Coelocanth: The thing about DRM is that it doesn't stop piracy. As the saying goes, 'Pirates gonna pirate'. So while the lack of DRM likely won't make a difference in the piracy rates, at least it gives the actual paying customer a hassle-free experience. which is the whole point of DRM-free.
paladin181: Hassle free? Did you play the witcher 2 or 3?
Just getting 3 to run has been a hassle for many people. Ironically, those on steam seem to largely have a easier time of it because Steam isn't a horribly buggy beta prerelease mess.
Got to call bullshit on this misinformed Rubbih, clearly you are not complaining about Witcher 3, when you refer to, a "horribly buggy beta prerelease mess", you are refering to GOG Galaxy,, which I agree is a Horribly buggy mess, Beta or Prerelease, it should be, that's the problem, Steam was even worse, when at the same stage of development.
Thing is that's separate from Witcher 3 and Galaxy is an Optional client, you've chosen to use. If you was a GOG newb whose first game was Witcher 3, I would sympathise, while explaining you don't require Galaxy to play the game.
As you are clearly a regular of 3 years, You get no sympathy for your self inflicted troubles with Galaxy.
You should know you didn't have to use it, both manual and GOG downloader are available.
Apart from auto updating, I see no benefit at all for a single player game.
If you use mods, like me, the last thing you want is to auto update a modded game, so that's no reason to use Galaxy at all.
OT
As to Pirating the Witcher 3 and DRM, nothing shows the fallacy of DRM than the previous Witcher 2 release.
It was not widely known why at the time, but it was revealed earlier this year, due to almost going bankrupt, CD Projekt Red sold the US Disc Publishing rights, to enable them to finish the game.
Due to this a unique situation arose
GOG sold the digital vesion DRM free, because of course they'd do that.
The Publisher sold the Disc with DRM, because of course they'd do that.
So did Pirates steal the DRM free version, as was widely beleived?
No the cracked the DRM and stole that version, instead.
At first glance this seems stupid, but the nature of piracy is DRM is hard to crack and the accolades of the culture go to the cracking teams for making great and virus free cracks that downloaders can trust.
Reputations of quality releases are hard to get and require actually cracking the DRM, first is one badge of honour and best, is another badge of honour, getting both fo a release is the ultimate honour.
No honour is achieved by simply copying files and the users trust the named crackers, not some nameless individual who uploads the GOG version.
When no DRM exists at all, like with Witcher 3, it will still get pirated as then no Risk exists and legitimately untampered releases will quicly gain a reputation as such. Even so many more Pirates will buy CD Projekt Red games because they are anti-DRM and it's not unknown for gamers to use cracked Exe's, on legitimately owned games, simply to remove the DRM.
So it's clear where DRM never stopped pirates, for long, Like the recent Denuvo DRM, a few minor or niche games had it uncracked for a while, but as soon as Dragon Age Inquisition appeared with Denuvo, it was quickly cracked.
Also the reason Console Games aren't cracked is they don't have DRM, the console is the DRM, crack the console and you crack all games, it's called chipping the console and cracks every game. It generally takes longer as it's a hardware problem, but once done, it's done forever.
No DRM will reduce the piracy levels, at least to some extent, as some gamers will buy a DRM free game, whilst they'd just pirate all DRM games.