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The best thing Denuvo has done for gamers is to charge publishers a recurring fee so that they are incentivised to eventually remove it from their games.
People playing pirated copies of their games isn't what's killing their launch window sales. People playing completely legit copies of their games, then revealing just how dogshit those games are to other people over the internet, _that's_ what's killing their launch window sales.
Or us patient gamers who wait for a year or two before picking up the game at a deep discount that actually reflects the cash value of the product for me instead of the profit projections of executive management.
@@IRGeamer I mean with how many games are shoved out as a buggy mess these days that's kind of mandatory these days. There's a number of companies who I'll never buy a game from on launch day because I know it'll be awful and just full of game breaking bugs.
@@IRGeamer I dunno about that tbh. I'd rather not pay them if they'll tank my performance. I didn't buy good components so they can squander the performance on their stupid DRM and give me stutters.
@@IRGeamer also i don't have to wait for a patch to fix the quest the QA missed (or the shipped without fixing anyway), along with all the performance issues and comparability issues that are now fixed, and the features that were released in the DLC that actually make the game way more enjoyable.
The cobra effect. If those that sail have a better time finding and accessing treasure at the sea that companies refuse to make it conveniently available or have police boats so false-positive prone they would fire a cannon if something looks remotely like a pirate ship, then no wonder why there are such that many pirate ships at the sea. Denuvo is like ship port that have many security features like you would experience at an airport, but multiply that by 100. So much screening, metal detectors, turnstiles and such that experiencing the treasure would cause performance issues.
Most games make the majority of their sales within the first few weeks, which is about how long it takes a game with Denuvo to get cracked. So really, Denuvo does it's job rather well, hence why it kept being used for so long.
@@RunePonyRamblings if I'm going to play at lunch date I'll buy it... For example, I'll just buy Monster Hunter Wilds at release date and I don't care if it has Denuvo or not (I have a 7800X 3D so my CPU can handle it), as I bought Black Myth Wukong... BUT in the same side of the coin... I'm not caring to play Dragon Age Veilguard right now... Maybe one day... At sale... If I don't have anything else to do... Again maybe... Even when I probably would be able to pirate it cuz DRM Free... NO... TOO LAZY TO DO THAT. For real, business and people can't understand how hard, long and tedious pirate something is... Deal with torrents, premium download services, blah blah... My time it's more precious than my money and for many PC gamers it's like that. Don't underestimate our lazyness...
The day copy protection software prevented me from playing a game I legitimately purchased and installed, and then their customer service accused me of piracy even with receipts in hand to prove I bought it, was the day I lost all trust in copy protection, and assume it will do nothing but harm the consumer. I still never got to play Neverwinter Nights 2.
I didnt know Neverwinter Nights 2 had DRM on it. I've still got my Lawful Good edition in storage and never had a problem with installing or playing it. Considering its 2024 I'd recommend picking up the version on Good Old Games on a discount, its still well worth playing.
I have an original release version of F.E.A.R. Little did I know that you are only allowed 5 uses of the CD key for activation before your key is deactivated. I still have the discs and the manual with the CD key but it's worthless. I had to purchase it again on Steam to legally play it again. Same thing with Halo 2 for Windows Vista.
"It's the developers' fault for implementing our software poorly" Do they really think gamers care who's fault it is? The bottom line is gamers pay for a worse experience. They need to get that in their small heads.
Best part is that they wheren't even necessarily wrong in most points. But the points where so minimal and they provided no other reasons... Like, sure, devs are not implementing the DRM properly. But that costs money, and profits is the REASON they paid for the DRM, there are no points for them here. "People mad cuz they want free games" when the real victims are the people PAYING for the game. So they are crapping on the main source of money of the industry. Only thing left for them at this point is dissapear and hope that whatever they make next doesn't carry over the bad reputation.
I used to travel a lot due to my job so I had gaming laptop, any stuff that requires internet connection is simply no go for me. I can understand it's not a common issue but imagine that someone could just have less access to entertainment if they would switch the job due to company selling a product making it intentionally worse for consumers. Pretty insane stuff.
@@PatchedUp As mentioned even in the video: there's an ongoing cost attached to keeping Denuvo in the game. You are right in some capacity: some games never remove it; but it's not like I lack in games to play.
@@lexvstee in general having drm software is only really economically viable in the launch weeks where most people who want to buy fullprice copies get them. At some points the game gets pirated. there's little value in paying the ongoing costs
Here's the thing: I don't care about piracy as a customer! For real, I don't! The claim that I'm somehow made better as a player because the company gets more money? Yeah, that might work if these scumbag companies weren't also nickel-and-diming me with scumbag monetization practices! "But, it would get a sequel!" Yeah, let's ask the Overwatch folks how THAT turned out, eh? For a single player game, Denuvo does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for me as a player no matter what the company claims. And for a multiplayer game, anti-cheating may be a good thing, but guess what? A pirated copy creates more players in the lobby!
i genuinely dont care if they're making more or less money. they could be printing infinite money and the games will still be 10x worse than the games made on a tenth of a budget 15 years ago.
@@commentinglife6175 the fact that 40-60 dollar games are coming out riddled with micro transactions makes it hard to sympathize with developers. Video games have gotten a lot more expensive to make, but the majority of the AAA industry has gotten worse at using these inflated budgets to make actually good gaming experiences, not to mention the atrocious state of optimization. Sony spent $400 dollars on Concorde, a game that most gamers knew was gonna flop the moment they saw it. Game direction from big studios has become completely out of touch with consumers and they have nobody to blame but themselves.
Ironic that Denuvo is trying to save corporate games money by making the game un-piratable, but charging those corporate games an arm and a leg so they can't be pirated lol.
@@lstsoul4376 only if the 20% more sales is to be believed, what according to other studies on piracy, seem to be highly exaggerated, or at least lacks context (refunds for example).
