CD Projekt fighting Witcher 2 piracy with threat of fine

by Griffin McElroy on Nov 23rd 2010 1:00AM

CD Projekt is worried about piracy -- specifically, as it concerns the developer's upcoming, adult-oriented RPG, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings -- and understandably so. As a single-player-only PC title, The Witcher 2 is awfully ripe for pirating. However, the Polish developer is hoping to counteract these illicit acquisitions by more doggedly pursuing those who play the game illegally. CD Projekt co-founder Marcin Iwiński recently told Eurogamer that "we are signing with legal firms and torrent sneaking companies" to hunt down gamers who download The Witcher 2 unlawfully.

Such offenders will be sent a letter demanding they pay a fine -- the sum of which was left unspecified, though it will be more than the game's suggested retail price. Though it sounds a bit like the RIAA's anti-piracy scare tactics, Iwiński said, "We don't want to be so harsh, but there is a chance that this might happen to some people if they download illegally." Or, in other words, don't make CD Projekt use its angry voice, because it's going to hurt them a lot more than it's going to hurt you.

Source: Eurogamer

Tags: CD-Projekt, cd-projekt-red, pc, piracy, pirates, riaa, the-witcher-2

Reader Comments (91)

"We don't want to be so harsh"

Be as harsh as you want, these are pirates we're dealing with. They have swords and shit.

I really hope the piracy rates for this game will be as low as possible. And I do believe we need a group like the RIAA or MPAA especially to crack down on PC pirates. I'm tired of the platform being snubbed so much by the gaming industry because of all the damn piracy. I want it to decrease and the support for PC gaming to grow as a result.

I already think I'll pre-order it right now from Steam for a 10% discount and also get the physical Collector's Edition.

Please pirates, this is a AAA exclusive for the PC, someone we hardly get these days. Don't screw it up, we need as many great games as we can get, especially exclusives!

@RKN That group exists, it's the ESA. It's a shame they haven't done anything to curb piracy really (not just for PC games, but in general), they only seem to be useful when it comes to defending game companies and the 'industry' in general against ridiculous court cases.

The last I remember them cracking down was in supporting Nintendo of America and a few other paid members of their lobbying group by having their games removed from sites catering to the emulation community. I'd imagine they are more active than that, but you never hear about it.

@RKN

Becuase the RIAA have done a great job of stopping piracy, and also make sure that artists get the money they need to express themselves creatively.

@Drunken Irish Sniper A sequel to a PC exclusive game that sold 1.5 million copies and received strong critical and player reception isn't a AAA game?

You should probably look up the meaning of AAA..

@RKN Woah woah woah people, why you downvoting this guy? He makes a valid point.

Whether piracy kills sales or not, it scares the poor little devs, so please, just pay for the games you like.

@RKN
Look at Kotaku's PC sales article. It's pretty interesting and proves that piracy hurts less than intrusive DRM. Anecdotal, of course, but it still speaks volumes.

Used game sales will always hurt more than piracy. They'd be better off putting that wasted money in an investment account than pissing it away on lawyers and such.

@Resonanse

Where's the source that states the Witcher sold 1.5 million? Reliable PC sales figures are notoriously difficult to find.

In any case, singleplayer PC exclusive RPG: that's basically the definition of a game that's going to be pirated to hell and back.

In any case, the only PC developer that's really been able to stop piracy is Blizzard. You can download Starcraft II from their site for free: good luck getting it to work, though. That's the real solution, if you ask me: no restrictive DRM, no stupid install limits, just legitimate users getting to play the game and pirates not.

@Mmmmz

Used game sales with PC games? Do those exist? I was pretty sure they didn't.

If people think that piracy really isn't so damaging to PC games, then why the hell are all the PC games suddenly DRM infested and increasingly console exclusive? Do you think publishers are doing it for fun? Somehow i doubt that.

@Drunken Irish Sniper

Describing a game as "AAA" is childish enough. Do you really need to enter debate on the topic?

