Denuvo Blames Gamer Toxicity for DRM Protection Hate, Dismisses Performance Concerns

[Darmok N Jalad]

Your company is trash, your product is garbage, and you view your customers with absolute contempt. Get bent. When your only argument is "WaH mUh ToxIc GaMuRz" you have completely lost.

If denuvo, as a company, ceased to exist tomorrow gamers would rejoice and consumers would be singing.


That's because, at their core, most industries would love to strip you of all your rights and treat you worse then convicted felons for daring to not consoom product and get excited for next product. They absolutely detest the common peasant that demands things like "fair treatment" or "consumer protections".

The thing with Denuvo is that they are not a gaming company, and their “customer” is the publisher that elects to use their services. Ultimately, it matters none to Denuvo if the gamer is upset, as is evident by their response. It’s a bit like verbally assaulting an aggressive attorney who’s suing you. It’s really not the attorney, but rather his client, that has a problem with you. And Denuvo is a lot like an attorney—even the client doesn’t have to like him, so long as he does his job. It’s really more a battle to take up with the publishers if they are using a shoddy anti-piracy solution.

 

[nguyen]

The thing with Denuvo is that they are not a gaming company, and their “customer” is the publisher that elects to use their services. Ultimately, it matters none to Denuvo if the gamer is upset, as is evident by their response. It’s a bit like verbally assaulting an aggressive attorney who’s suing you. It’s really not the attorney, but rather his client, that has a problem with you. And Denuvo is a lot like an attorney—even the client doesn’t have to like him, so long as he does his job. It’s really more a battle to take up with the publishers if they are using a shoddy anti-piracy solution.

It does matter to Denuvo if PC gamers actively avoid games with Denuvo, meaning fewer publishers will choose Denuvo in the future

 

[Onasi]

Just a friendly reminder that games like The Witcher 3 and CP2077 launched without any DRM whatsoever (if we don’t count SteamWorks in the Steam version) and sold just fine. Tons of niche and AA games have Day 1 releases on GoG and do just fine. The whole idea that Denuvo (or any DRM) actually leads to better sales is something that is as old as time by this point and, yet, has never been empirically proven. Most “freeloaders” as they were called in this thread are people who wouldn’t buy the game Day 1 anyway, Denuvo or not. They are interested specifically in the “free” part. I am sure you can argue there are outliers, but I have no doubt they are statistically insignificant.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

It does matter to Denuvo if PC gamers actively avoid games with Denuvo, meaning fewer publishers will choose Denuvo in the future

Yes, but until people take the cause up with studios, nothing will change. As long as people keep buying anyway, it is just noise.

 

[lexluthermiester]

There is an easy fix for this.......................................................................... STOP BUYING THEIR SHIT!!

This my personal policy. If it's not on GOG, it doesn't get my money.

Just a friendly reminder that games like The Witcher 3 and CP2077 launched without any DRM whatsoever (if we don’t count SteamWorks in the Steam version) and sold just fine. Tons of niche and AA games have Day 1 releases on GoG and do just fine. The whole idea that Denuvo (or any DRM) actually leads to better sales is something that is as old as time by this point and, yet, has never been empirically proven. Most “freeloaders” as they were called in this thread are people who wouldn’t buy the game Day 1 anyway, Denuvo or not. They are interested specifically in the “free” part. I am sure you can argue there are outliers, but I have no doubt they are statistically insignificant.

Well said!

 

[nguyen]

Yes, but until people take the cause up with studios, nothing will change. As long as people keep buying anyway, it is just noise.

I actually refunded Doom Eternal on steam when they tried to incorporate Denuvo, and I succeeded, Bethesda later removed Denuvo

Denuvo DRM Has Been Removed From DOOM Eternal

The newly-released 6.66 Rev 2.2 update removes the Boosters feature and strips away Denuvo Anti-Tamper from the game.

80.lv

Yes when united we can kick Denuvo out, and Denuvo is scared of that

 

[DAPUNISHER]

That they are interacting with us at all, reeks of desperation. It's a good sign there is already trouble behind the scenes IMO. Next year may bring some welcomed news about Denuvo failing as a biz.

 

[lexluthermiester]

That they are interacting with us at all, reeks of desperation.

It really does.

It's a good sign there is already trouble behind the scenes IMO.

We can only hope.

Next year may bring some welcomed news about Denuvo failing as a biz.

That would be wonderful and most welcome! DRM in general just needs to go away.

