CD Projekt patch The Witcher 2 and remove DRM

All PC enthusiast gamers loathe DRM which is being supplied now with more and more games. The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings has just received its first official patch and as well as bug fixes, developer CD Projekt have removed the DRM from the title. Gamers will be rejoicing.

DRM is a hideous software protection system, also known as ‘Digital Rights Management' … a system in place to help stop illegal copying of the software. Often however the expert game crackers have no problem removing it in a few days and the legitimate gamers are left dealing with the inconvenience (and sometimes problems).

The patch upgrades the game to V1.1 and was specifically created to remove all traces of the DRM from the game.

Adam Badowski, development director said “Our goal is to make our fans and customers happy and to reward them for buying our game, and DRM schemes do not support our philosophy as they might create obstacles for users of legally-bought copies. Our approach to countering piracy is to incorporate superior value in the legal version.” We really respect his thinking.

“This means it has to be superior in every respect: less troublesome to use and install, with full support, and with access to additional content and services. So, we felt keeping the DRM would mainly hurt our legitimate users. This is completely in line with what we said before the release of The Witcher 2: we felt DRM was necessary to prevent the game being pirated and leaked before release,” Badowski added. “This purpose has been served, so we are pleased to let our users enjoy the full freedom of game usage they deserve.”

Gamers who bought the game initially from the GOG.com service received a DRM free version anyway, but those who bought it in a store or via another service will have received the locked down DRM version. Badowski added “It’s important to remember that the PC platform is far more complex than consoles. DRM adds another layer of complication and potential problems – we saw this clearly in our game. Pre-release tests showed only small performance differences compared to the DRM-free version.”

Things didn't work out that smoothly for them however, he said “We were unpleasantly surprised when some of our fans reported much larger differences – up to 30 per cent lower framerates. This was another clear signal that we had to remove DRM as soon as possible – the quality of our users' gameplay experience is absolutely our number one priority!”

This move has gone down well with gamers who actually feel that the game is more attractive now. DRM is one of the ‘extras' that can stop some gamers buying the game in the first place.

You can grab the patch over here.

Kitguru says: Lets hope more game developers ditch DRM, its a nightmare. everyone knows it.

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