Denuvo announced Denuvo SecureDLC to protect DLC

So more possible annoyance and problems for players that are currently willing to spend money on dlc content....as oppossed to no difference for people who do not...yeah, that does sound smart.

Quoting: grigi

Quoting: Purple Library GuyThey say their customers are "ecstatic with the results". Either they're exaggerating a tiny wee bit, or we have adult game developers jumping around with glee and going "OH! Oh yeah! So goood!!!" over some scheme to encumber the hats they sell with DRM.

Sadly many games designed for mobiles adopt predatory strategies, and they really don't care if the game makes you happy.
It's better if it drives your anxiety up and you spend money on some fake relief over and over again.

I'm sure those devs would be ecstatic about DRM.

Gacha games should be illegal, frankly. They're a form of gambling except without even the chance of a jackpot.

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: PublicNuisanceI refuse to buy games with Denuvo on principle even if they work with Linux. This will be no different.

Yup, any game that uses any Denuvo product is dead to me.

Publishers don't care - they're buying the snake oil out of "fear of piracy", so losing a few sales to people like me won't bother them, but I like the irony that Denuvo market their shit "product" on the basis that it protects sales, and I'm living proof that the opposite is true.

That’s a common misconception, I think. Publishers know very well that DRM doesn’t mean shit. People that buy the games, buy the games. Those who don’t, won’t, and the crack will be ready quite soon after launch. Ubisoft famously said so themselves, years ago.

The main function now is to secure those early days sales numbers.
Crackers often lag behind a bit (days, maybe a week), and by that time the publishers have already secured the sales that matters. The first week is the only thing they care about, as that’s when the majority of sales are made, and that sales figure is the metric for success for failure (e.g. CoD Black Ops 2 (I think) that sold “only” 500 million copies the first week was deemed a flop). DRM is actually now just a stalling tactic. One which will likely haunt that game forever, and make running it a nightmare. But publishers don’t care. The Devs might, but the publishers don’t.


Last edited by Appelsin on 4 July 2022 at 8:07 pm UTC

Quoting: AppelsinThat’s a common misconception

That's exactly what I meant by "fear of piracy". I think you're pointing out the difference between early release piracy and long-term piracy? I think?

But it's all piracy and there have been quite a few studies (or at least polls) like the one covered here, that show that the people who pirate games wouldn't (or can't) actually buy the game anyway, so it's all bullshit. Indeed that particular study suggests that piracy increases sales - an outcome unique to the gaming industry.

All DRM does is piss off paying customers and spread misery amongst the people who can't or won't buy the game anyway.

Quoting: mr-victory

Quoting: finaldestI am looking at you, Paradox

Does Paradox implement non-Steam DRM? Why are you looking at Paradox?

Because the Paradox business model is based entirely on DRM. If they implement this, and you resent Denuvo enough to avoid buying anything encumbered with it, then this will affect a LOT of DLC.

For example - Surviving Mars is £28, but its DLC is another £80. City Skylines is £23, but its DLC comes to a cool £160. Crusader Kings is free... but (brace yourself) has £220 of DLC available.

I actually don't mind the model - I like that they support their older games with constant expansions (unlike Ubisoft, and at the end of the day, you buy what appeals to you. But that's a lot of DLC to apply DRM to.

Man, I am so tired of the current state of gaming. It's just all so sad.

I miss the days where developers made a game out of love and then released it and word of mouth (and maybe marketing of the budget is there) made the game great and well known.

Alas, pretty much all great studios have been bought and now make generic content. Luckily we still have new indie dev's that still make great games, but most of them aren't my cup of tea (I don't really like 2D games anymore or pixel games, that's in the past for me).

Luckily, I pretty much only play single player games and only ever bought DLC willingly for the Witcher 3 and BioShock Infinite.

Of all the games, only for those 2 games the DLC was worth it for me.

I am glad that for multiplayer I play WoW/Overwatch/FFXIV.

Back in the day, things actually were better.

At least, that is how I feel these days.


Last edited by Sojiro84 on 4 July 2022 at 8:34 pm UTC

Ugh, even more games to boycott. Great.

