DLC Should Be a Free Service, Says Witcher Developer

CD Projekt RED, the developer behind the highly successful Witcher series of action role-playing game, believes that the introduction of post-launch downloadable content should be seen as a service to gamers and should not cost anything extra.

Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, a game director working at CD Projekt RED, has told VG247 that, “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.”

He added, “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.”

Early on during the life-cycle of the first Witcher video game CD Projekt RED acknowledged that piracy was high for the game and that the only way of limiting its impact was to create a clear connection with the player base.

For both the first and the second title in the series the developers have created a 2.0 version, which introduces both significant bug fixes and a lot of new content, which were delivered for free to those who already purchased the 1.0 version of the games.

At the moment CD Projekt RED is working on a new intellectual property, based on the Cyberpunk pen and paper game, and plans to create a near future role-playing title that will focus on mature themes and on the impact of player choice.

The game is expected at the earliest during 2014.