One thing I learned over the years is that it's much more efficient not to read too much about the upcoming releases of any entertainment media. They're still there long after release and if anything, they cost a lot less. I hate it when a company teases a product for months and then delivers a half-baked piece of trash (or like in our case, makes an announcement of an announcement). No company, however, takes this overhyped rhetoric to the appalling level used by GOG. The broken English they deliver it in is the icing on the cake.

I thought about all this for the past two days and decided that the only way to avoid GOG's tactics is to stop reading the front page news for a couple of months. I wonder if anyone else came to a similar conclusion.

I'm also concerned about their planned release of The Witcher 2. Judging by the way they handle PR, the whole situation might backfire. It's obvious people will pirate it like hell just like they did with World of Goo. This might significantly hinder GOG's efforts to sign any publishers already opposed to DRM-free games. I, for one, believe GOG will make a joke of itself - especially if they think it's possible to seek compensation through extorting money from old ladies and children using the court system. They're not the first company to attempt that.

Any thoughts on avoiding frustration?

I think that Mr. Gog and CD Projekt know what they're getting into. In terms of signing new studios the situation with TW2 isn't going to have any meaningful impact one way or another as its not the sort of game that Mr. Gog is trying to get rights for.

And as far as it being pirated, I would be surprised if it's going to be more pirated just because its DRM free than it would otherwise have been. The folks that provide the cracks are just way too good at getting copies and removing the protection to expect for it to make a dent.

As far as teasing, I find it mildly annoying that they teased it out and gave us Atari with a hint about who they were talking about.

My you are up late accusing people of being up late. :-P

I think the idea of a brand new release being DRM free is much different from a classic. If The Witcher 2 bombs (which I doubt) it would probably make publishers think DRM does stop some piracy, but I doubt the goal of getting more classic releases DRM free would take much of a hit.

Look at Ubisoft. They are a strong GOG partner despite obviously thinking tough DRM is needed on their newer releases.

They never said they were suing old ladies and kids....random people, etc. Only those IPs(i'm guessing) caught trying to play their games illegally will be targeted.

I'm sure Gog would be in control of it though and would drop any accidental lawsuits.

Oh ye of little faith. :)

As far as The Witcher 2 is concerned, I really don't think GOG has a large enough user base to really affect the market in any significant way. If one hundred thousand copies of the game sell, and one hundred seventy-eight of them came from DRM-free GOG, that's not really a significant enough portion of the market to affect seller's opinions of whether the DRM-free solution is really more viable than their already in place DRM-based copy protection schemes. (Note: the numbers are just examples off the top of my head, so don't expect them to be accurate.) And most of those who would seek out the GOG copy of the game are people who would be unlikely to support the piracy of the game in the first place, so even from that viewpoint it is unlikely to have a tremendous effect.

Now, for GOG's marketing strategies. GOG is a store, with a customer base interested in old games. Most people have an idea of what games they are looking for, and either through nostalgia value or simply wishful thinking will attribute almost any advertisement put up to said games. GOG playing on this tendency is to be expected, since it allows them to effectively keep more individuals interested in upcoming releases, and consequently sell more copies of games. "Oh, this isn't what I was hoping would come out, but the advertisements make sense for this, and it's a good game. *buy*"

And the broken English... honestly, is this really a problem? The company's based out of what, Poland? I can accept a few misplaced words and syntax errors in exchange for the excellent deals and products they offer. Either that, or offer my services for localization to American spelling and syntax standards.

I'm up late indeed! I'm having a little Star Trek marathon tonight and searching the web is my idea of a break :D That reminds me... I have to prepare myself some late night snack. ;-)

@GameRager: You have no idea how this works. LOL

I guess dont read the hype, obviously they are trying to sell you their product from their company and the regular announcements are whats known as an interest peaker and to regularly attempt to attain the attention of regular gog visitors and be a highlighter to guests who may be visiting the site for the first time. Plus its going to be their breadwinner for the year so they are going to milk the cow for every drop

I dont read any of these announcements like that anyway for that reason as they obviously arnet going to slander their own game, Its a day one purchase for me solely from how much I like the first one and from the impressive gameplay clips shown on the net. I didnt even know they were affiliated for at least 2 months after joining lol.

As for the whole drm issue, the game will more than likely have been leaked from somewhere in the world, cracked and torrented even before the game is officially released anyway so its a battle already lost, console piracy would take the same time length of time Ive seen games weeks before release like this as the date it goes gold to shipping date can be that long.

As for the whole ip issue ips arnet very accurate could be en entire street or block that it would show a result to, thats even before ip masking and random generating programs take place.

It's called faith for a reason. :p

:)

Probably, but about equally so on both numbers. Not only that, but a significant portion of the audience here is interested in the site for its namesake, OLD games, for a variety of reasons. If I were to purchase The Witcher 2, it would be here, yes, just like I plan to eventually purchase their version of The Witcher. I haven't purchased it, though, because A) I don't have the system specs to run it, and B) I don't have the cash available to spend fifty bucks for a game I can't play, both of which are issues that I am certain I am far from the only user to suffer from.

Some research reveals that minimum numbers of sales to be considered a successful release hover around the one million mark. Even if every user on GOG were to purchase the game, if the game sold a total of one million copies then the numbers would only be slightly more equivalently than my numbers posted.

As flame-baitish as the original post reads, I think the subject is worth a little discussion, namely the "game getting pirated as hell". What's the really big difference between a DRMed game hitting torrent sites and a not DRMed one? Mainly, just a couple of days or even hours. I'm hoping that the support GOG is getting for releasing the game this way will offset the losses from pirates and will still be a huge success.

Lots of people, including myself, are buying the game more out of support for their stance than for love of the game itself. Hell, I pre-ordered without ever having played the Witcher 1 (confident that it would make it's way to GOG eventually). It's not normal for me to buy games on first day releases at full price. If there's more than one person out there doing the same, I don't see why the scheme won't succeed.

Yes it'll probably get torrented a bit, so i'm hoping the ratio of paid copies(DRM free of course or even total) compared to pirated will be high...or just high sales in general, when compared with the figures of a drm only game.

Galactic Civilzations 2 sold rather well, and it was more obscure than TW 2.I don't think the lack of DRM will lead to more piracy, no DRM ever made me buy a game. Heck, I'm also only buying it here to support GOG. I won't have the time to play it till winter ....