It’s no secret that this site is not fond of video game pirates, especially when their actions harm and jeopardise the video game industry.
CD Projekt Red, the development studio behind the smash PC hit game The Witcher 2, has been seen as one of the real heroes in the industry, regarding piracy and how it affected their product personally. The studio has abandoned any form of draconian DRM in their game, and have even spoken against it, even though the Witcher 2 was pirated over 4.5 million times.
Of course, the studio hasn’t just sat around and done nothing regarding the rampant piracy, and whenever a culprit was found, a cease and desist letter was sent to warn them of the repercussions of continuing their illicit witchering.
But now, it seems that the nice guys in CD Projekt Red want to call off their lawsuit pursuits entirely, in case they finger the wrong person.
“While we are confident that no one who legally owns one of our games has been required to compensate us for copyright infringement, we value our fans, our supporters, and our community too highly to take the chance that we might ever falsely accuse even one individual,” Co-Founder Marcin Iwinski said in an open letter posted by RPS.
“Our fans always have been and remain our greatest concern, and we pride ourselves on the fact that you all know that we listen to you and take your opinions to heart.”
Iwinski explained that after fans expressed concern regarding that a legitamite purchaser might be on the receiving end of some legal action, which would cost the accused 750 Euros in fines to avoid a court date, the studio decided to stop sending cease and desist letters. That doesn’t mean that The Witcher 2 developers are going soft in their stance against piracy however.
“It hurts us, the developers. It hurts the industry as a whole,” Iwinski said. “Though we are staunch opponents of DRM because we don’t believe it has any effect on reducing piracy, we still do not condone copying games illegally.
We’re doing our part to keep our relationship with you, our gaming audience, a positive one. We’ve heard your concerns, listened to your voices, and we’re responding to them. But you need to help us and do your part: don’t be indifferent to piracy.
If you see a friend playing an illegal copy of a game, any game, tell your friend that they’re undermining the possible success of the developer who created the very game that they are enjoying.
Unless you support the developers who make the games you play, unless you pay for those games, we won’t be able to produce new excellent titles for you.
With such nice guys working in the industry, stealing from this studio specifically is the equivalent of punching an orphan in the face and running off with his hand-me-down shoes.
Last Updated: January 13, 2012
