CD Projekt RED, which famously let DRM creep into the Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings before promptly patching it back out, has sworn off the anti-piracy measure for good.

“Every subsequent game we will never use any DRM anymore, it’s just over-complicating things,” CEO Marcin Iwinski said during a GDC 2012 presentation.

“We release the game. It’s cracked in two hours, it was no time for Witcher 2,” he added.

CD Projekt RED is the development arm of CD Projekt, which is an important European distributor in addition to hosting Good Old Games. The company has repeatedly stated it does not believe in the use of DRM, but added it to the retail release of The Witcher 2 due to publishing contracts. Its removal of the DRM via patch resulted in Namco Bandai filing a lawsuit.

“What really surprised me is that the pirates didn’t use the GOG version, which was not protected. They took the SecuROM retail version, cracked it and said ‘we cracked it’ – meanwhile there’s a non-secure version with a simultaneous release. You’d think the GOG version would be the one floating around,” Iwinski said.

“DRM does not protect your game. If there are examples that it does, then people maybe should consider it, but then there are complications with legit users,” he later reaffirmed to Joystiq in an interview.

http://www.vg247.com/2012/03/08/cd-projekt-red-will-never-use-any-drm-anymore/#more-241059

Good, good. As soon as I find the time to play the first Witcher, I may have some pretty good things to say about these guys. And stuff like this is what makes me want to buy games - respect for your (honest) customers.

And hmm, sort of funny the pirates didn't use the GOG version.

And my vow to never pirate their games continues. Good show.

I think DRM is there to please the shareholders. The devs most likely know it doesn't work but still have to stick it in there just to say, "We put this in to prevent piracy."

Piracy really just is a bunch of people testing their skills and saying "Hey can we crack and game that has been DRM'd by professionals?"

It's like a hobby for them. They don't care about the "unprotected" version, they just care about seeing if they can crack the DRM.