PC RPG The Witcher 2 has been illegally downloaded 4.5 million times, according to Polish developer CD Projekt.
Speaking in an interview with PC Gamer, CEO and co-founder Marcin Iwinski explained that he had calculated the figure by monitoring stats on torrent sites.
"This is only an estimation," he said, "and I would say that's rather on the optimistic side of things; as of today we have sold over a million legal copies, so having only 4.5-5 illegal copies for each legal one would be not a bad ratio. The reality is probably way worse."
CD Projekt, like its sister company Good Old Games, is famously anti-DRM, believing it punishes legitimate users and has only limited impact on piracy. Elsewhere in the interview, Iwinski hits out at the "Excel guys" at big publishers, who think only about the bottom line and pay no attention to how DRM upsets paying customers.
"They are not asking themselves the question:' What is the experience of a gamer?', or: 'Is this proposition fair?'," he said. "Rather, they just look to see if the column in Excel adds up well or not, and if they can have a good explanation for their bosses.
"DRM is the best explanation, the best 'I will cover my ass' thing. I strongly believe that this is the main reason the industry has not abandoned it until today, and to be frank this annoys me a hell of a lot.
"You are asking: 'So why is it taking them so long to listen?' The answer is very simple: they do not listen, as most of them do not care. As long as the numbers in Excel will add up they will not change anything."
Source: PC Gamer
Comments
5What a shame, it's an absolutely brilliant game, what crappy figures to be associated with :(
Plus the reatil box was freakin awesome, had coins and maps and making-of DVD's, and it was cheaper than most games that only have a box just to contain a cd key (I'm looking at your Battlefield)!
@houldendub I definitely agree with you, plus the article and Iwinski comments put an interesting picture, I just wonder if there is enough being done on the customer side and if we should put some of the blame on us as consumers.
@houldendub I definitely agree with you, plus the article and Iwinski comments put an interesting picture, I just wonder if there is enough being done on the customer side and if we should put some of the blame on us as consumers.
@germanz64
Oh god yeah it's up to the customer, of course I can't speak for a fair amount of people, but I usually pirate games before buying (as most games do not have demos), so people that do this likely inflate piracy numbers (can't be that much though).
Even so, developers can't seem to really win either way. If they put DRM in their titles, people moan and groan (and sometimes rightly so), and so are more inclined to pirate. If devs DON'T put DRM in, people will pirate anyway.
Moral of the story, you cannot stop piracy, even on consoles unfortunately. Just a shame that it's happened to such a talented studio.
All I know is that if I spent a year or more working flat out to bring a quality game to the market, only to find that 4.5 million people had basically stolen it from you, I would be pretty pissed off myself.
@houldendub
I commend you for being so honest that even after testing the game with a pirate copy, you will still support the developer and buy the legit version. I'm not saying that to patronise you, I just think that it is very good natured.