“Corporations Make Stupid Decisions”: GOG Owner on the Uselessness of DRM and the Witcher Lawsuit

Michal Kicinski, co-founder of CD Projekt and the new owner of GOG, said the platform’s anti-DRM policy will remain unchanged despite the change in ownership. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, he emphasized that rejecting DRM is a core value of GOG and will not disappear in the foreseeable future.

Kiciński criticized the digital sales model in which players pay full price but effectively receive only a temporary license. According to him, DRM most often fails to prevent piracy and instead worsens the experience for legitimate customers. He noted that DRM does not stop illegal distribution, while potentially causing performance and stability issues.

As an example, Kiciński recalled the situation surrounding The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. In 2011, CD Projekt Red released a patch that completely removed DRM from the game, after which the publisher, Bandai Namco, sued the developers. According to Kiciński, the publisher failed to take into account that the game had already been cracked and ignored player complaints about problems caused by DRM.

Kiciński stressed that experiences like this only strengthened his belief that DRM does not solve the piracy problem and runs counter to players’ interests, while GOG’s DRM-free approach gives users true ownership of the games they buy.

Previously, the GOG owner also spoke about whether the store plans to compete with Steam and what GOG’s real mission is.