The Witcher series sales hit 4 million

I will never pre-order any game, ever. The exception was The Witcher 2 and Skyrim. Why, because I’ve been a gamer for almost 30 years, and I’ve been there and done that. As an adult with a career and a life your free time becomes very valuable, as does your money. I only play what I consider to be great games. Gone are the days of demo’s; and reading and watching reviews, and watching game play videos only goes so far. I’ll admit I download 20-30 games a year that I am really excited to play, and only end up installing about half that amount because I’ve gained new information that makes even installing the game a waste of my time. Out of those 10-15 I actually install, 70-80% of them I only play for 30 minutes to 3 hours before I delete. For those I want to play for more than that brief trial period I’ll buy. Guess what, I only end up playing about 2-5 games a year.

Right now I am following over 50 games on Gamespot that will be released in the next two years. Out of those, 25 will be worth downloading. A dozen will be worth installing, and at most 5 will be worth playing. I would never buy a vehicle I haven’t test drove, and I would never buy a game I haven’t demoed. I won’t waste my money on bad to good games, and I also won’t waste my time on them. But when I do find a great game worth my free time, I am more than happy to pay for it. Since my free time is just as valuable as my money.

In my humble opinion piracy can never be justified, if you can’t afford something you do not have some divine right to have it, sadly it is nothing more than another example of the culture that has been created by the credit revolution. Cannot afford something? Do not worry you can simply borrow money to have it, live beyond your means and blame everyone else when the crows come home to roost.

We’d be daft to try and pretend any measures are going to stop piracy though as people will endlessly justify it to themselves.

everyone who reads books and played the witcher games should read the witcher saga novels- they are brilliant!! and nice to hear CDPR sold this many copies though many more should buy and do justice to the the time and money spent by CDPR on this epic rpg!!

good game, i bought it myself.

The 4.5 million is speculative though and doesn't shine light onto actual money lost since the number of pirated copies overlaps with the number of legit retail copies

well 4million times 50 is better then nothing....

I just fucking bought this game! A few days ago! And now the motherfuckers put it on sale? FFFFFFUUUUUUUUU!!!

It's already been mentioned, but it's on sale today for the lowest price I"VE seen it on steam. It's going to be sitting on my account for at least another few weeks, but I had to get it.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/20920/

Getting a new video card at the end of July, all the better to play this awesome franchise with..

All this talk about piracy. Do any of you own a small business? Would you mind if me and my mates came around and helped ourselves to some of your stock? NO? I though so! It's different when the shoes on the other foot hey! Justify thieving as much as you want. At the end of the day, you are a thief.

Awesome! I mean everything!... Yeah, everything about this article is pretty awesome:

the CD Projekt, the Witchers, the fact that they are getting better and better financially,... even this comment section is pretty awesome. So many people giving credit to an amazing series and studio and even more people agreeing with them and liking their comments...

This article has really put a smile on my face, which is not such a commonplace. Good job everyone - the Reds, the people who have bought their games, Gamespot / Eddie Makuch, who is promoting Witcher / CDPR and last but not least, the Witcher fans...

I'd like to think good games sell well and The Witcher 2 is a good game.

Steam sale 60% off today

Developers need to stop worrying about piracy. They're not going to beat it. It's impossible. Stop talking about piracy and maybe less people will resort to it too. The more DRM you cram into there the worse the final product ends up. The fact is, if people truly love a game they WILL buy it. If they don't buy it, that means they think you don't deserve the money or they don't have any to offer in the first place.

Games aren't treated seriously by gamers, to the company it's a major economic risk but to us it's just five minutes of fun, don't expect everyone paying $60+ even though games should probably be MUCH more expensive in retail. We just don't share the same mindset.

I would buy it, but my PC is a junk and no PS3 version on the horizon so if the want even bigger revenue just spread the game to other consoles.

stealing an EA gane or COD game is one thing.stealig that piece off pure art is another thing.how many companies respect their costumers as much as CD project red? respect is two way road.this ppls really deserve the last penny you give them for their game.heck they deserve more in my opinion.please dont pirate such a game.buying games like witcher 2 is protecting the kind of game developers we love

this is no justifying,but I live in country where i can't afford high price game,and my country has limited retail game store,and I want to play , what could i do , I play pirate game all my life and i can't find one decent nearby retail store(300 mile way and double the prices,pls you don't get what you seek),steam is prohibited because of restriction,no credit card available and most game digital store doesn't support my country

live in syria,thank you my god there is way to play game but I want to pay and have legal copy

Their obsession with pirating is getting annoying.

Where are the numbers for how many times the game has been sold used? They don't see any money when people buy the game used either. Except when someone buys it used they just proved they will spend money on it. Not everyone pirating the game would have spend money on it or cared about the game that much if there was no way to pirate it.

4.5 Million downloads is speculative. There's no telling whether it was more or less - or if the downloader actually kept the game at all. They probably just wanted to see if they could run it or not. That, or they wanted to try the product before dropping money on it. Assuming that people downloaded and kept the game 4.5 million times is a bit cynical.

Fact 1: This series has been hugely profitable for CD Projekt.

Fact 2: EA claims Dead Space 3 has to appeal to a broader audience so it can sell the 5 million units it needs to survive.

