In a world full of season passes and online-only restrictions, the folks behind The Witcher 3 have one hell of a promise to make: no DRM restrictions. None. At all.
“Hey, following our recent announcement of the distribution deals of The Witcher 3 in North America and Europe, there have been some concerns regarding DRM and previous legal issues with The Witcher 2,” writes Marcin Iwinski, boss of Witcher developer CD Projekt Red, in a blog post today.
DRM, or digital rights management, refers to a number of restrictions that companies use in order to inhibit game piracy and the purchase of used games. It’s a practice that many gamers aren’t quite fond of.
“I’d like to say it loud and clear: The PC version of The Witcher 3 will have absolutely no DRM from day 0,” Iwinski writes. “Zero. Zip. Nada. It doesn’t matter if you choose to buy it on GOG.com and support us directly or buy the game in box format, you’ll still get the 100% DRM-free experience. And this goes for the whole world.”
UPDATE: And in case you’re wondering about Steam, here’s clarification from CD Projekt Red’s PR folks: “It’ll be on Steam; the team isn’t going to exclude that community by any means. Gamers have a choice in where they buy their games, but where CDPR does have control — like GOG.com — there will be absolutely no DRM.”
Comments
28 responses to “Witcher 3 Makers Promise: ‘Absolutely No DRM’ On PC”
I really hope these guys continue to have success and get bigger and bigger, but still hold on to this approach. Maybe then EA/Ubisoft might pay attention.
I feel the same way. More power to them.
I find it funny how adamant they are about absolutely no DRM, yet there is going to be DRM.
Its like saying “We have a new burger out, it will contain absolutely no meat Zero.Zip.Nada. 100% meat free….But it’ll contain Ham we will not exclude the ham eating community”.
I think it more like “the Ham eating community can also get it with ham if they want”. Not our DRM though.
My point was that the article clearly states there will be no DRM, yet there is. I get that its optional and that you CAN get the game DRM free, but saying absolutely no DRM on PC is a blatant lie. The whole reason I clicked on this article was because I thought that the game would have no DRM whatsoever and I thought that was interesting.
The whole Ham example seems counter-intuitive to my point so I apologize if it caused any confusion.
I think your point is arbitrary. If someone chooses the DRM option, thats there own business. In all likelihood, even the Steam version will run without booting steam (many other titles do this). They can get the title 100% without DRM if thats what they want to do.
Yes I understand this but I think my point still stands, the article title is misleading pure and simple. It should say “Option of No DRM” not “Absolutely no DRM”.
What if they are using absolutely no DRM. You don’t have to use Steamworks and the custom executable if you don’t want to. As @thom said, many titles can run without Steam and it’s overlay. That way, Steam just becomes a delivery service (ok, with a client that you can’t avoid), but you still have to log into GOG and download from them in much the same way.
Yeah and again I will say that the article heading made it seem (to me anyway) as though the Witcher 3 was doing away with DRM entirely, as in going commando and trying to sell the game without steam and hence the reason I clicked on the article.
But maybe I was just interpreting the article the wrong way so I guess with that I can say I was wrong, sorry if I caused any confusion haha.
The game that they made and are publishing will not contain any DRM.
The game they made and Valve is publishing will contain Steams mandatory DRM. The statement 100% correct.
Jeez enjoying the down vote button are we? I already said I was wrong and apologized. I don’t know what else you want from me.
What DRM? Have you never baught a game from gog.com before? they actually are drm-free…that’s the whole point.
If you’re talking about it being on steam, that’s a choice. You don’t ‘need’ to buy it on steam if you don’t want to but why would they not put it on steam when obviously some people do want it on there?
One of my favourite dev’s! Love the series and can’t wait for W3 and it’s collector’s edition 😛
So what I’m extrapolating from that – boxed copies will not have Steamworks. I wonder if it will include a steam key, or a GOG key, or if it’ll just be a straight out old-school install disc. Which shouldn’t need a cd-key for the installer either, since technically that’s a form of DRM. When was the last time a retail game shipped like that? Floppy disk days?
I raise the point about the GOG/ Steam key since, if by avoiding the downsides of DRM, it also means there won’t be any of the advantages of modern digital distribution – if something happens to the CD, are you SOL, or only suffering the minor inconvenience of downloading the game to install it?
I raise these as discussion points – I am 100% behind this sort of pro-consumer attitude and fully intend to buy the shit out of this game.
Best case scenario, all copies come with a serial for GOG. This would actually be a really sweet marketing move. “Your disc is DRM free, but if you lose the disc, you can get it again forever on GOG! Just make yourself an account and put in the code. You’re safe forever. Then have a look at all the sweet games on there. Maybe buy a thing. DRM free.”
I think it would swell their userbase by a heap.
Will probably include a steam key so you can register/play it on steam (if you want) but can also run stright off the disc/HDD.
That reminded me of the days of the CD needing to be in the drive to play…and the copious number of no-CD crack .bat files that were produced to overcome it.
Used to do that for shit I legitimately owned and had the CD for, JUST so I could keep multiple games on the hard drive and swap between them without swapping discs. Laziness wins!
Witcher 1/2 CD keys from retail copies could be registered at GOG to have a downloadable option available if you so desired
This is great! CD Projekt Red seems to be the only company that understands there product will be cracked within 24hrs anyway so why infuriate the paying customers with something that’s essentially useless.
Just for this gesture i will now buy the collectors edition.
If getting the game (and you should), please buy it from gog.com. It ensures they get the full amount for your purchase and ensures that they can continue making awesome games.
you can tell that they are a company that cares less about swimming in money and puts actual time and effort into making works of art. the witcher 2 has such a soft spot in my heart as one of those mind blowing games that there just aren’t enough of
I still haven’t finished that game, It is on my list.
Honestly, Out of 10, Is it a “Play this week” or “Play it when you get around to it” haha
It’s a play today. I’m finally playing it (after playing Witcher 1 and enjoying it) and it’s my favourite RPG of this generation.
I’ll buy it on steam, love the whole DRM free thing but I also like having my games all in one place. Can not wait for this game@!!!!!!!!
Yes I too am a big fan of this developer, not primarily for this DRM reason, but simply because they make very good games and support them well. Remember the giant free ‘enhanced edition’ patch they released for witcher 2?
I found witcher 2 a huge step up from witcher 1, pretty much better in all regards. Will be interesting if they can impress me with such a big step up again from witcher 2 to 3. I would not be surprised, but I’m going very spoiler free for witcher 3, i think only seen the first trailer and that’s all. It’ll be a buy for me anyway so don’t want to spoil anything at all for myself including unimportant things like minigames etc 🙂
Very excited about witcher 3. witcher 2 was the last great RPG i can recall playing on PC (don’t count things like human revolution, which maybe had rpg elements, but still more of a shooter in my opinion, in my mind, even something like borderlands isn’t an rpg, i’d maybe call them GPG’s? Gun Playing Game? i dunno i’m still old school i guess, rpg to me means swords and shields and magic)
I really wish I was interested in The Witcher so I could throw my money at these guys xD
I guess I will just have to wait for Cyberpunk…
I own both on GOG but still have not finished either its in my getting bigger pile of shame :S