Eurogamer

The Witcher 2 has been illegally download at least 4.5 million times, developer CD Projekt has estimated.

Speaking in an interview with PC Gamer, CEO Marcin Iwinski explained that it was impossible to make an exact calculation, but added that his estimation was likely on the low side.

"I was checking regularly the number of concurrent downloads on torrent aggregating sites, and for the first six to eight weeks there was around 20-30k people downloading it at the same time," he said.

"Let's take 20k as the average and let's take six weeks. The game is 14GB, so let's assume that on an average not-too-fast connection it will be six hours of download. Six weeks is 56 days, which equals to 1344 hours; and with six hours of average download time to get the game it would give us 224 downloads, then let's multiply it by 20k simultaneous downloaders.

"The result is roughly 4.5 million illegal downloads. This is only an estimation, and I would say that's rather on the optimistic side of things; as of today we have sold over one million legal copies, so having only 4.5-5 illegal copies for each legal one would be not a bad ratio. The reality is probably way worse."

Elsewhere in the interview, Iwinski explained why CD Projekt decided not to use any DRM in its acclaimed action RPG.

"From the very beginning our main competitors on the market were pirates," he said.

"We of course experimented with all available DRM/copy protection, but frankly nothing worked. Whatever we used was cracked within a day or two, massively copied and immediately available on the streets for a fraction of our price.

"We did not give up, but came up with new strategy: we started offering high value with the product - like enhancing the game with additional collectors' items like soundtracks, making-of DVDs, books, walkthroughs, etc. This, together with a long process of educating local gamers about why it makes sense to actually buy games legally, worked. And today, we have a reasonably healthy games market."

Iwinski insisted that "DRM does not work" arguing that "however you would protect it, it will be cracked in no time."

"Plus, the DRM itself is a pain for your legal gamers - this group of honest people, who decided that your game was worth the 50 USD or Euro and went and bought it. Why would you want to make their lives more difficult?"

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-29-the-witcher-2-pirated-4-5-million-times-reckons-cd-projekt

If his estimated number of pirated copies is true, its a damn sad thing... damn Pirates.

Should have been a PS3 exclusive.

The game sold well, so they better focus on the stuff that went well than the stuff that went wrong, also it probably became much more popular thanks to it being DRM free and pirates.

six hours of download for 14 gb rolf with thousands of leechers and barely no seeders the first few weeks

He's right the drm in the Witcher 2 didn't work. Many people complained their CD keys were rejected, mine worked but my pre-order DLC keys didn't.
I guess that also helped in the decision to simply remove the drm and provide the dlc for free.

I don't think pirates care much about a soundtrack cd or making of dvd. Both can be pirated as well anyway. The only answers I can come up with against piracy, I don't like.

That 6 hour prediction would be if the average internet download speed was 600kb a second. I can say for almost a fact that most people can't get that fast of a download speed from their providers throughout 6 hours, not to mention that people will most likely be downloading other things simultaneously. I would be very suprised if the average download speed is even above 200kb a second. 

On the off chance you are serious

lets see hardcore exclusive ARPG with little advertising closest thing would be Demon's Souls which took 104 weeks to reach 1 million copies sold. The Witcher did that in one year and The Witcher 2 took under 26 weeks with one less region. Looks to me like they picked the right platform for the game TBH especially with the higher margines of DD on PC vs console retail.

And as they say in the interview

"Like in every society you have a small percentage of thieves. They will rather steal than buy; but statistically speaking that’s just a fraction and we should not be bothered with them. I strongly believe that you can convince almost any gamer to buy legal games if only you have the right offer for him/her.

When analyzing piracy, you should look at every single country. Why, for example, is the piracy rate higher in Poland than it is in Germany? It does highly depend on your average disposable income. 50 Euro for a German gamer is quite some expense, but for a Polish one (who earns on average 3-4 times less) it will be a much more difficult decision. You can ask the same question in every single country, and you will have different answers about the affordability of games. Plus, you have to add the cultural specificities, how people consume games, is buying game in their country a normal thing or are they not used to it (like in Poland in 1994), etc.

Let’s also not forget that the life of the game does not end a week after its release. If you are honest with your gamers, treat them fairly and support your title, they will support you back, spread the word about your game among their friends, and ultimately go get your game – be it on a sales promo at GameStop, Amazon, Steam or GOG.

Witcher 1 was originally released in 2007, then in 2008 we released the Enhanced Edition. In the first year we sold 1M units, and most of it was in the area of $30-50, while the other million (we just reached 2M) was sold over the next 2.5 years. This shows that if you care for your game and gamers, they will support you. I am sure that lots of these guys played TW1 in a pirated version first. I am really happy they liked it so much that when they had a chance and could afford it, they decided to get a legal version. That’s how we treat piracy."

"PC is and will remain super important for us. Due to its nature and constant evolution, PC will always be the most powerful gaming platform, and we will do all we can to deliver the best possible games utilizing the power of PCs. We are PC guys at heart, and nothing will change that."

Oh Carl, you never change. What's next you going to tell me that we should put the dance games exclusively on the PC!

Edit: By the way, I would be considered one of those who "pirated" the game earlier than release (didn't really work out that well, but I basically wanted to get a head start). I also bought the game on day one. Hell of a thing piracy. 

something must be done to stop online piracy, at least for games

movies and music are destined to pirated, so that they get popular, through youtube

but games, it's much easier to stop piracy with games