I think you're being overly optimistic (although if this was just released you may still be right), but still, there are a lot of copies being bought, and what matters is if CDPR will make a profit on this game, which I'm guessing they will.

Unfortunately, I expected this to occur as soon as the preload started on GOG and sad to see I was right. Piracy of games is a bad thing in itself but piracy of DRM Free games is even more abhorrent which really disappoints me and there is one particular uploader that always puts up the popular games from GOG on torrents. Damaging the good will and trust GOG places in its customers to not breach the terms of a license that is free from DRM restrictions.

Yup. it's the gog version. I mean pirates aren't stupid either. Why try to crack a game when you can just upload gog files. I guess one of the downloaders is the culprit, but you wouldn't know who. Even if you did, it's not hard to make another account or get it through other means.

I don't care much about pirates. However this is just damaging GOG's reputation and will make publishers and developers who see this less eager to do business with gog.

Indeed, this is what bothers me the most as we all know that majority of AAA publishers/developers are always looking for reasons to shove more DRM in their games and they will use any excuse to make their case for it. I hope the actual sales figures for the Witcher 3 on GOG prove in the long run that DRM Free is a viable source of revenue and that legitimate customers really appreciate the developers/publishers trusting them enough to not impose restrictions on them because of pirates.

I think this must be put in perspective.

Someone had said on another forum the Witcher2 was ordered 1 million times, yet illegally downloaded 4.5 Million time. As such CDPR DRM free stance is a failure.

I'd like to know how many copies of a similar, but DRM laden, game that had been pirated. I know GTAV is available, I'm not sure how soon after its release it was made available.

It has to be said 4.5 million pirated downloads does not mean 4.5 million lost sales.

I also have doubts that the 4.5 Million is an accurate figure. If there where 10 different torrents for W2, most pirates would grab 3 or 4 since often versions are virused or fake.

I'm not trying to down play the effect of piracy, but just trying to put context to the numbers.

As for my own actions. I have pirated games before, though of those I don't own a License for I can't think of any I had given much game time too. The excuse of "I wanted to demo it first" actually fits with those games I had downloaded. again it doesn't stop what I did from being illegal, rather a statement of how it was used.

There are a few games I got via torrents where I do own at least legitimate licence. I recently grabbed a copy of Feeding Frenzy 2, because my daughter wanted to play it and its locked up in a heavily used Steam account.

Other where for No-CD patches.

What is worth noting, 9 of my GoG I already own on disc or Steam. I rebought them for a DRM free and/or Win7 compatible version.

They did those day 1 patch shenanigans in order to prevent pirates from doing this, haha.
Just shows how feeble those attemps always are and as always they only made another incovenience for the customers and drastically reduced the future worth of the first batch.

God(s) be with you CDPR. I hope the pirates realize you guys are genuine people and buy your game. Spread the love!

I don't think all this is needed. First there's need to show that DRM-free games are not pirated more than DRM-laden games. If that's true, then GOG's stance is a success. What we want to prove is that DRM doesn't help, or, to put it another way, that DRM-free doesn't encourage more piracy. If that's true, then there's no point in DRM.

If DRM-free games are pirated more, then arguing the cost of DRM would be quite meaningless. Sure, it would be an interesting intellectual exercise, but it won't really matter to the bean counters.

Back in 2013 they showed the witcher series had been bought 6 million times in total. I can assume that number might be around 9 million now because of the hype around witcher 3.
I doubt the source claiming 4,5 million. On a top 10 list I found from 2012, the biggest all time pirated game barely made it to 4,5m. The Witcher 2 wasn't THAT mainstream.

Just to make clear my comment about CDPR DRM stance being a failure was the opinion of the person, I was quoting, that had posted the claimed that 4.5 million copies of W2 were downloaded.

DRM has without a hardware solution has no effect on Piracy, and even with hardware (like Consoles or DVD players) it only delays it. DRM only effects legitimate users.

Shameful, really. Now THIS is the kind of pirates who give a bad name and a nastier rep to all of us, humble freelooters. I am a pirate, yet i NEVER pirated anything from our site, ever since i registered here and started buying my stuff.

I'm working right now so I won't bother reading the whole thread as as much as I'm on the same page as you, I'm rectifying your statement because back in the 90's when Pentium processors and first graphic cards were introduced there was a constant "race to arms" for a long time where you had to upgrade your whole machine every two years (or even less) to keep up with the new games requirements.

20 years later I can still hear the cries and screams of despair of 486 and Pentium 100Mhz users. The horror....

The late 90's slowed down considerably that race, due to consoles like Play Station and XBox.