The Witcher 2 - Official GOG Announcement

Preventing piracy by taking good care of your customers? Fuck yeah!

I´m pretty sure this won´t hurt their sales, quite the opposite, at least in a longer run. The no DRM stamp is very likely to garner them more attention, plus having good public relations is certainly not to be underestimated.
Hopefully, The Witcher 2 will be a great game. Since it´s a good old game already, I haven´t much worries :).

What I think it may hurt though are actually sales of their competition.
When people will see that selling high profile game DRM-free is "possible", they may become more prone to boycott games with DRM in.
 
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Not having DRM doesn't mean they don't have to spend that extra money licensing the technology?

All in all, everyone wins with this move. With the Fair-Price move, we can get the game cheaper than in, let's say, Steam. Also, there's no DRM. Besides the cool bonuses, which are also on Steam, we get a free game from GOG. The Witcher 2 will probably cost us only around 20€, if you discount the Fair-Price and the free game. If you're in Europe, of course.

CD Projekt wins with this not only publicity for GOG but also full revenue from whatever number of Witcher copies they sell there, considering they don't have to pay a fee, like I suppose Steam or other DD services charge.

The thing with piracy is that it doesn't matter if it has DRM or not, it'll get pirated if it's high profile. Games with DRM have been pirated before release date already, so saying DRM enables a "buffer-period" seems to me like a lame excuse by Publishers to enforce the DRM. It's true that lately pirated games have been taking longer to come out, like with what happened with Assassin's Creed II and other Ubisoft games, but still were cracked in a matter of days.

From my point of view, DRM only harms the consumer and to some extent even the Developers/Publishers. Returns because of failed DRM measures or complete changes to the DRM scheme have happened before and only make the seller have to work extra hours to provide a better service, reformulating whatever measures they have at sale time. That and/or lose customers and alienate the fan base.

I hope CD Projekt pulls this off. I hope they make a point that quality and respect for their customers are how you win notoriety and build up a strong fanbase for your titles.
 
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I might still buy the physical specimen. I just have horrible nightmares (sort of ;) ) of a game just beint/sitting there on my harddisk and that's all.

To me, it's as if some sort of dust had settled on my harddisk. ;)

But yes, my personal data is similar. A could of dust. I think I should really make a backup copy of my e-mail folder and my texts tomorrow …
 
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I wonder if the game sold in physical stores is DRM free as well...

If you check play.com ot TheHut, you'll the the same premium edition cheaper or with the same price. Sure, you don't get 1 free gog game (from a limited choice) and 16$ to spend in a couple more games in gog, but... You get everything in a box, with DVDs and CD, paper map, a physical coin, the printed manual and game guide (although I guess I could use my iPad to read the PDFs comfortably), etc. Oh, the artbook is free in GOG...

Hum... Decisions, decisions...
 
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Nice, but I need a retail version with all the physical goodies. :)

it says you get a paper figurine with the Digital Premium Edition, thats not enough physical content for ya? ;)

sounds like a good deal from GoG.. not sure i would risk buying it just yet though.
 
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I'm a bit worried about risking it, too. 10% off is nice but, when The Witcher first came out, it had some pretty serious loading time issues. They've made a point in showing off the ZERO load time model they have now so I doubt they will hit the same problem again but I still worry that other bugs will creep in and cause problems just as large.

But then again, they bent over backwards to get The Witcher fixed, too. So there's a high chance they will fix any problems in Witcher 2. If I get the game after they fix it I pay full price but if I get it now I save $5. Hmmmm. Tricky.

Regarding DRM - meh. DRM hasn't really hurt me since Gothic 3, and that was broken in far more ways than just DRM.

I still haven't read anything as to country-specific versions yet. The first Witcher was censored for the USA but the Enhanced edition was not. So what's the story with Witcher 2? Censored? Censored but trivial to uncensor with a mod? Censored and will call your mother if you try to remove it?
 
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I really like the way GOG does things. It's hard for me not to support this.