 

[tsunami2311]

Every Game I own that has Denuvo in it has atrocious loading times which is why i only own 2 game with denuvo one of which I payed for for on steam as a game in a collection and other I got on amazon prime gaming give away. These same games cracked version where denuvo not part equation. have loading time that are fine that right there is reason why I avoid any game that on pc the denuvo, only after it been removed will I buy it.

when I was younger I would "pirate" games and that was on dsl connection that maxed out at 5mbits, now I have 1gbit connection almost every game I get on PC i buy off Steam or GoG would be alot easier to download them now and pirate them but I dont. Denuvo PR department must working over time try and ignore the performance issue it causes. Which dont effect people that "pirated" the game any only the people the actual bought the game are effected.

At least I dont have worry about DA: The Veilguard on pc being infected by denuvo cause that reason why I never bought it on pc so I will actual buy that on, Thankfull I dont have go threw EA app of crap either

If has denuvo in I dont buy it on pc simple as that.

 

[Chaitanya]

Just a friendly reminder that games like The Witcher 3 and CP2077 launched without any DRM whatsoever (if we don’t count SteamWorks in the Steam version) and sold just fine. Tons of niche and AA games have Day 1 releases on GoG and do just fine. The whole idea that Denuvo (or any DRM) actually leads to better sales is something that is as old as time by this point and, yet, has never been empirically proven. Most “freeloaders” as they were called in this thread are people who wouldn’t buy the game Day 1 anyway, Denuvo or not. They are interested specifically in the “free” part. I am sure you can argue there are outliers, but I have no doubt they are statistically insignificant.

Even pricing according to market helps a lot in curbing piracy. I remember GTA4 launched in India at INR500 compared to previous GTA games which were priced 5x that price and most gamers bought the geniune copy instead of risking their PCs with pirated copies. Even right now Steam has different prices for same games in US and India, I bought The Mummy Demastered last week for INR 530(~$6.3) while its priced at $19.99 in US.

 

[Keivz]

I understand why this company exists and have never noticed any performance issues or the like in games that have had it and later had it removed. Much a do about nothing in my experience.

 

[Ruru]

LMAO. I still remember the performance issues for Resident Evil Village for example. Had to wait a good while that it was playable.

 

[iameatingjam]

Calling customers toxic probably isn't the best way to market your software, but he's right as to the main reason people hate it: it stops them from freeloading. It's a great tool for protecting the early flood of sales when launching a game.

We aren't the customers though, not directly, game devs/publishers are. Though this interview isn't exactly kind to them either. Every problem seems to be everybody else's fault.

The best anticheat is a properly coded game that does most things serverside.

How about human mods too? I remember when that used to be a thing.

I understand why this company exists and have never noticed any performance issues or the like in games that have had it and later had it removed. Much a do about nothing in my experience.

I haven't either. But I also have a pretty beefy computer so its hard for me to waive off all the performance loss claims, even if I don't doubt all kinds of unrelated problems are blamed on denuvo... that doesn't necesssarily mean all the claims are bogus. There's a lot of hardware combos out there. Hard to test them all.

 

[Halo3Addict]

I've never really had an issue with Denuvo, though since it's typically useless beyond a few weeks once the game is cracked, I wish devs would then just remove it - it's madness to have the pirated copies of a game being the more desirable versions with superior performance.

It's been a while since the DRM on a game was so offensive that I downloaded the cracked version after already paying for the game. (Thanks, GFWL!)

I actually have a more recent example. Trying to stream Resident Evil 2 (Remake) using Sunshine/Moonlight to my Nvidia shield ran into DRM restrictions.

After an hour of troubleshooting, I finally took to the high seas and it ran perfectly. All forms of DRM are anti-consumer.

 

[Onasi]

How about human mods too? I remember when that used to be a thing.

It worked way back when because dedicated servers were all the rage and communities on those were tight knit. People actually knew each other, admins knew the regulars and new blood was either “friends of a friend” or monitored for suspicious activity. You can’t, unfortunately, replicate something like this in the age of matchmaking based MP. Closest I know of was Valves Overwatch system and that was thrown away with CS2 for some reason.

 

[JIWIL]

"So basically, I think the one question was: why don't the developers do these comparisons and post them publicly? That's something we cannot force them to do. There seems to be reasons why they are not doing it."

Golly I wonder what reasons they could have.

 

[sam_86314]

I'll just say my last experience with Denuvo was having it prevent me from playing Final Fantasy XV because it couldn't phone home. Haven't bought another Denuvo game since.

I've also heard about issues from Steam Deck users, where switching between Proton versions will use up the five daily activations that Denuvo allows for.

Meanwhile, "patched" copies of these games simply don't have these issues. Imagine that...

I've said this before, and I'll say it again; with how Denuvo works, I'd be more surprised if there wasn't a performance impact. From my layman's perspective, Denuvo works by scrambling bits of code throughout the executable. It will then contact a server for keys to unscramble those bits of code in real-time before executing them. Add thousands upon thousands of these checks (hence the multi-hundred MB file size), and there's bound to be some performance impact.

