There is still hope for the gaming industry.

[Nimbus]

I was browsing through Facebook when I stumbled upon this little spirit-raiser.

http://au.ign.com/articles/2015/01/26/the-witcher-3-dev-on-making-a-stand-against-paid-dlc

 

After all the Free-to-Play elements in full priced games, over-hyped disappointments (*cough Destiny *cough *cough) and open contempt for the consumers, it's nice to know there is at least one developer in the games industry that actually cares about their customers after a game is released.

 

What are your thoughts on this (be they about the developer, the game or just the industry itself)?

[Bolverk]

CD Projekt has been great since Witcher 1. They also made GoG.com which is a great site imo, drm free games.

 

“Initially, when we were talking to different publishing partners, they were coming over to our studio with focus tests saying, 'Hey! RPG is the trend now. There has to be multiplayer, and multi-character selection, and there has to be a female character.'” said Iwińsk. “And we said, 'No, no, it's about Geralt. We have the books, we have the lore. It's true, it works, it's consistent.'

 

"So we're not talking to these guys anymore,” he added

 

Thank god lol. multiplayer!? Multiple characters!? Wtf, honestly...

[Nimbus]

Just did a little research and found that CD Projekt does something most companies don't; they learn from their mistakes. They did some initial stuff with DRM and found it didn't work so they scrapped it and got a positive result, unlike a certain someone (I'm looking at you Ubisoft, and don't think you can escape EA!)

[Funyarinpa]

I have not even played Witcher (any of them) but they have just gained a bunch of points in my book.

[Nimbus]

I have not even played Witcher (any of them) but they have just gained a bunch of points in my book.

Same here (I tell a lie, I played the first few minutes of the first Witcher).

[Guest -Shizuku-]

Witcher 2 is awesome game - though I played it long time ago and the 1st one had a fighting system that didn't fit me at all. Now the third game is just plain huge comparing to Witcher 1 and 2. Also if any of you wants to play games I would really recommend reading books serie - it is a really good one with 7 books in total and lets understand story. As to CD-Project, the company has it's polish roots and we have that one habit to do things right and not just try to leech of people.

[Deep Blue]

  GoG and CD Projekt

 

This is not the first time they do something like this so I'm not surprise, they are constantly fighting this kind of dick moves from the game industry, such as drm, dlc and they are always trying to include as many thing as possible with their releases such as free soundtrack, artbook,wallpapers, free huge updates (like the witcher 2 had a while ago) etc

[firecat]

not bad, they get people to buy and promote their game all at the same time.

 

    GoG and CD Projekt

[Kendjin]

As much as I love CD Projekt. Having 16 pieces of DLC, seems insane. These aren't things that could be in the launch title?

It's not like the game has gone golden, yet they know about this DLC.

Don't get me wrong, I like what they are doing, just feels odd

[Nimbus]

As much as I love CD Projekt. Having 16 pieces of DLC, seems insane. These aren't things that could be in the launch title?

It's not like the game has gone golden, yet they know about this DLC.

Don't get me wrong, I like what they are doing, just feels odd

It seems like each DLC will only have a small amount of content each ( a couple of skins perhaps) so i doubt there will be anything that would be essential to the game. though I will agree that 16 is pretty high, still, it could be worse; they could release five separate collectors editions like a certain game (glares at Watch_Dogs).

[Flutterz]

The biggest problem with the gaming industry right now is pre-orders. As nasty as DLC can be it doesn't by itself allow publishers to release games that are completely broken on launch and to not have to worry too much about fixing them because they made their money back a few weeks before release.

And wouldn't you know it, Witcher 3 is available for pre-order.

[Eclipsed]

Supplementary article regarding CD Projekt views on DRM & piracy & belief in quality games

http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/11/30/the-witcher-2-was-pirated-over-45-million-times

[Thomas]

The biggest problem with the gaming industry right now is pre-orders. As nasty as DLC can be it doesn't by itself allow publishers to release games that are completely broken on launch and to not have to worry too much about fixing them because they made their money back a few weeks before release.

And wouldn't you know it, Witcher 3 is available for pre-order.

 

Absolutely right, if only people would stop pre-ordering games maybe we would get better quality games released instead of

the garbage we are getting now *cough assassins creed unity *cough *cough

 

[SilverLi]

Well this is pretty common with DLCs. Europa Universalis 4 is 40$ to buy. And DLCs/small contents for 120$ on Steam. I am a lucky bastard buying the game for 7$ and all contents on different sales. And let's not even talk about Dota 2. Freaking items...

 

But this is a good sign. But I am not hoping for anything.

[sub-zer0]

Speaking from my point of view, gaming industries are just mostly goners...there is not many games to look forward to now..Growing up, there was a ton of games to look forward to, Like Halo, ME,AC, even COD was still good back in the early days,but now almost all gaming industries have changed the standards...to meet the standards of the newer generation..and most of that standard is just not as good as what we would expect...Besides Beth, I'm not really looking forward to any more games...most games that came out recently are fun, but just at the level of fun..not great, I can tell by the number of hours I spend on them...Gaming industries want money, we understand that, but at least make worth the money DLC, what fans really hate is you make an incomplete game and then charge parts that make the game complete money when it should have been part of the game. I have no problem paying for expansions or side stories related to the main game, but If a DLC looks like it should have been in the main game...then the Devs should have spent more time integrating that into the game instead of charging us for it  

[kyrt]

CD Projekt Red is definitely one of the best companies around in regards to their stance on DLC and DRM. Hell as a company their actions are paramount to brilliant. This 16 free dlc comment basically tells us that they won't be like the other companies while at the same time calling out exactly how stupid most companies are in regards to smaller dlc. This is nothing but good business sense as well because this is a very big thing these days and a lot of gamers will take this heart. By using the DLC however and releasing two every week for 8 or so weeks investment in the game is increased. I don't think that this is merely a result but I think this gives people time until E3 when they might announce a bit more information on what they will be doing after Witcher 3 (Cyberpunk 2077 for example).

 

Regardless it keeps people talking about the game for a time longer than just initial release. All around they are being ridiculously intelligent about this whole thing. Now if they were to eventually endup releasing an expansion or something after the 16 dlc it would more than likely interest people in actually paying for it since they have had reasons to play til it's release...it also would give the devs time to work on it and people would be more willing to buy it since they received the previous lesser content for free. Assuming of course that they charge at all and it wouldn't just be included in the 16 free ones. It could go wrong after the 16 free pieces but few companies give any free DLC to begin with. Whoever came up with this idea though is definitely in a line of genius as far as business sense goes. I'm going to support them via GOG because this is a company that understands what gaming should be...or at the very least has good customer marketing sense and ethics.