And it's not purely a political statement. They're offering a discount, their usual little bonuses of music and avatars and such (which I never do anything with) and a good short list of older games to pick one for free.

It's their business practices, certainly including their DRM policy, that convinced me. I have been, up until now, on the fence about this sequel. I was going to wait until well after the release date -- read reviews, read what folks here thought about it, watch videos, etc. -- to decide whether I might get it. And I really was thinking I may very well not get it. And I watched that gameplay presentation. First time I've seen something like that. The game doesn't look bad, although I didn't like the "streamlined" Mass Effectesque dialogue choices.

I like the way these guys do things. I'll be curious to see how this experiment works out. I hope it works out for them. It works for the customer -- this customer, at least.

Pre-ordered.
 
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While I love that GOG is doing this I still want that statue :)

I'll pay the extra money to get the collectors edition. This will be by far the most I have ever paid for any single game ever, but it's not the most I've ever paid for miniatures plus paint.
 
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I've really like GOG/CDProjekt and with the exception of the horrible dirty trick they played in September have been quite happy with them. I've gone ahead and preordered this since I ended up liking The Witcher quite a bit on my second attempt of playing it 3 years after buying it. Normally don't preorder this early but I think they will be good for it.

I generally like to buy directly from the developer when its reasonable as I would rather they get the money directly than having several middlemen take a cut out first.
 
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Once again, GOG.com demonstrates how things should be done. Before I heard about the contents of the pre-order deal, I was unsure whether I would buy a physical copy to put in my shelf, or just a download version. However, the preorder deal wins by being awesome. Nice bonus materials, a free extra game, and a fair price. Unlike some services (hello, Steam), where you actually have to pay more for cutting a distribution link and not having a physical copy.

Additionally, this being GOG.com, there is no DRM, which means I don't get slapped in the face for other people pirating, and I can play the game with no restrictions or inconvenience. Actually, with GOG.com providing a reliable download source, gathering all the bonus materials and community features, I am actually, for once, getting a better product than those who steal the game.

GOG.com was already my favorite games store by far, but they still manage to rise in esteem. :)

Kay
 
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DRM-free and GOG = win.

To the guys claiming it is difficult to find and install a cracked game. The answer is no, it is extremely easy. Finding = join a torrent site and download scene release. Installing = extract, then mount + install, then copy over crack (which is always included). Done.

Ok, that is a bit simplified, but to be honest I don't know anyone who plays computer games that wouldn't be able to do it easily.
 
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What it does mean, however, is that if this release does better (Or really well) then it proves that customers are more willing to have a DRM-free release and incentives to buy the game.

Actually it proves nothing. The data will be purely correlational, which means that any number of confounding variables could be the reason for the game selling well: good game, good press, positive word of mouth, a better economy, good commercials, good release timing (it is released on my birthday after all. And Norway's independence day. :p) etc..
 
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If you exclude a couple of games everything gets hacked within the first 8 hours , of course the majority of the games are available in pirate sites before they even hit the stores.

I am not sure if im buying this from GoG or GG since i am an old satisfied customer of the later but i am sure that CDPR will have bonus material for all people with register copies ; do not forget that they remastered the entire first episode for their game owners.
 
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I've decided to wait. First I must know if the game won't be "dumbed down for consoles". :)
 
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I've decided to wait. First I must know if the game won't be "dumbed down for consoles". :)
Well, it's not coming out on consoles until after the PC version, and that's only if CDPR do a console version. I believe they've said they're considering it, but the PC release is their priority.
 
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I won't be able to run TW2 on my current computer (Hell, I can't even run the first game), and yet I'm tempted to preorder this just to support the idea.

Perhaps we'll see more newer releases on GOG in the future?
 
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Finding = join a torrent site

I wouldn't even know how to identify a torrent site from … well, fakes, maybe ?

And what prevents me from "loading" a virus from that site at the same time ?

I recently read that even the Nobel Prize web site was hacked to "give" people a Trojan ...
 
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