Oh you people... That's like saying MMORPG has a DRM because you need to be connected to the internet to play them properly. As long as there is no DRM on installer and on .exe file and it doesn't launch anything to prevent you from copying it, that's DRM-free. Automatic updates are intended as a convenient way to provide updates, both for publisher and player, calling game that you can freely copy from one computer to another, borrow it to your friends so they all install it while still every one of you cheap bastards can freely update it... Excuse me for saying it as a statement but that IS DRM free! Not to mention GoG will probably provide installer for the newest version when everything settles down as with all their games.

Um, how else does one acquire patches besides with an internet connection?

There is a difference - however slight it may seem in many cases - between acquiring the patch and installing it. If those two are separate actions, one could fetch the update, store it somewhere and have it available for later, when the update servers are shut down.

Back when I was young(er), gaming magazines (or at least the one I was subscribed to) used to include cds with patches to popular games every now and then.
It isn't unheard of to use a friend's computer & internet access to download patches, put 'em in a multipart zip thing and then carry them home in hundreds of floppy disks (or dvds/usb-sticks if you want to be practical about it).

This could come in handy in situations like: Personal internet access is down because ninjas kidnapped the modem and there is a devastating bug in the game that makes the game unplayable or something and there is a patch that would fix this. Could totally happen (and has and will, forevermore)!

There's also that it's nice to be able to store the patches on a separate dvd/medium, especially if they're large, so there's no need to redownload 'em every time. Then you can play the game even after the apocalypse that somehow destroys the internet but leaves the electricity. Or if the company goes bankrupt and takes their patch servers down with them.

Well it's slightly more complicated, but you can still install it on your friends computer, copy the game files to a rewritable DVD or an external harddrive (you can just copy the whole installation, finding out which files the patch modifies wouldn't probably be impossible thou) and then copy it back into your installation. Yea it's a hassle, still I can see it'll make for a hassle-free patching for way more people.

Using an internet connection on a different machine to download the patch, then move it to the machine the game is installed on, perhaps?
No, it is in fact nothing whatsoever like saying that.
Since you are obviously of the opinion that DRM free = piracy, what are you doing here on GOG?

What ... how ... what? DRM was employed to prevent piracy and second hand sales - when there is no mean to prevent piracy in the product, there is no DRM. You'd never even think to call autoupdates DRM or copy protection or whatever if big companies didn't make such a big issue out of it. Call it bad decision if you want, but it has nothing to do with DRM, nothing at all, it won't protect the rights of owners of Witcher 2 in any way whatsoever, it'll just make their servers way more used thanks to all pirates downloading the Witcher 2 patches with no means for CD-Project to defend themselves. I was just making a point and I know you're intelligent enough to interpret it correctly, so calm down, seriously.

Let me make this simple, this is not DRM, it is, however, inconvenient for you. I suspect there will be offline patches as well. Launchers without DRM are merely for convenience.

I specified "while technically correct". The point is, depending on the state of the game at release, you may need to patch it to have it "working properly".

If the only way to do so is using the built-in auto-updater, which requires authentication to the download servers using the serial code provided and shouldn't it provide any mean to back-up the downloaded update, you end up in a situation where, de facto, each installation need to be authenticated to "work properly".

To be clear, I don't have any problem with the auto-updater in itself as long as I end up being able to install the game without depending on the existence of the update servers to have it patched up at each successive installation (which can be achieved by providing stand-alone patches, for example).

That said, since we're talking about CD Projekt here, I'm not particularly worried, I just think a clarification would be appreciable for the sake of transparency, especially if the plan is to release the stand-alone patches or an up-to-date installer at a later date to use the auto-updater system as a form of anti-piracy measure.

If this was Stardock, I'd be worried (Wardell seemed to think he only needed to support people who were willing to register their game, note, I was okay if he didn't want to provide their free expacs without registration). As it's GOG, I wouldn't worry about it. Besides, the patches would be DRM free too, right? They will be available somewhere, somehow, most likely directly from CDPR.

lukipela is correct, just because they have an updater for convenience doesn't mean you're stuck with some sort of DRM. Torchlight (boxed) had no DRM and had an updater, iirc. You could also download patches via the website.

There isn't really any outrage. All I said was that IF the game requires an internet connection in order to update, the whole "DRM free" thing kind of rings hollow. The reason I phrased it like that was that we were told "we don't know". It only started to look like outrage because I was promptly attacked for saying something so horrendous.

But you're right, they never stated that any sort of authentication was involved. That was an assumption on my part. Without authentication, I will happily agree that this is not DRM. As long as it is also just an option, with standalone patches available, I will even call it an excellent service on the part of CDProjekt. But then, as I said, I was never outraged.

And I know you're intelligent enough to avoid phrasing a point as a personal attack, but you didn't do that either. So accept my apology, but think about how you phrase things, agreed?

I wasn't implying that one excludes the other, just that having updates available solely through a built-in function would be detrimental as if I reinstall my copy after the update servers get shut down, I wouldn't be able to update it (save for third-party efforts to externalise the updates while they're still available).