Preventing Consoles from Playing Used Games Isn't Good, Witcher Dev Says

CD Projekt Red, the developer of the popular Witcher series of role playing games, has shared its thoughts on the recent rumors that future consoles could have systems in place to prevent owners from playing used games.

We’ve been hearing a lot about next generation consoles lately and how at least the oft-rumored Xbox 720 might have a system that would prevent it from playing used copies of a game.

While some developers and publishers, including Volition, believe this might be a great thing, it seems that Polish studio CD Projekt Red begs to differ.

According to its Managing Director, Adam Badowski, while such a system can work, it will put a strain on the relationship between the developers and their fans, who must always pay full price to experience their latest product.

"It can be a bad thing," Badowski told Eurogamer. "We are losing money not because of pirates; we are losing money because people decided not to buy our game."

The CD Projekt executive said that developers should worry more about making their products great and worthy of a full purchase, instead of relying on systems to prevent used copies from being experienced by console owners.

"We should invest more power to upgrade and polish our products and convince players to keep our products, to be with us, to understand our needs - because we are an independent developer, we have to prevent lay-offs, we need to grow up and have the power to create new games. Most hardcore and hardware solutions will be OK for short periods, but a strong relationship with players, with customers, can change the situation. And for us, this is a better way."

As you can see, CD Projekt Red believes it’s better to convince players to invest in new copies of a game, instead of forcing them to do it by console restrictions.