CD Projekt RED the developers of the Witcher 2 have basically been a breath of fresh air in the gaming community. In a world where everybody and their mother are attaching online passes and DRM they do the opposite and force neither on the consumer. Now in a recent interview they are also trying to change the way people look at DLC.
In an interview with VG247, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz of CD Projekt RED, said they feel that consumers are being overcharged for DLC and basically that as a organization they promote free DLC. Here is Tomaszkiewicz exact statement on the matter:
“We’ve always believed in free DLCs. The thing is that we consider DLCs as a normal post sale service, which shouldn’t be priced. Back when retail games were dominant, we had expansion packs. These were really large chunks of content, which were worth their price. If today’s DLCs offered the same amount of content, they would be worth paying for, but in most cases players think they are overcharged for what they receive. That’s why we offer expansions to our game for free. This is also a way of saying “thank you” to the people who decided to buy our game instead of copying it from an unauthorised source.”
It is certainly nice to see a company that respects their consumers instead of exploiting them like so many other gaming publishers do. This is probably why as a company they have garnered such a strong and loyal fan base, similar to Valve almost. It is companies like CD Projekt RED that give me hope for the future of the gaming industry.
In fact there are only three major companies I feel do DLC right Rockstar Games, Gearbox, and CD Projekt RED. Those three gaming companies do DLC the right way, I still haven’t been able to finish all the original Borderlands DLC and the sequel is right around the corner.
For those who don’t know, CD Projekt RED is working on a sc-fi RPG set in a Cyberpunk universe. The game is said to maintain many of the qualities that people loved from the Witcher series, like your actions affecting the story. If you would like to read more about the Cyberpunk title from CD Projekt RED, they posted a Q&A on their forums and you can read it here.