Cyberpunk 2077 launched day one at GOG, so naturally there was a torrent day one available with no crack needed. Yet it is one of the biggest PC launches of all time and most of it's sales were on GOG. More proof than that the DRM is useless you will never get. DRM is coping for corporations executives sleep better thinking they are stopping something unstoppable and gaining something out of it. People will buy games if they are good and have a good value proposition (reason regional pricing is super important), people will either ignore or pirate your game if they are unsure of it's value, if the game is good some of the pirates may buy it and if it's bad they will never touch it again legitimately or pirated. What I'm sure that never will happen is that someone that pirate games for whatever reason buy a game they are unsure if it's worth the asking price because a pirated version isn't available. The most likely scenario is that they will ignore it and the majority of people for the majority of games will never look at "old games" again if they didn't played them at the launch window. With the exception of course of those massive 10/10 games with lot's of legs (Cyberpunk 2077, Witcher 3, Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate, any Rockstar game since GTA IV, Bethesda games, etc). The gradual drop of denuvo is probably because companies are trying to shift to bigger sales windows, trying to build games with sales legs that are not that much front loaded and sell well more than in the first few weeks alone, specially those massive 50-100 hour titles. And in case of Veilguard in general by the pre-orders numbers EA probably knows that this games will at least under-perform if not outright flop, why the hell would you undercut themselves more giving a cut of every sale to denuvo or pay a huge fee upfront?
I would argue that Denuvo is a scam. They are scamming publishers by selling them lie that piracy have a meaningful negative effect on sales. In many cases piracy is a free marketing.
@@EdyAlbertoMSGT3 Well now think how awful it would have been when instead of trying to fix stuff they spent the last months before release to implement Denuvo badly.
@@EdyAlbertoMSGT3 but it did had an excellent launch, even made Red Projectk the most valuable company in Poland, at least for 1 weeks until pp realise how shitty the game optimization was
"It's not our fault that games with denuvo often run badly, its the developers for implementing it poorly!" Doesn't change the truth that if denuvo was not there in the first place then implementation wouldn't be an issue. If it happens so often then it must be pretty tricky to implement well. Imagine if that development time went to actually improving the game instead.
They promised their engineers will implement the cheat to work optimally with the customer (Devs) request, so if they claim it's the devs fault they can be accused of false advertisement.
Isn’t it Denuvo’s obligation and in their interest to see that developers implement their product properly. “Poorly implemented by developers” means “poorly supported by Denuvo”
It's not very often mentioned; but Denuvo is also a hindrance to game modding (by design), wasting a lot of modders time. A lot of cases of mods breaking after updates can be attributed to Denuvo, as it randomly messes with the game code to make games harder to mod.
@@linkfreeman1998 /cackling Modern games are running on like three engines: Unreal, Unity, .NET frameworks. I'm not 1337 enough to claim I work in assembly or wizard magic like that, but I've worked with some particularly teeth-pulling fan-created editors because they were the first editors around. Specifically, I've seen Fire Emblem GBA modding form thanks to Nintenlord and the Nightmare 1 modules, then the evolution to Nightmare 2, then to FEEditor, then to FEBuilder. The "old days" of modding are easy texture swaps and painstaking hex editing and were ANYTHING but easy. You could only really do ANYTHING with the old games if they were mod-friendly or the devs released dev tools to the public (which both Bethesda and ID Software did)-- and even then Bethesda only did it for Morrowind up; Andyfall (the first Daggerfall "classic" mod) had to be done by opening up Daggerfall and changing the game's files around and reverse engineering Bethesda's patches to Daggerfall. What you think is "easier" is just because you're reaping a whole community's efforts to decompile and reverse engineer and build the tools needed to work with it. (case in point with Doom: the entire reason modding is so huge is because fans took the engine and made their own to add the features they wanted. Most games whose devs handed over dev tools for fans' usage also have some sort of "script extender" or fanmade modding framework to push it beyond what the devs designed their tools for, too. The only thing that's stopping modding in modern games is that no one is willing to make the tools to break open finished Unity/Unreal games to go in the proprietary code, deobfuscate as needed, and play with it, like they are with older games. BepinEX is the "universal" mod framework for XNA games running on the .NET framework, which I've found out because both Megaman X DiVE Offline and Slime Rancher hook into it, and I've seen references to other games also springing off from BepinEX to support their fanmods. Anyway, TL;DR you're seeing an illusion of a past that didn't even exist. Anyone who's remotely familiar with old games and what was possible back then VS now can tell ya that much.
For most of these companies, that's a positive. Better no modding than modding only through some store they operate, right? A mixture of wanting to keep more control over the image of the game, and their 'intended experience', and blah blah blah.
@@linkfreeman1998 I don't think that is true, I've seen way more mods for certain games vs their old prequels. Alan Wake 2 has far more mods than 1 for example and i saw the same for metro exodus vs metro the last light. I could be wrong but still
Why would anyone trust a company that not only forgot to renew a domain name, causing hundreds of thousands of people to be unable to play games they had legitimately purchased for an entire weekend... but didn't even have any monitoring in place to warn them about the expiry. That proves they are an incompetent tech company, and also proves there is probably a point sometime in the future when they decide not to maintain that domain and you can lose access to legitimately purchased games. So nope, if a game has Denuvo that is a guaranteed lost sale to me.
y'know. in the modern days, that would make any game using denuvo be pulled off the online markets, and possibly forcefully removed from peoples libraries
denuvo is a scam thats why any company that uses it is falling for that scam, it does nothing. a pirate aint buying the game there is plenty to play already either way, denuvo is to push always online digital only so they can shut down servers, so they can say your timed licence has ran out and your out of luck cause it wont play anymore, denuvo is basically a way to push rentals in future. people buy games they love to play once they have the money, a demo, a sale, denuvo stops all that and looses all those sales, there is no long term data cause long term denuvo looses them so many sales wouldnt suprise me if what they pay for denuvo is what they save Lmao, wow company removed denuvo, to bad i dunno about it cause it was on my ignore list years ago. denuvo is a red flag they want the control and they have no confidence in the game, ignore them and move on, they will never fix the bs activation limit which is easy to do by matching it to your graphics card or netwok ip,
The whole Tekken 7 Denuvo performance thing was proven by Harada himself that Denuvo was messing with the code thus creating lag and input delays cuz Denuvo does periodic checks on code. As soon as Denuvo was removed, those issues were gone.