We see the RIAA and MPAA actively go after pirates, take them to court, levy huge fines and such. We need the same for PC pirates, we see all the torrents and such but nothing is donr about that for PC games, but for Hollywood movies and American record labels, you have eyes on you, but no enforcement for PC games.

@RKN - I hate to say this, as I really am anti-piracy and have been for years, but suing your customers is absolutely no way to do business. Suing turned the RIAA, a little known industry group, and turned them into the big bad wolf. They radicalized their customer base, and made it almost a point of pride for people to download as much music as they possibly could without ever paying a cent for it (the common response to an RIAA article is "F*** the RIAA" to this day). Then you have the issue of innocents getting caught in the crossfire (people with open wifi, people with grand children that may have done it, and even people without internet access).

I definitely don't think we should be going down this road for games. If it deterred pirates, that would be another thing, but in reality it just fuels the fire and burns innocents in the process.

@BananaBoat - *took the RIAA

@BananaBoat

The problem with your comment is the fact that you refer to the pirates as "customers".

@BananaBoat

It's a horrible road to go down, of course, but what can these devs do?

The best course of action is offering a low price, which realistically PC games are generally cheaper than console games...which if eel theoretically should increase sales because it's at a more appealing price point.

Sorry, I have a submit happy click finger lol

@Jon Jon - I know what you mean, but pirates tend to buy things as well. Even if it's every other game, or every third game, we're still talking about millions (if not billions) of dollars per year that pirates contribute to the industry (I realize that they drain money as well, bear with me). It would be nice if everyone would stop pirating games, but at the very least, bringing lawsuits against gamers isn't going to do a single thing toward that goal. Music piracy is as prevalent as it has ever been (even more so now that you can listen to every song ever written on youtube, without the fear of prosecution), and I don't think any better results would come from trying the same thing with video games.

@Jon Jon Oftentimes the pirates are a customer who got screwed in the past. I would be more inclined to pirate the next Fallout (or any game from Obsidian/Bathesda) before buying it thanks to their crappy QA now if I didn't have it on Xbox.

A company that treats their fans well and makes sure to release quality products are less likely to be pirated from. CD Projekt does attempt to provide good service to fans with the free enhanced edition updates etc, so I would hate to see this game pirated. I did however buy the first game multiple times, but I think I got it used, so I didn't contribute to them any more than had I pirated. Now I feel bad.

That's a million times better than implementing DRM, at least.

Insert arguments of "well i'm just pirating it to not deal with the BS DRM" and "Well, I wouldn't have bought the game anyways so there's no loss to the company"

@evilkoala The former will just be BS. There really is no legitimate excuse for pirating this game - it will available both in physical copy and digital distribution, and can be had DRM-free from GOG.com.

Won't work.

You're just going to piss these pirates off by making threats, and even more people will download it.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze
Exactly. If stopping piracy were as easily as telling people not to do it and warning them that you have lawyers and deals with torrent sites then it would have stopped a long time ago.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

The whole "people pirate because you pissed them off" argument is crap. People pirate because they want free stuff. It isn't some kind of political statement. Yes I have pirated. It wasn't to send a "message". It was because I wanted free stuff. People rationalize it because they don't want to be bad people. People just need to admit they are bad and like free stuff.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

Seriously, it's like back in the day when some software company would say their product couldn't be hacked. Does nothing other than make them want to hack you really, really bad.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

