Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings has been pirated 4.5 million times, says developer CD Projekt. The game has sold just over one million legal copies, making the illegal-to-legal ratio 4.5:1.
However, CD Projekt CEO Marcin Iwinski doesn’t think that’s too bad:
“…as of today we have sold over one million legal copies, so having only 4.5-5 illegal copies for each legal one would be not a bad ratio,” he told PC Gamer.
It must also be stressed that the 4.5 million figure is not official, it’s based on calculations Iwinski himself performed after browsing illegal download sites. He believes that “the reality is probably way worse.”
Despite that frankly disheartening ratio, Iwinski doesn’t want to enforce a strict DRM policy as he thinks it would simply cause more issues for legitimate players and would do little to stop piracy.
He says the real solution is to educate users and add value to legal copies.
“We started offering high value with the product — like enhancing the game with additional collectors’ items like soundtracks, making-of DVDs, books, walkthroughs, etc.,” said Iwinski.
“This, together with a long process of educating local gamers about why it makes sense to actually buy games legally, worked. And today, we have a reasonably healthy games market.”
While Iwinski has a point that increased value is probably better than overbearing DRM, it’s still sickening to think of all the money CD Projekt is losing thanks to illegally obtained copies of the game.
Given the Witcher 2’s quality, think of how well they can spend that money on future developments.
Source: PC Gamer
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