GOG.com’s managing director, Guillaume Rambourg, has said that neither they or CD Projekt – the company that owns the service – will use DRM of any sort. He has revealed that the DRM free version of The Witcher 2 was not pirated even though it was a sitting duck.
“We use no DRM and we never will,” Rambourg told Forbes in an interview. “The fact that we have a download assistant has worried a few people because they’re afraid it’s the first step on the way to having an always-on client like some other distributors out there. We’ll never do that.”
The CEO of CD Projekt Red, Marcin Iwinski, was surprised at the fact that the DRM free version of The Witcher 2 wasn’t cracked, and he even mentioned that the 4.5 million people who downloaded the retail version of the game, had no negative impact to the overall sales.
“You would have to ask someone at the pirate group which cracked it, but I have to admit it was a big surprise. We were expecting to see the GOG.com version pirated right after it was released, as it was a real no-brainer,” Iwinski said.
“The illegal scene is pretty much about the game and the glory: who will be the first to deliver the game, who is the best and smartest cracker. The DRM-free version at GOG.com didn’t fit this too well.”
The recent Diablo 3 issue with always-online DRM had caused a lot of discomfort to people who bought the game. What happens when companies use such draconian DRM measures is that it only hurts the legitimate buyers and not the pirates. In fact, you should totally take a stand against such measures used to prevent piracy.
“First of all let me dispel the myth about DRM protecting anything. The truth is it does not work. It’s as simple as that,” Iwnski added. “The technology which is supposed to protect games against illegal copying is cracked within hours of the release of every single game. So, that’s wasted money and development just to implement it.
“But that’s not the worst part. DRM, in most cases, requires users to enter serial numbers, validate his or her machine, and be connected to the Internet while they authenticate – and possibly even when they play the game they bought.
“Quite often the DRM slows the game down, as the wrapper around the executable file is constantly checking if the game is being legally used or not. That is a lot the legal users have to put up with, while the illegal users who downloaded the pirated version have a clean–and way more functional!–game.”
The people who pirated The Witcher 2 can’t really be blamed and counted as a lost sale, because let’s be honest here – there are plenty of reasons why someone would download a game for free. Even the CEO of CD Projekt agrees with this.
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