Well, now that this topic is up again, here's what I observed about TW2.

GOG's version is the least pirated version. By Far. I've only seem it in one tracker, and even there more people were downloading the cracked retail version than the version already DRM-free.

Point is: DRM was mostly useless. It might have stopped the pirates for a few days, but they could still play it before those who bought it legally. And then, cracking a game is such a joke that even days after launch (and before the patch that made everything drm-free), few people even bothered to pirate GOG's version.

I'd hope publishers could look at these facts and learn a few lessons. I'd be happy if they would at least patch out DRM after some time, but few do.

I agree that DRM is useless, it's only more painful for the players who buy their games. A game with copy protection will always be cracked, always, it's only a manner of time. And I can understand people who download a crack for the game they bought, just to play without the cd.

Yeah, that would be great and is done far too seldom.

The fact that GOG DRM-free copies are pirated through torrent sites like Pirate Bay makes me sad and disappointed at a same time, even if the numbers of peers are lower than usual... Interesting how do gamers justify THIS? Same bullshit like no demo or something? =(

I must admit I haven't looked ;) so no must be my answer to the opening question.

remember when you were 10 year old?

I don't think they justify it with anything else besides "free is better". A lot of people don't consider the ethics of anything they do, or anything beyond their own interests.

better of giving her an apple ;)
My god just read about the Witcher 2 and thought hey that one has been out for I don't know how long? I have been necro posting this should go in the necromancer thread sorry sorry

Simple - you'll always have cunts in this world who live off the labours and goodwill of others. It does make me sad, but at the same time, but there is some small modicum of relief in that the uploading of games by publishers, distributors and developers with a large amount of community goodwill does seem to be fairly frowned upon in the pirate world, which is reflected in the low number of comments on the pages and the low seeding.

In the interest of justice, I'd find it a great idea to pursue these bastards, but just like the schoolyard bully, it's not worth giving them the time of day or the attention they seek. And that's what many of these uploaders are: socially deficient, rebellious, attention-seeking teenagers. Any economic gain to be derived from prosecuting these arseholes would be minimal, and the resultant negative media coverage would be detrimental. Pursuing uploaders is an imprecise art that has proven to cause a lot of collateral damage in the process. CDPR learned this the hard way with the Witcher 2 piracy situation.

GOG has garnered a great deal of goodwill in the community, more so than almost any other publisher or distributor in PC gaming today (the business community of which is itself a true hive of scum and villainy), which is why there is considerably less interest in pirating the GOG versions of games. I remember there was a huge backlash against an uploader at one point for uploading GOG installers.

But pirates are not a uniform group, and motivations for pirating vary. Some just insist on refusing outright to pay for games, some are wholly unable to (most likely in poorer regions of the world), some genuinely do use the TPB uploads as trials to see if the game really does work beforehand, and I think some just want to watch the world burn. The morality or legitimacy of these is for every man to decide for themselves.

Personally, I have no love for the concept of copyright in this day and age - it's become a bludgeon used by media conglomerates to control art instead of fulfilling its intended purpose of providing artists with an income - but I do believe in rewarding good creators for good efforts and honest work. Sadly, some people use anti-copyright perspectives as an excuse for greed, and that makes up the largest part of the torrent communities.

TPB is only of interest to me these days as a gauging medium for the state of piracy - I don't think I've downloaded from there for years, because I've been able to either buy everything I wanted on disc new or secondhand or, in the case of overpriced rarities, from GOG and DotEmu.

...
In Pirate Bay they justified the upload of GOG files on the fact that they used stuff made by hackers to quit copy protection. Lame excuse indeed.

I actually found out about GOG from those sites. The GOG moniker appears on so many pirated retro games that at first I thought it was a release group!

If you find something illegal, why don't you pass the link to GOG itself? They can put down that files, I think.

I am actually more surprised at how many "abandonware" sites that peddle GOG versions. Before I became aware of GOG I used a lot of these to play oldies but goodies (and still do for games like wizardry and the likes that you cant find anywhere else) the amount coming from GOG was staggering for some of these sites (I won't name names) that is actually partly how I came to know this and steam forums.

This thread was very current & relevant, up until TW2 thingy. I can't wait to buy all future CDPR games off GoG (in order to directly support the devs).
I think because GoG doesn't really supply "GRAFFFFF111iiiIIIXXX!!!11!!!" games, they aren't pirated all that often. You see a few GoG torrents of new release indies here & there, but as EVERYONE knows about Steam & not many know about GoG, pirates will be on torrent sites looking for "Steam-free" games, rather than GoGs, so "Steam-free" gets bigger numbers of seeders (or is that leechers?). So honestly, not all that surprised with very few GoGs as they aren't really a AAA-retailer outside of their own titles.

Also, DON'T PIRATE KIDS! That's exactly what the terrorists want you to do!

Can they? And would it hurt somebody or will just another link somewhere else appear?