The main issue isn't periodic checks, but rather that modern Denuvo doesn't keep all of the game's code in an executable way in memory; it keeps part of the game's code encrypted, so when that function is called it will decrypt it, run the function, then trash the memory it was in to prevent crackers from seeing the code. This, obviously, means that the specific functions protected that way are running dozens, if not hundreds, of times more slowly. The trick is to find functions that are run infrequently enough, are never run when the timing of player inputs is essential, but are essential for the game code and hard to replicate, to protect those; in an ideal scenario you might see a few milliseconds of lag every few minutes and at a time where nothing much is happening, which is not exactly noticeable. Flag the wrong function for this protection, though, and you could have constant lag spikes, potentially even happening specifically at moments when you need good timing, ruining the experience. AFAIK flagging the wrong functions for this protection is done more often than not.
@@bulthaosen1169 If you have a decent PC with either gtx1080ti or rtx above 2070 and an i7 above 6th gen, then it runs fine, with some tweaks 60fps is achievable (no idea on amd specs) Otherwise the game is gonna be slow also AI UPSCALING IS MANDATORY you CANNOT turn it off and if your videocard has no tensor cores your performance will suffer. my game has settings so low it looks more like tekken 3, while that's on me for having a bad PC i am able to run any other fighting game on high settings in 1440p
Regardless of how effective Denuvo is, the argument that it only affects paying customers is valid because paying customers are the only ones who ever have to deal with it. Developers having faulty Denuvo implementation is also not a good argument in favor of Denuvo. If they weren't using Denuvo, there would be nothing for them to implement in a way that unintentionally impacts performance.
Except the pirates that have to crack denuvo to get it to run... Hey, I'm a patient gamer that hasn't bought a "AAA" game new, for more than 1/2 price since Diablo 3 launch, and I hate denuvo, but there is no excuse for this wilfully ignorant BS when there is more than enough legit criticism if you would only try...
@@IRGeamer One person has to crack Denuvo to get it to run. Then, a would-be player does not have to deal with Denuvo on the cracked product. Meanwhile, if I pay for the product while it has Denuvo on it, I receive a gimped, failure-prone version of something that the pirates are running literally just better. I will pay whatever is asked for the best available version of the product, myself.
@@IRGeamer Your argument also willfully ignores the fact that the vast majority of pirates will never touch a non-cracked denuvo game in the first place, as RaptureSR's comment still rings true despite what you say. "Regardless of how effective Denuvo is, the argument that it only affects paying customers is valid because paying customers are the only ones who ever have to deal with it." Pirates who see a non-cracked denuvo game are gonna have three options; Option 1. They ignore the game alltogether and go back to other games that have already been cracked. Option 2. Dedicated pirates will throw attempts at trying to crack the denuvo protection, to varying degrees of success or failure. Option 3. The pirates stop being pirates and buy the game. Option 3 won't happen, people want free stuff and especially so if they believe it's for whatever cause they might have ideas about. Option 2 will only be for a minority of pirates, as with denuvo's increasing quality comes with a decrease in pirates skilled enough to navigate those protections. The skilled pirates continue, in much smaller numbers, while the vast majority flock to our final option. Option 1, which constitutes the majority of pirates, means that your "idea" that pirates still being affected by denuvo entirely falls flat. Congrats, you've inconvenienced a small minority of pirates, while the majority go back to playing cracked games anyway. You've effectively done so much, for so little gain, and also affecting your actually genuine and legal customers with software that might as well tell you to fuck off if you try and use it without big brother denuvo's permission. I've gone on a slight tangent with that, but complex topics require comparatively longer paragraphs.
@@unnoticed4571 Don't forget that for the dedicated cracking subset of people, having your group be the one to break a game is a mark of honour... therefore whilst a tough one to crack may get less attention, someone will be looking at it somewhere.
@@jeagerblackpaw2922 I didn't mention this, but you are correct there.
Месяц назад+126
The problem with Denuvo is not performance, it's GAME PRESERVATION. And eventually even the copyright will expire. And there are companies like Frontier that NEVER remove Denuvo.
The Denuvo games that came out in 2023 - 2024 weren't worth cracking or pirating. The "quality" of AAA games is becoming lower and lower to the point where pirates don't want to waste their time cracking a game that's a PoS and going to be a waste of time. The best way to prevent piracy is to make a crappy game that no one wants to play, buy, or pirate, and it seems like AAA companies have figured that out.
@@Syvern. wukong would have sold as well if they didnt pay denuvo, in fact, id always argue the sales won by frustrating players who cant play it for free (which are minimal) barely breaks even with the money spent paying denuvo
Most probably the reason denuvo hasn't been cracked lately is because the person who could do it in a constant manner, EMPRESS, went on a big rampage against trans people and I'm guessing hasn't gone back to cracking. Denuvo is a hell of a crack, too difficult for most pirates.
The argument that "it only affects legitimate players" has a better-worded alternative: "it **disproportionately** affects legitimate players." This is especially true with the always online stuff, and is compounded by the fact that if a person can't pirate something, it doesn't mean they were going to buy it in the first place.
The problem is I don't view Denuvo as actually saving the studios money. For starters, the money that Denuvo would be saving for studios is potential sale lost - cost of Denuvo = supposed profit earned. Potential sales are just that, potential. The people that pirate the game are in no way shape or form going to rush out to buy the game because they can't pirate it. Some will, how many is really going to be up to guess work. However, I absolutely do not believe 20% of sales are lost to piracy (which again, is were the profit is supposedly saved by Denuvo).
I can say at least from listening to the grapevine, they would never be day one/full price customers, ever. They would rather wait for a sale especially with singleplayer games.
