AfterDawn: Tech news

CD Projekt RED: DRM is fail and only used to explain poor sales

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 03 Dec 2011 3:43 User comments (4)

CD Projekt RED: DRM is fail and only used to explain poor sales

CD Projekt RED co-founder Marcin Iwinski has said this week that DRM does not work, and should be stopped.
The studio is behind the hits The Witcher and the new The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

As an example, the studio says with no DRM on The Witcher 2, the company has already sold over 1 million legal copies.

Iwinski says he has seen all different types of DRM and anti-piracy measures since the 90s but none has ever worked:

Whatever we used was cracked within a day or two, massively copied and immediately available on the streets for a fraction of our price.


CD Project RED decided to go a different route, and that ended up being a two-part solution. First, their games now include extras, like soundtracks, books, walkthroughs and more. Secondly, the company has been on a "long-term" mission to educate gamers on the positives of buying legal games.



Finally, Iwinski says DRM, while completely ineffective, will remain around for the future as it gives publishers a way to "explain balance sheets for PC games to upper management. 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."

Previous Next  

4 user comments

13.12.2011 16:23

Truth is truth. I bought the game for PC and it was worth every penny.

23.12.2011 17:29

Good for these guys! At least they understand how damaging DRM is to revenue and overall sales.

33.12.2011 17:38

Oh look, one of the few sane game developers. If only logic was contagious

43.12.2011 21:26

Such succinct and beautiful wisdom. I am more than honored to be among that million people supporting their sales.

This gives me some slight amount of hope for PC gaming's future.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 03 Dec 2011 @ 9:28

Comments have been disabled for this article.

News archive