Witcher 3 Brought Down by DRM, Irony is Overwhelming

Here’s some irony for you, kind of.

As you know due to my constant and restless kissing up to Good Old Games and CD Projekt Red, they’re one of those gamer-friendly companies who likes to go out of their way to buck the greedier, cruder trends within the gaming world today. They believe that most DLC, unless it’s a gigantic addition to the game, should be free. They believe that people have the right to return their games if they don’t work, even if those games are digital—and, best of all, they believe in a strict no DRM policy. No game they make (or sell on GoG) has DRM on it. Their dedication to a DRM-free world is so great they even needlessly named their yearly Summer Sale the “DRM-Free Summer Sale”, which I think we can all agree was taking things a shade too far. They hate DRM so much, they even openly mocked it in the Witcher 3, which is something you can go see now… unless you own the digital Xbox One version of the game.

In which case, earlier today, there was an error involving the game’s DRM that prevented you from playing.

The error itself was fairly small; trying to boot up the digital version of the Xbox One version of the game (so it doesn’t affect PS4, disked copies, or PC versions) brought up a 0x87de2726 error code, which marked the problem as a licensing error. It’s happened before, and it’s such a small deal that the problem has already been fixed.

The real news here, of course, is the irony. But before you start lighting your pitchforks and calling CD Projekt Red a hypocrite, please note that this DRM was added by Microsoft, and not CD Projekt Red. In fact, the PC version of the game purchased over GoG is indeed free of any and all forms of DRM. So the irony isn’t against CD Projekt Red—if anything, this just proves their point about the disruptive, antagonistic role DRM is taking in today’s gaming world.

I very much doubt that irony will be lost on Microsoft, but I also very much doubt anything will come of it. Still, good for a laugh, if nothing else, and wasting time while we keep waiting for more information about Dark Souls 3.

I know they said not till E3 but dammit I want it now!