It’s also worth noting that many game pirates are Non-US/EU based. They come from poorer countries like Brazil where exchange rates mean that a $60 game is like 10% of their monthly salary - without a significant regional discount they simply won’t buy the game.
what you are describing is effectively "sales out of frustration" no one in the US or EU is going to be frustrated over 60$, we, the majority, are leagues above that, considering you need 1500$ pcs to run these games in the first place, so these "frustrated" people who are going to buy the game because they cant play it for free dont exist. Who is this DRM for then? poor pakistan, brazil or india people which 60$ for them is like if we in the US or EU were to buy something for 300-400$. These people were never going to buy the game, whats to gain for game company then? peace of mind their game is not being pirated? because all i see is a net loss however you look at it, plus angering all the customers buying the game. Oh, and game preservation shenanigans too. loss-loss-loss for everyone except denuvo of course, thanks denuvo
@@lordfreezer9550 you are not completely correct. There are frustrated people who would buy a game if they can't pirate it. I, for example, bought Anno 1800 this way. And I'm from EU, and $60 is not exactly all that much, I certainly can afford any new game I want, it's just that I rather won't pay them if I could, thankyouverymuch. Not big on ethics, me. At least on ethics towards my own behavior. Anyway, witnessing a lot of pirating communities, I've saw plenty of examples of people buying the game that can't be cracked in the first week.
One of the other factors to consider is potential sales lost from the association with Denuvo. I can only speak for myself, but I won't buy a game if I see Denuvo on the steam page.
Denuvo: "People are toxic and negative!" - This is a tired consumer-slander tactic anyone can see through at this point, and it's all their own fault anyway. Moreover, companies don't get to complain about "toxicity" and negativity. It's one thing if their employees were getting harassed or even just unduly exposed to normal criticism outside of work, but unlike them, a company is not a person, it's a professional business entity and should act like one. Denuvo: "We bring value to players by increasing revenue!" - A minority of instances of piracy would be/are converted to actual sales if they could be/are prevented. I'd bet there are even less lost sales or lost full-price sales after the launch window, because pirates can be patient. If a crack never gets out, the ones that can or would buy the game wait for a sale. Moreover, we don't know how much Denuvo charges. That extra revenue could just be used to line Denuvo's pocket! Denuvo: "It's not our fault! The developers implemented it wrong!" - This is still partially if not mostly Denuvo's fault. It's a failure of Denuvo to provide adequate support services to developers, especially before launch. It's in their own best interest (especially for their bottom line) that they ensure products that use Denuvo don't use it incorrectly, and they ignored that.
Corporations are people. So says the largest government on earth, the same one that pummels any resistance and is near-blindly followed by other powerful nations
I think this is most of it, tbh. The sorts of games that get Denuvo are often some that are the least worth cracking. People just don't give enough of a shit for it to be worth it.
what it really means is the 1 person in the world who was cracking denuvo quit because she got doxxed so now there are 0 people with the time and skills
@@adomuir2239 The game that might have been the biggest launch of last year, Baldur's Gate 3, is DRM-free on Steam. That's not some small indie game, it's an AAA game with a pretty well known licensed IP.
Both Baldur’s Gate 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 come DRM-free on Steam, not to mention the countless indies that do as well. Steam DRM realistically is there to appease the investors of other game studios by pretending their game is protected so they won’t use another DRM type. This seems very manipulative lmao
@@RunePonyRamblings braindead "vote with your wallet" NPC response. There will always be cheaters, it doesn't mean that everyone else should suffer and be exposed to kernel-level security breaches.
@@codybarrow4036 well you know what's an even bigger security risk? Hackers being able to do remote arbitrary code execution on your machine. And you know, that's in addition to making the multiplayer experience unplayable.
Steam absolutely sells games that are DRM free, it's optional for publishers. It's quite common with Ancient DOSBox games, and many old games have No-CD cracks pre-applied.
If the game is also sold on GOG it likely doesn't have DRM on Steam either, and despite GOG's original mission, they sell more than just "Good Old Games" nowadays. Not sure why the old Steam == DRM line keeps going around but bit disappointed to see it repeated even here, to be honest.
@@miguelpereira9859 Yeah but how much does that really matter if HL2 is extremely easy to pirate if you want to, goes on sale for like a dollar and Steam DRM is extremely unintrusive and doesn’t really negatively affect the user experience in any meaningful way? DRM is bad but let’s not pretend all DRM is the same now.
PC gaming is a rabbit hole. You can basically play all games with multiplayer LAN/Split-screen, but you basically need to crack games and install mods/hacks. This has nothing to do with payment. I've paid money for all the games I'm playing, but sometimes were forced to unlock features with unofficial methods. Now we even have modders putting in small forms of drm. How do developers not understand the core issue. Major studios like Larian and CD Projekt don't use drm and provide LAN/mod support.
@@TheDMan2003 It was for a Reshade mod, so not really related to any game in particular. In other words, this mod had some code to turn off the computer if it detects a debugger tracing it.
@@tablettablete186 that ff14 thing, i remember that. someone essentially forked the mod for features that it didn't have. then the dev threw a fit and made a forced shutdown code. github had to shut it down as that's basically a criminal level of malicious code in most computer using countries as that could lead to all forms of data corruption.
m8 if your HDD dies, Denuvo would be the very last thing that would cause it. I have used a performance tracker program to check how much Denuvo costed me. After an hour of gameplay it wrote a grand total of 30 mb. For 1 TB of SSD/HDD, it would take Denuvo around a million year for it to finally brick it. So either that your HDD is on the edge of dying and the game/denuvo was the final push, or the HDD is faulty in the first place.
4:51 Yeah no If someone was willing to pirate the game themselve or wait until a pirated version was created then for sure that person wouldn't bought the game anyway There won't be increase of revenue
maybe there would be in cases like for example people that want to test the game before paying, a lot of those people probably buy the game if they like, but also many of them will decide the game is not worth it after trying it. a lot of those people however would either refund the game or regret their purchases if they had to buy the game, what when looking at the statistics in a vacuum could appear like better sales.
They are also severely underestimating how many of us were so badly burned, so frequently, by a variety of "AAA" lies/scams/manipulations that we have become "patient gamers" that can easily wait a year or two for discounts large enough to make the game have a reasonable value for us instead of executive management desperately trying to leverage maximal profit for the shareholders.
