So, Witcher 2 is coming out soon. If you’re thinking of pirating it to save a few pennies, think again, because CD Projekt, the developers of Witcher 2 and owners of GOG.com, have a nasty surprise for you. Apparently the European company is tired of people snatching their games off of torrents (an presumably through windows as well), so they’ve teamed up with some big law firms to bring the full might of the court against PC pirates.
The game, which is set to launch in March of 2011, will be DRM-free from the outset, allowing legitimate purchasers to install the game as many times as they want on any PC. For those out there who choose less-than-legal methods to obtain their game, they should expect a cease-and-desist letter from one of the firms that have teamed up with CD Projekt.
In case you are wondering, the way that a torrenter is tracked is by having the law firm send a request to the torrent sites to get a list of IP addresses that have used the site. From there it goes to the IP provider, who then needs to cough up the name of the end user. It’s a time consuming and imperfect process, as I’m sure we all remember the claims of fraud from the few who were persecuted by the music industry a while back for illegally downloading songs. Since there’s no actual way to prove that the IP owner was the one who downloaded the game, just that it was from their address, this has lead some to believe that this method of piracy protection is a violation of personal privacy.
While DRM methods are usually stringent and are a pain in the rear, this is the first time in my memory that a game company is standing ready to take legal action against pirates. What do you guys think of CD Projekt’s plan? Is it too heavy-handed, or is a trip to the district court just what the pirates deserve?
Source – Eurogamer
I have absolutely zero sympathy for pirates of video games. They deserve it.
1st of all, just another scare tactic that will surely fail. Maybe they’ll put a single mother in prison for 500 years to scare everyone.
2nd of all, I watched the trailer. I think paying for a game like this should land you in jail before stealing it does.
Oh yeah, I definitely think the pirates are getting what they deserve. I’d rather see a couple hundred people punished for doing something bad than for an innocent gamer to have to deal with crippling DRM.
[quote comment=”14768″]1st of all, just another scare tactic that will surely fail. Maybe they’ll put a single mother in prison for 500 years to scare everyone.
2nd of all, I watched the trailer. I think paying for a game like this should land you in jail before stealing it does.[/quote]
Actually it’s going to be a pretty good game, the first one was good.
Pirates deserve to be caught and fined an appropriate amount. Stealing a game off a torrent site is the exact same as stealing a game from a store. I really hope this works out for CD Projekt.