You are right, the more you say don´t do this the more people do it, i eman what they are going to do?? sue the world??? instead of paying "private investigators" don´t waste your money, the first witcher had the famous starforce protection and it worked for nothing, what if people download this from the pirate bay??? those guys are really going to give the addresses with a threat fast, just forget about this, piracy is here to stay, better give a quality product and people will buy it, the first witcher is the best example, don´t encourage pirates with threats, that hardly works, just ask the RIAA.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze you are definitely correct, if a bunch of those people DDoS'd Minecraft because it was no longer free and they felt they were entitled to it, I can't imagine how they'll respond to this.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze
The gaming industry needs to realize that piracy is a fact of life at this point, and nothing that they can do will stop it. Make a good game, and people will buy your game. People will also pirate your game, but those people aren't your customers. and probably would never have bought your game in the first place.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze I think it probably will work...wonders maybe. THere was a independent game developer who personally emailed the pirate groups asking them to not put his game up for torrents and they do exactly that. You have to have a bit of faith in good communication. The pirate group is in this for the challenge of breaking the DRM. No DRM, no challenge. THey dont gain any more fame in this than just some random pirate dudes uploading the file in the torrent (which yes, cant be controlled). By doing this, hopefully it will deter individuals from uploading the game. I support this method fully myself.

I really hope a lot of people do too. They have gone an extra mile not putting DRM on this and putting all the responsibility (of buying) on customer's side to completely judge this. By that alone, I support this company. I'll buy the game twice if I want to so I can share this with my friends.

@FriedConsole

Couldn't agree more. I look at a game, I look at my bank account and frown, I see a torrent, I read the comments to if it seems easy to install and works, then I download. It's as simple as that. I could care less about what controversy is behind it.

Because of this I just want to pirate it to see if I can get a letter. Though I don't see a point and trying to stop pirates like this. The best way to do it is make a great game with a great price. Personally though I hate the witcher I found it horribly boring.

@Sleepyperson "The best way to do it is make a great game with a great price."
I really respect the idealism there, but when the Humble Indie Bundle gets widely pirated (and it only cost $0.01) you gatta be more pragmatic.

Too bad the ppl downloading the game illegally were probably thinking it was COD " Black Ops" only to find out, that's it's actually Witcher 2 they just download.

LOL, Witcher 2 should be a F2P game, it's probably the only way ppl will actually spend more then a hour playing it, before uninstalling it.

@scott1646 haha i'd be pissed...

Oh so the people who lied about the shutdown of a site for free hits are going to be pursuing legal action? Careful the path you tread, CD.

@Cleric If you were actually fooled by their "shutdown" stunt, you might want to disconnect your computer from the internet for your own safety.

@Cleric The companies involved are actually sister companies. Share the same ownership, yes, but separately managed.

Have your game get some critical acclaim and rampantly pirated, then bring the hammer down on the sequel to force people to buy it.

Clever.

I'm outraged! Outraged that a company would try to protect its product from thieves in such a rational way!

I was actually surprised to see a prominent ad for a DRM free Witcher 2 on GOG the other day. Surprised and a little scared for the developer. At the rate we're seeing developers failing in the industry, I sure hope things work out for them.

Well, hopefully, people will actually buy it because the first one was amazing, and from what i've seen of 2 so far, i'll enjoy it even more than the first. That's the big deal, Some games are worth buying/playing, and some games are shit, and that's just the honest truth.

@kamikit |
But i have to add that, What games are worth the time or not is entirely subjective. I'm not going to force my views on anybody for downloading a game, i don't care what you do. If they like it, they'll probably buy it. If they don't like it, they'll delete it.

@kamikit Yep because people pirate games to try them before they buy...

Now back to the real world; where that's just a really bad excuse for illegally downloading a game; there're any number of other methods for seeing if you'd enjoy a game other than downloading the entire game -_-

@Resonanse Sorry, friend, but it's more likely than you'd care to believe. If you look at my Steam profile alone, you'll see quite a few games. I bet you'd simply lump me in with the "cheap excuse" group, but at LEAST 40 of those titles were pirated to test to see if I'd like them. I don't see why I should have to make a $60 investment in something I'm vaguely interested in. Do you?

If you look at the private bitGAMER Steam group, I'm sure you'd be surprised at just how many people own games. You're just accepting what the publishers tell you: piracy is killing the industry. While this may be true to an extent, it is not NEARLY as bad as big business would tell you. Just think of that next time you decide to crucify people who are tight on cash and don't want to buy something they aren't sure about.

Just to prove my point:

http://steamcommunity.com/id/daruna

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/bgonsteam

@Daruna Just to add to my statement...