There's the increase in revenue from people that tried the pirated copy and decide to save up and buy. But there's no decrease in revenue when someone was forced to pirate it first. If someone has to pirate to get a demo of the game and decides not to buy no money was lost. Piracy in the place of absent demos sells 9/10 games to me, and only 1 game I ever pirated did I say "Nah, I'm fine skipping this" and uninstalled the pirate copy because the game was pants
Yeah it’s the small minority of people who would pirate the game but only if Denuvo is removed. If someone wants to pirate the game they’ll just wait till DRM is removed. There are not many people who say “I want to pirate the game, but it has DRM, so I’ll just buy it.” At least far fewer than the people who buy it with DRM and get performance issues
On the "Denuvo doesn't cause performance issues" you'll note that he immediately followed that with a "if done properly" caveat. From what I understand (which admittedly might be nothing at all) the way Denuvo is designed to work is it's to be inserted between the game logic and some necessary event that would be very difficult for someone to bypass without damaging the game logic. For instance object instantiation. Every time an enemy spawns it could be made to go through a Denuvo obfuscation and so someone trying to bypass it could wind up with a game that simply doesn't spawn enemies. However if your game engine makes no distinction between infrequently spawned objects like enemies and frequently spawned objects like particles, then suddenly Denuvo's code is being run thousands of times a second or more. And THAT's really what he was saying. "We want developers to pick something that's too important to trivially bypass, but not SO important that it's causing constant noticeable performance drops." And then he blames the developer for choosing "wrong." If Denuvo genuinely had no performance impact then logically there would be no problem simply having the entire game logic run in their VM in its entirety. But obviously that can't be made to work because their obfuscated VM is too much of a performance impact so developers have to choose some small part to protect, but not so small that if it was removed entirely the game would still function. How much do you want to bet they've had the reverse argument with developers whose games were bypassed? "You should have protected MORE then." And if they had "The performance problem is because you protected too much." And so on.
The thing is Spyro the Dragon used exactly the kind of DRM Denuvo claims it's doing correctly. Have you ever seen Spyro on PS1 get massive performance lags doing anything? No? Because the people implementing their anti-piracy were actually competent at designing the piracy trap checks, unlike Denuvo taking wrecking balls to everything and then blaming everyone else for the software equivalent of "YOU'RE INTERROGATING THE TEXT FROM THE WRONG PERSPECTIVE". (also for Spyro it WORKED: it took over 6 months for people to correctly crack all the boobytraps, and it took 3 months for them to get past the first few layers that made the game unplayable past the demo level, so people getting the bootleg basically just had a free demo that was no more than a PSX Underground disc with less demos on it. That was enough to basically plug up the entire "console sales lost to piracy" window and deter the bootleggers looking for a quick buck, leaving just the ones that did it to prove their programming chops to spend 6 months to get the fully cracked game out.)
@@complexacious Yeah, I'm a modder and I also believe Denuvo works in pretty much exactly the way you described. It absolutely hurts performance, but only for the functions which are actually obfuscated by Denuvo. The functions which are unobfuscated are not affected. Most of the functions are usually unobfuscated in the games I've looked at, but the ones that are obfuscated are very random. These games normally run well for me, but they have a LOT of random hard lag spikes where suddenly my whole machine completely locks up for a good couple of seconds before unfreezing. I play a lot of games, and only the Denuvo games do this. I absolutely believe the spikes are because of Denuvo's unobfuscation process. If these games ever get a Denuvoless version, I would love to compare their performance to prove that.
Frankly, I'm not buying it. This isn't a matter of trusting the consumer. No, I accuse EA, BioWare, and Denuvo of constructing a false narrative situation where the consumer will lose regardless. Veilguard sells well, they claim the "modern audience" is the future, and abominable designs will get pushed even harder. Veilguard flops, they claim it was because they trusted "toxic gamers", asserting that Denuvo would've saved them. Also, Denuvo still relies on the false claim that pirates would buy games they can't pirate, and treat PROSPECT sales as real sales.
From what I've seen, Veilguard isn't worth my time even if I pirate it. I'd rather play any of the other decent looking games I have in my backlog. I can live without buying any games with Denuvo, but they'll go bankrupt if the market as whole rejects them.
Ironically enough, piracy is what lead me to but most of my library, and even buy games for other people. If you make a good game, people will eventually buy it. And in my case, I'm talking games like RimWorld, which back in the day didn't go on sale. I think that game is up to $115 now? Kek
Same, i play games on a budget-budget, so i pirate most of my games, but if i really like those games eventually i’ll buy it for the sake of buying it. Piracy is simply not a sales lost, it just wasn’t a sale to begin with, but make a good enough games and it will become a sale one way or another.
@@totalmisplay So true. Many games in my library are games I bought anyway after pirating them, simply because it is easier to keep up with updates when you have an official copy, or to add DLC's later, or for ease of use as a consumer. When a game is good, there is enough reason to buy it, especially when it goes on sale. I haven't even pirated anything in the past few years, because there wasn't anything worth pirating even, or I bought the games I was considering to pirate on sale instead for the sake of convenience.
"Steam does not sell DRM free games" is a false statement. Steam doesn't care if a game has DRM or not and sells many DRM free games that you can play without the launcher after install. Apart from many indies, every game by CD Project RED and Larian is DRM free. Yes, they don't even use Steam DRM.
I guess I would push back with "the customer implemented it wrong" with "then it's not simple enough". As the end customer, I don't care why Denuvo makes it slower. I care *that* Denuvo made it slower. It makes me wonder how much time it takes them to implement and test it when they could be using those resources elsewhere.
Reminds me of that one old Developer Tycoon game that forces you into a bad end where every single player of your game pirates it if the anti-tamper is tripped. It's soo childish.
"We trust you" is kind of a shitty thing to say honestly. Imagine if a purchase at the shops went like "Here's your money!" "...aaand here are your trousers - I'll even remove the exploding alarm on it because *I trust you!* ❤" "... What do you mean?" "I just trust you so much I took the alarm off!" "What do you mean you *trust* me?" "I mean I'm just such a magnanimous person that I trust that you're a straight up customer. Aren't I great?" "But I already paid for it. No trust is required. I gave you the money. You're implying that I might not have, after I already did it." "..." "Also I'm pretty sure that guy over there just cut off the alarm on that shirt he's running off with."
