The common stance against DRM is not the “entitled” part, but to be able to keep playing it even if the companies involved are gone. For games with Denuvo or other DRM there are things like these to consider:
the Denuvo company’s server shuts off(whatever reason, blackout, maintenance,etc), your DRM now can’t verify if you have legit copy or not.
the game company shuts off, no one left to patch out DRM, your game is in limbo. (cause they have to pay Denuvo to keep the licensing/verification. )
your internet went off.(this part depends on game and how often they need to refresh the “valid” token)
With games that have no DRM you have none of the above concerns.
I am vehemently opposed to Denuvo because I have personally compared the Denuvo protected product VS the cracked product and the performance impact of Denuvo was nothing short of horrific.
My paid experience was worlds worse than the experience of those that chose not to pay, and there is no legal way for me to get that same experience. To be clear, not all games are impacted so badly but many are.
Having said that, if a developer wants some form of DRM on their game because they (wrongly) believe not having one will affect sales then I do believe they should have a right to do so. I just think that there should be a legally mandated time limit on how long they are allowed to do so. 12 months from release seems fair. After 12 months, you have moved most of your units. Sales after this point basically come down to special offers and how well you support and maintain the multiplayer portion of your release.
I would personally choose to wait the 12 months until I can actually own the game, and as a sort of litmus test for the long term viability of the franchise. If there is still a significant playerbase after 12 months then it’s probably worth my money.
Yeah, I do believe some of the Denuvo implementation might be good or improved overtime, BUT, I don’t trust publisher or developer to remove it before they moved on to next project. (see some of the capcom games that was on GFWL example). So I just wait until they removed it or buy on different platform(PSN/Nintendo) that I trust won’t vanishes or stop support down the road. It is very tricky for consumer the more “3rd parties” is involved in your purchase.
You know these are valid concerns, and I have two thoughts about this. The first is that I don’t understand how this doesn’t also apply to Steam or Epic Games or any other basic storefront (except GOG of course). I see a lot of headlines about Denuvo but none about Steam. People seem to selectively apply their hate in this matter.
The second thought that I have is that I agree that this is a problem, but I don’t see any other way around it. This is just the trade off of getting AAA games. These are big, complex pieces of IP that require millions to hundreds of millions of dollars of investment that the company making them has to recoup. To ensure that you actually get paid, you have to have DRM. Companies wouldn’t shell out the millions of dollars on DRM unless it was proven to actually work. As I see it, if you like AAA games you just gotta weigh the cost on a game by game basis.
Most GOG games ship entirely free of protection, it’s kind of their thing. As for steam, getting around the online checks is trivial.
The issue is ownership of the goods you bought. If the barrier to ownership is slight, I don’t have a big issue with it. Denuvo is a serious barrier and has serious impacts on performance.
I see a lot of headlines about Denuvo but none about Steam.
Steam is a platform used to sell games and DRM is optional. Denuvo itself is a specific type of DRM that people have experienced issues with the most whether it is interruptions to offline play or 5 activation limits. It’s why the specific DRM is being focused on that has been the most draconian of the other DRM that exists, since it has been the most frequently disruptive over less overbearing DRM.
Steam has the stance that it will “release” a version where you just get valid license from the game you purchased and downloaded before they shutoff service should it belly up in the end. Epic does not really have the same thing announced anywhere, but I’d assume similar thing.(Note, Epic has more net worth than Valve, they can afford to shut EGS and still provide EOS/license check almost indefinitely even if they stopped selling games on EGS as a platform.) And it’s why steam has that 3rd party DRM tag/block on games.(I wish EGS has this tag or information as well)
Denuvo is quite different however cause:
it’s harder to patch out, and the platform do not have access to those part.
it adds additional game breaking point( say if you bought a game that has it and also “always online” you need game company, Denuvo, storefront platform and your internet up to play that
game.)