I am NOT defending rampant piracy, as all the little kiddies that pirate something and don't even consider giving a red cent to anyone deserving it are indeed a serious problem. But lumping everyone in with those sorts of people is like calling every American a fat redneck; it's a stereotype, and not at all correct. I don't see how I should be punished if I pirate, say, this new Witcher game, in order to test it. If I waste money on it and don't enjoy it, they're laughing all the way to the bank because I am unable to refund it. If I pirate it, see that I don't like it, and get rid of it shortly afterwards, they're after my ass because I didn't give them free money. That shit doesn't fly with me, nor will it ever. Downvote me if you like, but I refuse to be strung up and used for my money when something is unproven.

@Daruna
Thanks, You said it better than i ever could have. Also, Maybe if more demos were released, downloading the whole game wouldn't be as necessary to trying it out first.

@Daruna

Hell yeah, the only problem was when I tried to "demo" that new 3DTV by dragging it out of the shop to see how it looks in my pad.

Who would have thought the store owners would be so angry! I'm not going to spend 2 grand on a 3DTV without seeing how it looks in my place for a month or two! And yeah, I might forget to pay and just keep it without paying anything, but I would pay if I had remembered! I'm not an evil thief, I just decide to steal something for a free "trial period" mandated by me.

Oh, and lol at 60 dollars being an "investment." 60 dollars was a srs bizness investment when I was about 12 years old with an allowance. Even the shittiest minimum wage jobs would make up 60 dollars in a hurry.

@Invigilator
Ooh, Look at me! Piracy is evil!
You sound so ridiculous, you know that?
I played Darksiders on the PS3, I bought it used at Gamestop, so if you don't like buying games used, look away right now. ANYWAYS, I didn't like it, i returned it and you know what? It came out on pc and guess what, I DIDN'T DOWNLOAD because i DIDN'T LIKE IT. Whether you want to admit it or not, There's a big difference between downloading a game and buying it if you like it and just downloading it for a free thrill.

@Invigilator I'm going to assume that you don't live alone, have bills to pay or responsibilities to own up to. There's no other reason I can think of that you would say something as ignorant as "lol wats the mattur u cant afford games?"

Once you move out of wherever you live right now, start paying full rent, power bills, heat, hot water, internet, groceries, bus pass fees, then you can tell me that $60 is not a big deal.

The fact that you're comparing physical goods with digital goods just goes to show how uninformed you are, and how much you're parroting what others say. Digital goods are not able to be stolen, there is no PHYSICAL copy to take out of someone's hands. You know why? Numbers can be copied forever. There is an entire WORLD of difference between "stealing" data and stealing physical goods. There is only one physical good, there are unlimited digital goods.

If you don't understand this most basic of concepts, you are free to go huff yourself, and stop insulting my financial situation. It's not nice to call someone poor.

@Daruna I'm going to assume that you had to assume he's just some kid because you don't have a justifiable answer otherwise. Maybe he's a kid who lives with his parents, or maybe he's a widower with 3 kids. If you're only defense for pirating games is that you have real world responsibilities and bills to pay, then maybe you should use the hours and hours it takes to download, crack, and play a game doing something about those real world problems and responsibilities instead of flushing away your time.

@Daruna Furthermore, what makes your real world responsibilities more important than the developers? Think all those developers are just kids without bills to pay? Spout the "most pirates wouldn't buy it anyway" crap all you want, even if you're not taking a disc out of somebodies hands, you ARE taking dollars out of their wallet, or maybe to sound more like you, taking food out the mouths of their children.

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The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

CD Projekt fighting Witcher 2 piracy with threat of fine

Reader Comments (91)

Posted: Nov 23rd 2010 1:04AM FuriousMailman said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2010 1:04AM RKN said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2010 1:20AM Epoque said

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Posted: Nov 23rd 2010 4:22AM Resonanse said

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Posted: Nov 23rd 2010 11:20AM Mmmmz said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2010 2:34PM Invigilator said

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