Denuvo is not exactly something any gamer I've ever seen be happy about and now it's growing and will likely appear in more games, with the announcement of Denuvo SecureDLC.
Irdeto said in the press release it's "the first of its kind in the gaming market and provides opportunities to extend the revenue tail for developers and publishers past the initial launch window".
The main target here appears to be free to play games that offer up DLC and micro-transactions to unlock various features, cosmetics and so on with SecureDLC being positioned to protect against piracy there. So Irdeto are hoping that developers will pick SecureDLC to deal with it apparently becoming "easy to bypass the existing barriers that try to secure DLCs on popular gaming platforms like Steam and Epic" as they found "players can automatically generate and install programs that access downloadable content without paying for it".
According to Reinhard Blaukovitsch, Managing Director at Denuvo by Irdeto, the new technology is already being successfully used with the current Denuvo Anti-Tamper clients: “Denuvo has become a one-stop shop for game developers to ensure the safety of their game against cheating, tampering, and piracy and to protect the gaming experience. Our current clients, big and small, are ecstatic with the results and we are happy to help them maximize revenue and also enable new business models for these games they spent so much effort building.”
Quoting: grigiGacha games should be illegal, frankly. They're a form of gambling except without even the chance of a jackpot.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.
Quoting: scaineQuoting: 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 misconceptionThat'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-victoryQuoting: finaldestI am looking at you, ParadoxDoes 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.
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
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/
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.
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