Gwent was a runaway success for CD Projekt Red. Embedded in The Witcher III - Wild Hunt, Gwent stands as an inception of sorts of a deep, strategical game within a deep, satisfying single player experience. And it was so successful, in fact, that the company decided to spin it off into a separate, standalone game that has been widely accepted as well.

The standalone Gwent differs from the version implemented in The Witcher III in a great many ways, as was to be expected for a competitive card game as opposed to the satisfying time killer it was in The Witcher III. And one thing lacking in the game was an alternate mode that allowed players to compete in other environments other than a Constructed format. Gwent's Seasons are typically a race to the top for the best prizes, but it can become a slog for players reaching the top ranks as deck diversity is reduced to a couple of high-power behemoths in the hand of extremely skilled players. As such, Gwent's Draft Mode introduction should not only give players another way of having fun on Gwent, but also give them ways of earning prizes near the end of the Season, allowing them to build up their decks even in the face of what would be insurmountable odds in the Constructed portion of Gwent.

CD Projekt Red are the world-renowned studio responsible for RPG masterpiece The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and the two other less known, but still great Witcher RPGs before it. The company is one of the most gamer-oriented, generous game developers out there today, bar none. I say this, because this is a company who did some missteps before, but quickly backed out of them and that have created one of the most memorable and successful open-worlds to date. This is the studio that offered not only a soundtrack CD with their standard edition of the game, alongside a full-color map of the game world, but also went to the lengths of including a small letter to thank us for choosing their game over others. These developers offered 16 pieces of DLC with their game, DLC pieces that other studios had been (and have been) charging customers for.

The company outlined above have come forth in a tweet, publicly calling out an attempt from thieves to ransom stolen development files on the studios' upcoming sci-fi Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt Red said that they will not give in to demands from the individuals that have contacted them, and acknowledge that the public release of those files is likely to happen as a result. The studio also goes on saying that these files (if they even come to public now that their value has been thoroughly cut down) are "largely unrepresentative of the current vision for the game." I don't know about you, but I'd much prefer to get some info on CD Projekt Red's next project from themselves.P.S.: This editor Is sorry for the above post looking eerily similar to a rant. I just have a low tolerance for this kind of behavior from any part, but most of all, when the targeted party is actually one of the studios that is more deserving of gamers' respect.

This here is a theme quite close to my heart, since I've spent more time on The Witcher 3 than on any other singular game. CD Projekt Red has announced that their prodigal child, The Witcher 3 series (based on Andrzej Sapkowski's novels which you should definitely read if you like either well-written stories or The Witcher's world) has soared past the 25 million copies sold.

This has translated into pretty considerable revenues for the Polish company - those generated by the sales of The Witcher 3 and its expansion packs have, since the base game's release in May 2015, topped 1 billion PLN (around $254 million dollars). The 2016 revenues and net profit of CD Projekt were still 75% of those obtained by the company in the year that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt shipped - which just goes to show how much the series achieved with its release.

AMD released the latest version of its Catalyst software suite, Catalyst 15.5 Beta. The driver comes with optimizations for "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" (up to 10 percent higher frame-rates) and "Project Cars," (up to 17 percent higher frame-rates). The driver also updates CrossFire profile for "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt," although AMD recommends that you disable anti-aliasing on machines with CrossFire. AMD is aware of the micro-flickering on CrossFire machines, and said that it's working with CD Projekt RED to resolve the issue. For Project Cars, it's recommended that you use an AA method other than DS2M.DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 15.5 Beta for Windows 8.1 64-bit | Windows 8.1 32-bit | Windows 7 64-bit | Windows 7 32-bit

Origin is the fledgling online download account-based DRM service from Electronic Arts launched last June, that is home to Battlefield 3. To compete effectively against other similar services, the industry-leading Steam in particular, it must offer more content. To this end, Origin has added 11 publishers to its portfolio, reports CVG. These are Trion Worlds, Robot Entertainment, Freebird Games, Recoil Games, Autumn Games, 1C Company, inXile entertainment, Paradox Interactive, Core Learning Ltd, N3V Games and CD Projekt RED. That last one is interesting, because CD Projekt RED owns and runs www.gog.com, the website dedicated to selling DRM-free games.

A month ago, we reported that CD Projekt RED, makers of The Witcher 2 had claimed that they could identify '100% of pirates' and had started an RIAA-style 'settlement letter' shakedown (extortion) tactic in Germany. Well, unsurprisingly, this hasn't gone down too well with their customers and the outcry has been loud and strong, especially on gog.com, where their forums have been full of posts from disgruntled customers. Well, it looks like the pressure has gotten too much for them and they have backpedalled furiously on this decision and issued an open letter, published on rockpapershotgun.com. In it, they state that they want people to continue to have faith in them and stressed how they're still totally against 'piracy' of their products and appealed for gamers to refrain from engaging in it:

In early December, an article was published about a law firm acting on behalf of CD Projekt RED, contacting individuals who had downloaded The Witcher 2 illegally and seeking financial compensation for copyright infringement. The news about our decision to combat piracy directly, instead of with DRM, spread quickly and with it came a number of concerns from the community. Repeatedly, gamers just like you have said that our methods might wrongly accuse people who have never violated our copyright and expressed serious concern about our actions.

The highly controversial SOPA & PIPA bills currently being rushed through Congress by Big Media are encountering ever more opposition from minor and major players alike, such as Google. Now gog.com, owned by parent company CD Projekt RED, has come out against these bills too and are one of many games companies to do so. They address the questions of "will it work?" and "will it stop piracy?" with the answers being sort-of and no.