CD Projekt RED will "never use any DRM anymore"

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.