 

[THANATOS]

The main issue I have with Denuvo, and this article is yet more evidence of it, is they at their core business ethos seem to assume their core customer base (the end user/gamer, from which all the sales flow) are criminals at heart.

If the game is good then the gamers will buy It. Of course there will be some who will pirate It either because they don't want to spend their money or don't have It(children, young people).
So his statement about how only pirates are complaining is truly distasteful, because as you mentioned, It basically assumes everyone is a thief.

 

[Athlonite]

LOL Good old Denuvo showing everyone they still suck big sweaty donkey b@lls like it were the lollipop they stole from a child and it just goes to show how delusional they really are when it comes to gamers and what we really dislike

 

[Dirt Chip]

A classic "burn them at the stake" thread.
More popcorn needed!

 

[THANATOS]

LOL Good old Denuvo showing everyone they still suck big sweaty donkey b@lls like it were the lollipop they stole from a child and it just goes to show how delusional they really are when it comes to gamers and what we really dislike

Why would they even care what gamers dislike? They are paid by publishers.
On the other hand, the publishers who should care about gamers, because we are the customers don't care at all about us.

A classic "burn them at the stake" thread.
More popcorn needed!

We are no longer in middle ages.

 

[kondamin]

sounds like that guy was trained by the SBI spokes pronoun

 

[Klemc]

That's completely false. PC gaming is popular for many many reasons, stealing and cheating would be very low on the list. Contrary to a console, a PC serves more purposes, in the modern world you pretty much need a computer, a console not really. A computer can do mods. Market competition (and consequently prices) are much better. etc etc etc.

Piracy is not a price problem, proof of this is how successfull steam is in places like Russia. The man said it best: "The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work, it's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates.”

Problem is not that many games have Denuvo removed even after the game is cracked and the release cycle is over

Mods, the PC can be used to work too...

Pirated game now is different, not like when on CD/DVD that were one or two patchs with game's version like 1.1, 1.2... now games update dayly and as pirate version is in general the day1 release version, it's all buggy, so any store is already a better service, except when day1 has no Denuvo like Persona Striker btw

Ass Creed Origins, Metag Gear 5, Far Cry Primal, are the three i know Denuvo persist on.

Just a friendly reminder that games like The Witcher 3 and CP2077 launched without any DRM whatsoever (if we don’t count SteamWorks in the Steam version) and sold just fine. Tons of niche and AA games have Day 1 releases on GoG and do just fine. The whole idea that Denuvo (or any DRM) actually leads to better sales is something that is as old as time by this point and, yet, has never been empirically proven. Most “freeloaders” as they were called in this thread are people who wouldn’t buy the game Day 1 anyway, Denuvo or not. They are interested specifically in the “free” part. I am sure you can argue there are outliers, but I have no doubt they are statistically insignificant.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided had Denuvo and has again it on Steam but not on GOG, lol.

Looks like it's a good way to sell twice the same game.

@

iameatingjam​

How about human mods too? I remember when that used to be a thing.

No way, now AI is a thing no chance, also if you give me this baby-sitter job my answer would be no, i won't live behind a PC to check if users cheat, no way, cheaters are shit yes but don't deserve a human to be behind them full time.

 

[iameatingjam]

I've never really had an issue with Denuvo, though since it's typically useless beyond a few weeks once the game is cracked, I wish devs would then just remove it - it's madness to have the pirated copies of a game being the more desirable versions with superior performance.

It's been a while since the DRM on a game was so offensive that I downloaded the cracked version after already paying for the game. (Thanks, GFWL!)

Denuvo games are incredibly hard to crack these days, and it keeps getting harder. There's probably been a couple as I don't pay close attention but last game I heard of getting denuvo cracked was farcry 6. And last time I checked there was only one cracker who can do it. And I don't even think they are active anymore but not sure. Apparently this person is kind of crazy.... You'd have to be, to crack these damn games. Which is why I appreciate that companies like Square remove denuvo after 6 months.

I mean sure, I'd rather it not be there at all, but this way their early sales are protected ( maybe... Hard to say with certainty if denuvo makes more people buy because there's no alternative or turns more people away that hate denuvo with every bone in their body)... But anyway those such people can pick up the game 6 months after release.

Btw people, ea is releasing the new dragon age game without any DRM. Let's show them how rewarding that can be for their sales and maybe future games won't have denuvo either. Poor sales could mean the return of denuvo. Perhaps this is a test...

 

[nguyen]

Btw people, ea is releasing the new dragon age game without any DRM. Let's show them how rewarding that can be for their sales and maybe future games won't have denuvo either. Poor sales could mean the return of denuvo. Perhaps this is a test...

That game is not worth pirating anyways