Quoting: ixnariGreat, more unneeded cruft. On a related note, check out the Steam curator named Denuvo Games. Their list of games that use and games that have stopped using Denuvo is pretty extensive. With this, I imagine the list is going to get much, much bigger.

PCGamingWiki also lists it, along with loads of other technical info. I always check a game's PCGW entry for potential bullshit before even thinking of buying from one of the bigger publishers.

Quoting: grigiSadly many games designed for mobiles adopt predatory strategies, and they really don't care if the game makes you happy.

I'm just going to leave it here: https://www.darkpattern.games/

I'd buy Deathloop at full price if it didn't have Denuvo. Also, Dying Light 2.

Otherwise, I think I'm pretty lucky that most of what Denuvo gets pushed onto tends to feature some kind of anti-cheat anyway or is a seasonal sports games like FIFA, neither of which interest me.

But huge Arkane Studios fan, so Deathloop really hurts.

Quoting: PublicNuisanceI refuse to buy games with Denuvo on principle even if they work with Linux. This will be no different.

0

Oh god I just thought how this might effect how far Proton and Wine have come with compatiblity... Fucking Denuovo...

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: AppelsinThat’s a common misconception

That's exactly what I meant by "fear of piracy". I think you're pointing out the difference between early release piracy and long-term piracy? I think?

But it's all piracy and there have been quite a few studies (or at least polls) like the one covered here, that show that the people who pirate games wouldn't (or can't) actually buy the game anyway, so it's all bullshit. Indeed that particular study suggests that piracy increases sales - an outcome unique to the gaming industry.

All DRM does is piss off paying customers and spread misery amongst the people who can't or won't buy the game anyway.

I wonder if at this point it's actually one of those insurance/legal things. Like, shareholders can sue you or otherwise give you a hard time if you didn't do everything possible to prevent loss of profits via piracy, DRM is theoretically a thing possible you could do to etc. etc., so your legal dept. says if you don't do the DRM (and incidentally employ more lawyers to oversee it) you might be open to troubles. As the guy said in Robocop, "Who cares if it works?"

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: mr-victory

Quoting: finaldestI am looking at you, Paradox

Does Paradox implement non-Steam DRM? Why are you looking at Paradox?

Because the Paradox business model is based entirely on DRM. If they implement this, and you resent Denuvo enough to avoid buying anything encumbered with it, then this will affect a LOT of DLC.

For example - Surviving Mars is £28, but its DLC is another £80. City Skylines is £23, but its DLC comes to a cool £160. Crusader Kings is free... but (brace yourself) has £220 of DLC available.

I actually don't mind the model - I like that they support their older games with constant expansions (unlike Ubisoft, and at the end of the day, you buy what appeals to you. But that's a lot of DLC to apply DRM to.

While the Paradox business model is certainly based on selling a bunch of DLC, as far as I'm aware they don't even have DRM on the base games, let alone the DLC, so I don't see how you can say their business model is based entirely on DRM. At least, I'm pretty sure I've played Stellaris off-line.

Anyway, aren't the DLC DeNuvo are talking about more like all the stuff people get for aesthetics or pay-to-win in free-to-play games? Seemed to me it was more like that, making sure you can't copy what you get from microtransactions. No doubt it would work for real DLC too, but I feel like that isn't really the focus.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 4 July 2022 at 11:36 pm UTC

Great... nobody has to buy games. Assholes would do well to remember that.

I will not buy anything that uses Denuvo.

Some games with denuvo release with it poorly implemented to where it either causes problems or is completely ineffective because either they shipped the wrong executable or add an extra executable they weren't supposed to. So this only increases the chances that they mess something up adding new performance problems or vulnerabilities within their DRM scheme. So a game could potentially get denuvo, have problems, the problems get fixed, DLC releases with denuvo, game has the problems it did from launch all over again because denuvo was not implemented correctly a second time. That name though, SecureDLC, really sounds like SecuROM/SuckU-ROM.