Yep, it's extremely patronizing and a pathetic attempt to come off as the good guy. "Look we won't cripple our own game for 0 benefit to you as a customer because we trust that you're not a disgusting pirate, like us please." However, Denuvo does absolutely work and games that have will not be cracked anytime soon. No one in the cracking scene is capable of doing it which has been the case for 1.5 years now.
@@omarcomming722I'm actually not at all against anti-piracy if it 1) works and 2) doesn't hurt the paying customers. If those two things are met, then heck yeah, great. I'd love for the developers and publishers of my favourite things to get paid well.
Thinking about it, I guess the comparison doesn't really work like this. It's more like if you walked into the shop and the salesperson came up to tell you they trust you not to steal. "I'm not even going to keep an eye on you!" "What?" "I just *trust you so much* I'm going to let you look at our wares unsupervised!" "I'm not a thief. I wasn't going to steal anything." "Of course you weren't! Of course! I'll look away now and I bet those pants will be right there on the rack because you're so trustworthy
This. I travel for work and stay in remote locations. I bought COD for the campaign to play at work only to find out my 70 dollar game I bought specifically for offline play need to be online. That day I vowed to never spend another penny on cod games
@@longshot5866 Doesn't COD use 3rd party launcher ? Because more often than Denuvo it is sh!t launchers like Rockstar social club and EA app that prevent offline play. I'll never buy games that requires such account linking. On that note, even Epic games is trash in this regard.
One of the grand ironies is that AAA’s insistence that they release unfinished games with persistent monetization has likely undermined them badly-they are protecting an unfinished games and becoming ineffective when the game starts to feel whole.
Just to talk about 1:02 bypassing/cracking denuvo (which some people call "removing" denuvo) then finding the same performance benchmark result. . . that doesn't mean Denuvo wasn't/isn't hogging resources. It's still hogging resources with it's spaghetti code running in the game, it's just tricked/disabled "calling home" to a server, has infinite re-installs etc. Basically cracking denuvo then comparing performance before and after is not proof Denuvo doesn't have a performance impact because it's not really 'removed', just tricked. Still hogging resources.
If someone can't afford a game, denuvo doesn't give them the money to do so. It's not a question of pirate or buy, it's a question of play (& spread word of mouth, engage in communities, most effective source of marketing industry) or don't play at all. If someone wanted to buy a game, they would have done so already regardless of whatever DRM infests the exe.
Nope I refuse to buy games with kernel level drm. Don't care how much I love the franchise. I didn't get EA WRC, and won't be getting civ 7. I love those games.
I couldn't afford games before all I had was a decent laptop I got from my parents. I pirated most of the games on it to play. Now I actually buy those games whenever possible. I pirated because I couldn't afford. Most notable is the Resident Evil games. I pirated the 2 remake and loved it. I got into RE played all games (pirated) and now I've brought all of them except RE4 remake because my laptop can't handle that one.
@@Itsfinebuddy I got pirated Skyrim because I needed to use console commands to mod my PS3 skyrim save. My laptop at the time could run ultrapotato Skyrim with ultrapotato ini tweaks at like 15fps. Not enough to be anywhere near playable, but enough that I could use console commands just fine to spawn static objects as decoration and save them to my save, then use the PS3/PC save transfer tool to put them back onto my PS3. I ended up buying Special Edition when all the Creation Club stuff got put in it for Anniversary along with a massive performance boost, the extra Dwemer dungeons and Ghosts of the Tribunal's new armors made it worth it for me, until then I was fine with cracked Oldrim and my legitimate PS3 version.
Not interested in any game that comes with included malware, which is what I consider this to be. Also this tends to make me want to blacklist the company entirely regardless of their product. If they don't show me a minimum level of trust and respect, why should I show them any at all?
This is the way. If a company feels they need malware like that "to protect against pirates" then they're essentially saying that anyone buying it can't be trusted not to be a pirate. I don't appreciate that, so those companies can go bankrupt for all I care. Preferably go bankrupt, I think. The best games (for me) are fully DRM free. It means I can keep my copies of the game backed up and play the game outside the ubiquitous access to the Internet in the modern world.
Let's be honest, I don't think Denuvo has gotten much better. Most games nowadays aren't even worth the effort to crack to begin with. Most triple-A studios that made games that got pirated back then, make some kind of sloppy/buggy mess nowdays. Do you see people cracking Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League? Nah, not really , it's just not even worth the effort.
Nothing screams "Trust me" like a company that is built on virtualization technology saying any validation needs to be done in their control, in their offices, on their systems.
@@valmiro4164 the telegram cult came before the hiatus, empress went on a gooner powertrip and then got called out for it and stopped cracking denuvo. Not that I blame her, there was a bunch of transphobia being thrown around at her and that's not cool
last i heard empress stopped cracking games to create NFT's or something since he/she got fed up being roasted by the community for his/her insane rants (I'm still not sure if empress is a dude or a girl) but personally i didn't mind the rants . if you are smart enough to single handedly remove denuvo from a game within a few days i think you've earned the right to be a bit mentally unhinged
It's not just that. Selling offline accounts for protected games to third-worlders (and Russia) had found to be more lucrative than defeating Denuvo for street cred. Of course, most gamers would emulate console versions anyway...
Denuvo WILL ALWAYS LOWER PERFORMANCE, end of story. Running extra code not related to the game, WILL LOWER PERFORMANCE. Just like if you were zipping up files in the background, or any other compute task. Its just less of an ISSUE on some games, because the game is simpler in terms of CPU calls, and has has many CPU cycles to 'spare'. That doesnt mean it isnt lowering performance, it means the hardware has enuff headroom to account for the extra dogshit code.
At the end of the day, Denuvo is pushed to publishers, not developers. Developers all know that it causes a performance hit, though the amount of a performance hit is dependent on how it is implemented, the more intrusive, the harder it would be to crack, the worse the game will perform. I cannot say for sure but I would suspect that Denuvo advises it to be as ingrained as possible to make it less likely to be cracked. It is simply a matter of fact for programming that Denuvo simply being added to a game causes a performance hit that would otherwise not be there. And I see no way they will even attempt to dispute this fact, unless they wish to throw around frivolous lawsuits to scare people people from speaking. Also it's kinda just a question of why would a publisher/developer want to add Denuvo to a game if they already know it's going to sell well. Some people do just outright refuse to buy a game if they know Denuvo is in it, or spend their lives moaning about it on the steam forums, which Denuvo has now validated by mentioning it...
