excellent that mouth to mouth "marketing" expanded it sales to be many times more than they had ever expected and was a game that sold in following months FAR MORE than the shoddy first month sales, which big companies usually strive for. (And that of course then led to rushjob with DA2 to monetarize on the success, and we all know how that ended).

---------- Post added 2012-05-21 at 11:44 AM ----------



Yeah! CD Projekt is one of the very few companies I'd buy things from even if I didn't really care about the content itself. It's the principle of this case that matters to me more at this point when looking at the industry as a whole.

I've bought Witcher and Witcher 2 purely because of CD Projekt's stance on DRM. I don't even play them; I bought them solely so I could support a developer who is doing what I think all developers need to be doing. Anyone that's willing to take that kind of risk by adopting that kind of stance on DRM deserves my money, even if I don't like their products.

Minecraft is probably the penultimate example of why marketing isn't necessary if your product is good; Mojang AB never spent a single dime on marketing, and yet Minecraft is extremely well-known and has sold millions of copies.

[Profyrion]

6,001,322 actually