Fact 3: Witcher 2 screams production value, great tech and beautiful sounds and graphics over any Dead Space, Crysis, Mass Effect or CoD game.

Fact 4: EA and Activision are nasty viruses that infected this industry.

For a smaller studio with games that lacks any serious advertising,these are great sale figures,they should be proud of themselves :)

I don't like that "4.5 million pirated copies" statement,though,that is based purely on speculation,with no way of providing factual evidence.Beasue of that,I'm dismissing it.Sure,the game was pirated,like any game,but we cannot know the exact numbers,and shooting wild numbers isn't exactly smart...

Last Spring Dragon Age 2 came out and I was nearly in tears for how bad it was and that we'd never really have a heir to the Baldur's Gate legacy now that its creator was making garbage. I was thinking of stopping gaming altogether. This game came out shortly after that. It renewed my faith in great development and a great game. I replayed it the second time around recently and it plays like a new game with all the FREE additions that CDProject put in and the choices you make actually play differently. Piracy discussions aside. It's just a phenomenal piece of work. I just wish the squad based/non-"action RPG" would make a comeback.

To buy a game instead of downloading it is entierly up to every single individual for their own spesific reason. i don't feel good or bad if someone does either because I guess theres more to it like for instance the fact that not everyone is rich or have money at the time. When people like me and my friends buy games it's because we either want the games on a console or support the developers. thats whats significant with buying games, you support the specific industry by doing it, and even though I don't like piracy im not going to be butthurt over the fact that people do it. false advertisment, having to high expectations for a game because you want to get your moneys worth are some reasons to why people pirate because (like me) feel cheated on by the people behind the game or the company that drives it (EA, Capcom). If you pirate a game and love it, you might buy it and that is perhaps the best kind of purchase one can do because not only do you know what your actually buying but your doing it because you feel that these developers deserve your money or something like that.

Happy Cdprojekt is doing well.they very well deserved it.now lets see the first witcher back on production to the xbox

In glad CD Projekt Red sold at lot. I feel disgusted that many people pirated the game. Especially considering how good they are to the gaming community. They support DRM free games, offer great discounts, and make it easy to buy and play. This is exactly who you don't pirate from you bastards. Go do that to Capcom,EA, and Activison.

In my experience, game piracy (and piracy in general) is not so much a question of ecoinomics, as it is of personal ethics. I know at least two people who make very decent money, yet they pirate everything they can get their hands on.

I sense a overdose of self righteousness. I better get back on my ship.

The only time I pirated a game is when I had purchased it forehand from a retail store and came home to find it didn't have a code inside I waited a week to get paid so I can go back for the code but they said they couldn't do anything about it :/ and then I asked the customer support for the game for a code but nope so in the end I had to pirate to be able to play the game in the end, so I had a just reason to pirate, but people who pirate the whole game just to see what it's like is still thievery and who is to say even if they liked the game they will go out of their way to purchase the game after they got their fill?

Game piration is an essential part of the game industry. From where i am. you really can't get these games to buy - even online. So pirated games come in handy. If they want to stop piracy in my opinion, game sites such as gamestop and so on should accept visacards from where ever country in the world, which would gear people in my opinion to buy them.

THE BEST GAME EVER 4 MEEEEEEEEEEEEE THIS AND THE FIRST :X:X:X

A ps3 version would increase sales even more ;)

I happen to be lucky enough to own all three of the consoles, and a computer equal to the task of playing Witcher2 if I so chose to play it on the PC. I haven't gotten the game yet because I have been sticking to my 'gaming budget', but I do intend to get it when the time comes. I will NOT pirate it for two reasons: First, I respect the devs decision NOT to go the DRM route (I also don't own Diablo3 and will NEVER buy it even though I really wanted the game). Secondly, I try very hard NOT to be a thief.

The major drawback to developing for the PC gamer is, of course, the piracy issue. Devs argue that they lose MILLIONS to piracy but has someone already pointed out in another post, most pirates wouldn't buy the game anyway. Pirates argue that games just cost TOO much and if they were more reasonably priced there would be no need to pirate. Which, of course, is just a justification for their thievery. If it costs too much then just don't BUY it until the price comes down (it ALWAYS does buy the way).

As a huge RPG fan it really pains me knowing this is not on the PS3. There is no way I am buying a 360 just for it. It also hurts knowing these are really good games.

I know the idea that millions of copies have been pirated must be hard on the devs, but I'm sure that they understand that had they jumped on the DRM bandwagon, they probably wouldn't have got anything near those kinds of sales figures.4 million copies is a very respectable sales figure when you consider the size of the studio. The Witcher 2 benefited from the anti-DRM sentiment and the publisher's professed respect for its customers.

They might have lost the odd sale from piracy - very few of those pirates would have actually paid for the game if it were impossible to pirate it - but what they've lost in revenue, they've gained in respect from the PC gaming community. And when you have the same kind of respect from that community as Blizzard and Bioware had before they went downhill, you know you're onto a winner.

I was going to get this over Skyrim but they decided to take money from Microsoft and make it xbox exclusive on console, since I'm not looking to upgrade my shit PC, I just skipped it. I would pay full price for it if it is released on PS3.

Awesome sales

why CD Projekt Red making fuss about pirated downloads ?