Publishers are the ones who handle the legal side of things. Not only does it make it harder to crack the programs, but once it does happen it does give them more legal powers as not only is it copyright infringement but it also becomes illegal circumvention, especially in the US and EU.
You are missing the marketing pitch for Denuvo. It is easy for us outside of the conference room to see that Denuvo isn't all that it is hyped up to be, but the same might not be true if you are a high level executive whose main job is to make sure that the game will make money. The situation with Denuvo isn't much different from antivirus when you think about it. You are payaing a fee to install a program that might help you to avoid further losses. And, in both cases, once you get sold the subscription, why give it up? Surely it was a good investment and has helped you thus far, right?
It's not that Denuvo is more resilient than before, it's that hackers got either arrested, quit cracking Denuvo's protection cause it was always a pain-in-the-ass to deal it, or in Empress case got consumed by madness and became completely detached from baseline reality.
I’ve never been convinced that the ‘piracy problem’ on PC wasn’t massively over inflated in the first place… it’s just been a boogeyman used to justify terrible anti-customer practices.
12:55 "steam does not sell DRM-less games" that's actually not true! While it's not possible to get games w/o going through the steam app, once the files are downloaded it's up to the publisher/developer to get it integrated with steam, in all different ways. This goes from full integration, where parts of the game are done by the steam runtime (think mods, multiplayer), to simple "copy protection & licence management", all the way through to "nothing", this last one being steam is just the download client that plopped the files into your hard drive. Notable examples of this are for example OpenTTD, which is a fully open-source clone of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, or (up to some time in the past, unsure about the state now) Kerbal Space Program. In each of the cases above, you can (and I have myself) copied the install folder straight from the steam library into a network-less VM and successfully ran the game with no issues whatsoever.
Correction on Steam DRM. Steam DRM is separate from steam and developers have to implement it themselves. It is not on every Steam game. There are many, many, games on Steam without DRM that can be run straight from the .exe without Steam even open. A notable example I can think of is the Arma series. I know because my game (Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams) is on Steam and has no DRM. You can copy it to a usb and run it from there even.
Players: So you're saying you have absolute proof that your implemented product _doesn't_ affect a game's overall performance? Denuvo: Yes! Players: Can we see it? Denuvo: ...No...
@@hirakchatterjee5240 They lost nothing to pirates, because no-one who pirated this would ever buy it, and not even close to a million people actually pirated this game anyway.
Damn, who knew that treating your customers like thieves would backfire? Imagine going to a store to buy something and armed guards watch you closely, then when you buy it, you buy it with a security tag still there. In any other scenario that place would be out of business already…
Less games with Denuvo being cracked makes sense when you look at the games that are being released with Denuvo. It's like Masterlock providing locks mainly for sheds full of shit and being proud that less sheds are being broken into.
there are big titles locked behind denuvo, the shitshows may catch more attention, but there is real damage being done to good games: TW:WH3, jurassic world evolution 2, dead space remake, atomic heart... yeah, ubisoft's already bankrupt template games where you swap assets and have the exact same game but SW, japan, vikings, avatar, far cry 5,6,7,8-9000... we dont care about those, the can put all the drm they want on those (which btw they actually do, SW outlaws has 5 DRMs including denuvo...)
Much as Denuvo tries to blame developers for implementing Denuvo wrong for causing performance issues to convince us that their product isn't bad, that only proves just how bad their product is if so many developers don't know how to use it properly. I mean that would be like me starting my own car company, and then blaming my customers when the car I sold them doesn't run well because they weren't following all the instructions in the owner's manual properly.
Giant and bold assumption that even a decent percentage of whose who pirate a game would have bought the game at all regardless of denuvo. Also there is a big list of DRM free games on steam you didn't even try to look.
The antidote to piracy is "make good product." People usually have a sense of fairness. If you give them something good, something that made their day better, they want to reward you. Giving money is a way of doing that, so is advertising it to friends and family. One makes money directly, the other saves it. Both mean more money in the business's wallet. So, obviously, it follows that if people would rather not give you money than your product is not good enough for them. Either because it isn't their cup of tea or because it needs improvement in their eyes. So that means make better products and make a larger variety of products to appeal to more customers. That's the answer. Everyone who still decides to pirate is simply a noncustomer, unwilling to give you money for any reason. But, at the very least, if the pirated version exists- they can be a living advertisement. Make a product good enough for people to want to give you money out of gratitude, and don't bother thinking about piracy. That's the solution.
The true solution to piracy is to not be assholes and give us bullshit pricing. Example: TV Show & Movie piracy went down IMMENSE amounts in the years following Netflix Online going worldwide. It was simply not worth the time & effort it took to source, download and often deal with shitty quality, missing subtitles or whatnot, compared to a cheap netflix subscription. Example 2: Movie & Show Piracy has gone up massively again over the last few years, reason ? 20 different streaming services, each of them with a niche set of movies, often limited by country, with ever-increasing prices and sharing-prevention: Game Examples ? "AAAA" games priced at 80$, garbage titles costing 60$ for horrible gameplay, DLC's that should have been initial content at 15-20$, etc. etc. If you make the effort of cracking & piracy lower than the cost of the game, people will pirate. And in todays online world, even my sister's kids can find out how to get stuff and often without the old "Here, have this virus" that us old-timers dealt with in the days of Napster and such. Oh and F Denuvo and their awful game-destroying "software" aka Spyware, root-kit virus-like shit.
The funniest part is that for most pirates it's a choice between pirating the game and *not buying it* So like, most of the time there's little to no potential sales lost
"There can't be benchmarks because our partners won't allow it" is bullshit. Assuming there even are any contractual restrictions, they negotiated and signed those contracts.
Sounds like Denuvo have a very poor implementation that requires too much effort from developers to get it working "correctly". That's on Denuvo and they need to figure out how to achieve the goal without requiring developers to build their games around it.
