Interview CD Projekt's Co-Founder interviewed

[Monolith]

Tags: CD Projekt; Michal Kicinski; Witcher, The

<a href="http://rpgcodex.net/peopledetails.php?id=78">Michal Kicinski</a>, Co-Founder and CEO of CD Projekt, has been interviewed by <a href="http://www.edge-online.com/features/1m-sold-the-witchers-secret-pc-success">Edge Online</a> and <a href="http://gamestar.de/interviews/1950517/the_witcher.html">Gamestar</a> (in German) recently. Both sites take the opportunity of The Witcher selling those 1 million copies and basically ask about what brought that success and what the future will bring - with Gamestar going more into the details and additionally asking what CD Projekt has learned from developing The Witcher.
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Some quotes from <a href="http://www.edge-online.com/">Edge</a>:
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<blockquote>CD Projekt's approach to piracy isn't slapping intrusive, annoying DRM onto a disc. Like any game maker, CD Projekt wants to protect its property. But it does this not by trying to aimlessly (and in futility) block piracy, but by treating piraters as competitors with rival products. Essentially, isn't that what they really are?
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"We absolutely think that the best way to fight piracy is to somehow compete with piracy by offering quality support for buyers of the original game. These things cannot be copied by pirates," Kacinski argued.</blockquote>
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Dunno about the support, but the additional content contained in the retail box made my decision easier. Notice how they misspelled his name (how fucking unprofessional is that!?)
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Anyway, here's a tidbit from Wikipedia (yeah, feeling bad about it) about The Witcher's non intrusive copy protection:
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<code>"The game uses the controversial TAGES copy protection system, which, when triggered, quietly and undetectably sabotages the content of the game to make it unwinnable by making certain key non-player characters disappear permanently.[citation needed] TAGES has been found to conflict with disc image drive emulators and react similarly to the presence of SCSI and SATA drivers in the system, resulting in the copy protection system preventing users from running legitimately purchased copies of the game. These problems can sometimes be avoided by uninstalling the TAGES driver with the official installation program and then starting the game (which will automatically install the appropriate driver version), but saved games already in progress must be abandoned and the game started over from the beginning. The Downloadable version of the 1.4 Patch for The Witcher removes the DVD-check"</code>
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Next quote from <a href="http://www.edge-online.com/">Edge</a>...
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<blockquote>For now, the company will remain PC-centric, although Kicinski <b>"wants to be present" in the console market.</b></blockquote>
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...made me shiver.
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There's another article about The Witcher on <a href="http://www.dtf.ru/news/read.php?id=53293">DTF</a>, a Russian site, and since it's in Russian, I don't have a clue what exactly it's about. Still, might be of interest for some of you.
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We'll have our very own interview with <a href="http://rpgcodex.net/peopledetails.php?id=78">Michal</a> up anytime soon - and we'll try to go more into the details, so stay tuned.
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Spotted at: <a href="http://www.thewitcher.com">Official The Witcher site</a>

 

[Solohk]

For now, the company will remain PC-centric, although Kicinski <b>"wants to be present" in the console market.

That seems to be the way it works now. Debut with a great PC game, then begin the console slide into streamlining.

Edit:
On the plus side, much like Stardock they have the right attitude regarding pirates.

 

[flabbyjack]

Bravo, bravo good sirs! What a novel outlook -- treating pirates as competitors. By denying service that is provided to regular paying customers you make your product 'look pretty', and buyers arent buying a game they are buying into the company, it's services, community, ...

Some examples;
I know that you can't post on Biowares forums without registering your products. And some games are wicked hard to patch by hand, thus requiring use of an auto-updater.

About selling an image;
Apple does this really well. If you make something look good(especially a luxury commodity) it doesn't matter how much it costs, people will buy it. By expanding into consoles CDProject can make itself look more successful and increase sales. Hell, by ditching PC altogether they could save on production/testing costs too.

 

[Micmu]

Waitaminute... They have a copy protection that generates BUGS ?
What about an old-fashioned message "sorry but we believe your copy is non-legit, vital game functions have been disabled, call blah blah..." ?
If there isn't one, it's the dumbest copy protection ever. It's when all the illegitimate users are gonna scream how the game is bugged and sucks, as if playing it for free wasn't enough. Brilliant business move there!

 

[Chefe]

That kind of copy protection killed Iron Lore. Of course, the quote is from Wikipedia, so there's a 90% chance it's made up bullshit.

 

[Barrow_Bug]

Hmmm interesting. I really do wish them the best. As for the whole console-thing, it's a given. I don't believe PC gaming is dying, but it has fuck all market share in comparison to console gaming. Adapt or perish.

 

[Rondel.]

Waitaminute... They have a copy protection that generates BUGS ?
What about an old-fashioned message "sorry but we believe your copy is non-legit, vital game functions have been disabled, call blah blah..." ?
If there isn't one, it's the dumbest copy protection ever. It's when all the illegitimate users are gonna scream how the game is bugged and sucks, as if playing it for free wasn't enough. Brilliant business move there!