Quoting: scaineI like that they support their older games with constant expansions (unlike Ubisoft

That's appalling. Especially cutting off access to DLC. Instead, upon reaching EOL, I wish they made a combination of the following (easiest to do first):
* Altered the games to have them load DLCs offline
* Ripped uplay out of them
* Offered server binaries and custom server browsers
* Made everything p2p
* Released the Server-side source code
* Released client-side source code

At least they continue to sell them, they are not lost forever... until they stop working, that is.

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: AppelsinThat’s a common misconception

That's exactly what I meant by "fear of piracy". I think you're pointing out the difference between early release piracy and long-term piracy? I think?

But it's all piracy and there have been quite a few studies (or at least polls) like the one covered here, that show that the people who pirate games wouldn't (or can't) actually buy the game anyway, so it's all bullshit. Indeed that particular study suggests that piracy increases sales - an outcome unique to the gaming industry.

All DRM does is piss off paying customers and spread misery amongst the people who can't or won't buy the game anyway.

Ah, okay, when you wrote that they bought the snake oil, I took it as meaning that they believed all the shit from DRM companies that this would forever prevent priacy, which would net them several billions of billions of extra sales and money.
But yeah, my point was that the only piracy they actually "need" to quell is the first week or so, and that's why they include it, but even so they know that it doesn't actually do anything worthwhile. With the game easily available on PC storefronts, console storefronts, physical stores, the vast majority won't (or just arent technically skilled) to faff around with downloading from torrent sites, applying the cracks and workarounds for online features (if the get access to online at all).

Quoteindeed that particular study suggests that piracy increases sales - an outcome unique to the gaming industry.

Not unique, actually. Remember how the people who made the Game of Thrones TV-series said that piracy was actually a real boon for the series popularity? People who had no access to a streaming service showing it (which was many, due to all this license bullshit from ages past), would pirate it, and thus made it reach ever further, which in turn made it more popular/hyped, which further turned into people subscribing/paying to see it.


EDIT:
To be honest, I don't think it's even about piracy at all at this point. It's about having control over the games. When even singleplayer games have "always online requirements", you know that they just want to be able to pull the plug whenever they like. You don't buy the games, you lease them. They now have the means to reach into your computer and decide if you get to play the game you "bought" today, and they cream their pants just thinking about the power they now wield :)


Last edited by Appelsin on 5 July 2022 at 8:06 am UTC

It's a bit weird to advocate against piracy and annoy the honest customer, while only the pirated version is troublefree to use... Using denuvo is a schysophrenic behaviour that acts like a promotion for hacked version...
It's the same as saying: "I don't trust you because you are honest and buy my games..."

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: mr-victory

Quoting: finaldestI am looking at you, Paradox

Does Paradox implement non-Steam DRM? Why are you looking at Paradox?

Because the Paradox business model is based entirely on DRM. If they implement this, and you resent Denuvo enough to avoid buying anything encumbered with it, then this will affect a LOT of DLC.

For example - Surviving Mars is £28, but its DLC is another £80. City Skylines is £23, but its DLC comes to a cool £160. Crusader Kings is free... but (brace yourself) has £220 of DLC available.

I actually don't mind the model - I like that they support their older games with constant expansions (unlike Ubisoft, and at the end of the day, you buy what appeals to you. But that's a lot of DLC to apply DRM to.

While the Paradox business model is certainly based on selling a bunch of DLC, as far as I'm aware they don't even have DRM on the base games, let alone the DLC, so I don't see how you can say their business model is based entirely on DRM. At least, I'm pretty sure I've played Stellaris off-line.

Anyway, aren't the DLC DeNuvo are talking about more like all the stuff people get for aesthetics or pay-to-win in free-to-play games? Seemed to me it was more like that, making sure you can't copy what you get from microtransactions. No doubt it would work for real DLC too, but I feel like that isn't really the focus.

Oops, I meant DLC. Their business model is based on DLC, and no, they don't (yet) use DRM, but I was suggesting a hugely negative impact if they did. Apologies. Goddam TLAs...

Quoting: RTherenI vote to officially rename year 2022 to Bizzaro Year.

I know, right? What's up with that? It's like the crazy is more contagious than the COVID was…