I think steam and epic would have bot that buy and patch out the game’s DRM like day 1 after release, they don’t care cause majority of their user won’t bother downloading shady program from a shady website. The publishers however care and thus we have this issue of them “trusting” Denuvo to shield them from piracy during launch window.
I still vote with wallet and generally only buy single player game after they removed Denuvo or just buy those on PSN, cause I trust platform to last longer than Denuvo.
The common stance against DRM is not the “entitled” part, but to be able to keep playing it even if the companies involved are gone. For games with Denuvo or other DRM there are things like these to consider:
With games that have no DRM you have none of the above concerns.
I am vehemently opposed to Denuvo because I have personally compared the Denuvo protected product VS the cracked product and the performance impact of Denuvo was nothing short of horrific.
My paid experience was worlds worse than the experience of those that chose not to pay, and there is no legal way for me to get that same experience. To be clear, not all games are impacted so badly but many are.
Having said that, if a developer wants some form of DRM on their game because they (wrongly) believe not having one will affect sales then I do believe they should have a right to do so. I just think that there should be a legally mandated time limit on how long they are allowed to do so. 12 months from release seems fair. After 12 months, you have moved most of your units. Sales after this point basically come down to special offers and how well you support and maintain the multiplayer portion of your release.
I would personally choose to wait the 12 months until I can actually own the game, and as a sort of litmus test for the long term viability of the franchise. If there is still a significant playerbase after 12 months then it’s probably worth my money.
Yeah, I do believe some of the Denuvo implementation might be good or improved overtime, BUT, I don’t trust publisher or developer to remove it before they moved on to next project. (see some of the capcom games that was on GFWL example). So I just wait until they removed it or buy on different platform(PSN/Nintendo) that I trust won’t vanishes or stop support down the road. It is very tricky for consumer the more “3rd parties” is involved in your purchase.
You know these are valid concerns, and I have two thoughts about this. The first is that I don’t understand how this doesn’t also apply to Steam or Epic Games or any other basic storefront (except GOG of course). I see a lot of headlines about Denuvo but none about Steam. People seem to selectively apply their hate in this matter.
The second thought that I have is that I agree that this is a problem, but I don’t see any other way around it. This is just the trade off of getting AAA games. These are big, complex pieces of IP that require millions to hundreds of millions of dollars of investment that the company making them has to recoup. To ensure that you actually get paid, you have to have DRM. Companies wouldn’t shell out the millions of dollars on DRM unless it was proven to actually work. As I see it, if you like AAA games you just gotta weigh the cost on a game by game basis.
Most GOG games ship entirely free of protection, it’s kind of their thing. As for steam, getting around the online checks is trivial.
The issue is ownership of the goods you bought. If the barrier to ownership is slight, I don’t have a big issue with it. Denuvo is a serious barrier and has serious impacts on performance.
Steam is a platform used to sell games and DRM is optional. Denuvo itself is a specific type of DRM that people have experienced issues with the most whether it is interruptions to offline play or 5 activation limits. It’s why the specific DRM is being focused on that has been the most draconian of the other DRM that exists, since it has been the most frequently disruptive over less overbearing DRM.
Steam has the stance that it will “release” a version where you just get valid license from the game you purchased and downloaded before they shutoff service should it belly up in the end. Epic does not really have the same thing announced anywhere, but I’d assume similar thing.(Note, Epic has more net worth than Valve, they can afford to shut EGS and still provide EOS/license check almost indefinitely even if they stopped selling games on EGS as a platform.) And it’s why steam has that 3rd party DRM tag/block on games.(I wish EGS has this tag or information as well)
Denuvo is quite different however cause:
I think steam and epic would have bot that buy and patch out the game’s DRM like day 1 after release, they don’t care cause majority of their user won’t bother downloading shady program from a shady website. The publishers however care and thus we have this issue of them “trusting” Denuvo to shield them from piracy during launch window.
I still vote with wallet and generally only buy single player game after they removed Denuvo or just buy those on PSN, cause I trust platform to last longer than Denuvo.