The Downloadable version of the 1.4 Patch for The Witcher removes the DVD-check

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For now, the company will remain PC-centric, although Kicinski "wants to be present" in the console market.

They are going to release their new FPS called "They" on PC, x360 and PS3. It doesn't mean that The Witcher will be consolized.

 

[Licaon_Kter]

TAGES does that ( in Chapter 1, Mikul and the Reverend ): http://www.thewitcher.com/forum/index.p ... #msg156333

an upgraded firmware or a newer drive should fix these issues, as older DVD drives can have problems with newer pressed disks

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well, I wouldn't mind them publishing console ports (since I still haven't seen a reason to upgrade my computer)... As long as they keep the quality.

 

[Micmu]

Waitaminute... They have a copy protection that generates BUGS ?
What about an old-fashioned message "sorry but we believe your copy is non-legit, vital game functions have been disabled, call blah blah..." ?
If there isn't one, it's the dumbest copy protection ever. It's when all the illegitimate users are gonna scream how the game is bugged and sucks, as if playing it for free wasn't enough. Brilliant business move there!

The Downloadable version of the 1.4 Patch for The Witcher removes the DVD-check

So? It doesn't make it any less stupid they had this in before the patch. At least they saw this as wrong (if that's the reason they removed it - I sure hope).

an upgraded firmware or a newer drive should fix these issues, as older DVD drives can have problems with newer pressed disks

Yeah, except that not everyone knows doing this and not everyone will do it. Firmware?? Really now? When drivers for graphics card just aren't enough anymore.
At least they should anticipate that some will have these "old" DVD drives and should include a warning message, not "simulating" bugs!

I'd really like for more PC developers/publishers to succeed a lot, but they're doing a really really fine job shooting their own feet...

 

[made]

Drakensang uses (used?) the same kind of copy protection. The official forums were abound with help requests because certain quest NPCs wouldn't spawn. Curiously, legitimate customers were screwed (and treated like shit by the admins) while pirates could get around it with a cracked CD image.

 

[Spectacle]

This kind of "hidden failure" DRM is probably the stupidest on the market. Even if you bought the game you never know if maybe the DRM has kicked in and is fucking up your game. I guess they hope it will make the game harder to crack since it won't be immediately obvious to the crackers if they have successfully rooted out every trace of the DRM or not.

 

[Shannow]

Drakensang uses (used?) the same kind of copy protection. The official forums were abound with help requests because certain quest NPCs wouldn't spawn. Curiously, legitimate customers were screwed (and treated like shit by the admins) while pirates could get around it with a cracked CD image.

I pirated it and had the "problem". Then I bought it (because I liked it up to that point) and didn't have the problem...
So the pirate me had some inconveniences and the customer me didn't...

Don't let personal experiences get in the way of your flaming of any kind of DRM, though.

This kind of "hidden failure" DRM is probably the stupidest on the market. Even if you bought the game you never know if maybe the DRM has kicked in and is fucking up your game. I guess they hope it will make the game harder to crack since it won't be immediately obvious to the crackers if they have successfully rooted out every trace of the DRM or not.

If the legit buyer has the problem, you are right. Otherwise it doesn't make legit buyers hop through hoops, it doesn't install malware (I think) and it not only makes the game harder to crack but also gives pirates (potential customers) a demo. The only downsides I see are if it truly hits legit buyers and not giving a message that clearly states that you can't go on because you pirated the game. But then it only took google and 5 minutes of my time to find out what was wrong...
I still think serial numbers and good online support for registered users is the best "protection" but as DRM schemes go, the Drakensang one seems a lot better than Starforce/ securerom, rent the game for full price, mandatory internet registration bullshit.

 

[Ausir]

Given CD Projekt's approach to DRM, TAGES was probably Atari's idea.

 

[made]

the Drakensang one seems a lot better than Starforce/ securerom

Drakensang uses Securom in addition to the other DRM scheme.

Anyway, I'm not really opposed to the idea that a game is limited to function as a demo if it detects a crack. The problem is only if it breaks and refuses to work because it determines that an actually legit install is compromised by 3rd party software installed on the same PC or whatever the issue was.

Personally, I had two options: return the game and pray the store takes back the opened box, or crack it - neither of which I think is in anyone's interest. If I have to crack it to make it work, why did I buy it in the first place?

 

[Elwro]

It's :sacredwaterflask: all over again.

 

[Lesifoere]

That one was fun. I pirated it and simply spawned the flask in via console.

 

[Elwro]

I hope you're proud of your ingeniousness.

 

[denizsi]

I think Operation Flashpoint had a similar copy protection, but at least you were informed about it. Everytime you run the game, there is a disclaimer screen that informs you about the copy protection and if the game detects your installation to be illegitimate, "game experience" would degrade over time.

Having such a disclaimer is the only safe way for that kind of protection, lest game studios end up like Iron Lore.

 

[Lesifoere]

I hope you're proud of your ingeniousness.

No, just pointing out it didn't work too well.