There are 4 reasons people pirate. 1) They legitimately can't afford new games - fixed with better regional pricing. 2) They wanna try the game first - fixed with a good demo or trial version 3) They don't want to pay for games - this crowd is unlikely to buy even with anti piracy measures in place. 4) The pirated version provides a better experience/piracy is the only option to play - Find out why and fix it.
Denuvo lowering performance by 5-10%. "Not our fault" BTW on the topic of anti-temper, Dying Light 2 had cheats on release, so no, Denuvo is not working at all from that side either.
It's kinda by design? I'm not using this term with irony - modern audiences are rather fine with buying game again with remaster once title will go out of service. I buy all stuff on GOG and I would literally borrow mine games to a friend of mine sometimes... It used to be normal nowadays it's pretty oldschool approach these days. Modern gamers just are used to completely different - straight up worse - standards.
There are no "losses" from piracy. Only money not made. The two are not the same. Calling it "losses" is just just company jargon to make piracy seem like it causes more impact than it actually does. The only "losses" a company has is money spent preventing piracy. Money not made does NOT equal "losses". And the thing is that many of the people who pirate probably wouldn't have bought the game legitimately anyway. I'd guess that pirates mostly only get pirated software and probably rarely, if ever, legitimately buy - either they enjoy the 'challenge' and 'satisfaction' of piracy, or perhaps can't afford to buy those games anyway. These aren't losses - they were never even potential profit!! That isn't a company loss!! And the costs that he mentions here are probably only the start of what it costs to add DRM - there's probably a LOT of development time (money) put into it's implementation, which probably massively adds to how much it costs to put all that DRM on. Perhaps game making studios are only just starting to realise this very obvious stuff. Better late than never, I suppose. To say that DRM, extra code that has to run through in order to play, doesn't affect fps rate has to be the one of the most stupid lying arguments. It's simply extra code and hoops that the game has to go through to play - there's no way that doesn't affect fps rate or make the game more intensive to run - the question is not WHETHER it does, but HOW MUCH. And the bottom line is that we legitimate buyers of this stuff have to pay extra for our games for something that doesn't benefit us but hurts us, is a pain in the *ss in the product we buy - runs our games slower or rougher, have legal jargon that we have to sign our lives away to comply with, and worse of all enforces internet connection, which is also, in my opinion, often unnecessary and is a massive turn-off - I personally don't buy games that require internet connection, DRM or not, because it means that my legitimately purchased game can be rendered unplayable at any time on some company's whim - and a company's whim is totally and irretrievably governed by whether they are making money or not by providing access to that game. Quite frankly, forcing internet is only a VERY GOOD reason to pirate instead!! Let me see, we could either buy a game legitimately knowing that a company can just, at any time, pull the plug on a game we paid good money for so that we can't play it any more, or pirate a game to ensure we have that game forever. Together with all the other downsides of DRM, it's a no-brainer!! Stupidly, pirating would actually seem the smarter option!! And that's pretty dumb!! This whole thing is just a publicity stunt. Company reputation consideration is a thing of the past. Companies don't care about people - they care about profit, and will do anything to ruthlessly make that profit. And their decisions are based on profit in the here and now - not reputation. Reputation used to be very important to companies decades ago, because people had higher ethics and actually cared about the ethics of who they bought stuff from. That kind of thinking is loooooong gone. But reputation means very little to most companies these days - they simply don't care about reputation. Look at EA. A company with universally appalling reputation, yet there are a massive number of stupid people happy to buy their garbage, and there seemingly is more of those stupid people than there are thinking people. I think that Gabe is mostly right. Piracy will always be present in a small number of people, just like other crimes - it can only be minimised. Make games easy to buy and reasonably priced and the vast majority of people will just buy them. But connect games to DRM that makes games run rougher, force people to accept signing a lot of their rights away in those DRM agreements (and some of them are outrageous and completely unfair), and making legitimate buyers pay for the privilege of all this guffaw is only likely to actually make more people favour piracy. I buy games on Steam because it's just an easy 5 second click of a couple buttons. The most annoying thing, and most laboriously intensive thing, is actually having to check to see whether the games have this stupid DRM or not!!!
_writesessays enters the chat_ the problem with their argument about having their partnered company earn 20% more revenue (thus justifying purchasing denuvo's services) is that it relies on one study that is based on faulty logic. the study argues that revenue is highest during the launch window (which is generally true), and that cracks released during this time period will have an impact on that sales window (which is also generally true). the problem comes from assuming what that impact will be. according to many _other_ studies, the impact is actually that the game generates _more_ money than if it had been protected. there are also plenty of other studies that say that piracy has _no_ impact on sales _whatsoever._ this is why you don't rely on a single study. to begin with, the first assumption that is made is that "people will not buy the game if they can pirate it for free". this is one _hell_ of an assumption that is demonstrably just not true for at least a significant chunk of pirates. many pirates look at it the same way people look at demos - a way to "try before you buy". if they pirate the game and like it, they will, situation permitting, later turn around and buy the game. most pirates understand that games are not made for free, and that if no one buys a good product, then there won't be more similar products in the future. furthermore, pirates are, at the end of the day, still human beings, and human psychology suggests that _most people try to be good people,_ even if internet forums make you think otherwise. outside of exceptions (like kleptomaniacs), most people do not enjoy stealing, and most thieves would prefer legal alternatives if they were available to them, even at a cost, because doing immoral things makes most people feel bad, and they don't like feeling bad more than they dislike spending money on a good or service. the problem with this assumptions, is that it assumes the average person is a psychopath. fun fact, _the average person is not a psychopath._ do you know what portion of people does have a high relative population of psychopaths? executives. so executives will buy this argument because they will assume the average person thinks like them. but it is detatched from reality. the second assumption that is made is the inverse of the first, that "people will buy the game if they can't crack it". this is, again, an unprovable argument. there's no way to prove that the people who are pirating a given game would have bought the game had the cracked version not been available. for the above mentioned "try before you buy" crowd, if they were sitting on the fence as to whether or not to buy the game, the inability to try it beforehand would incentivize them to just jump off the fence and go "you know what, I wasn't that interested anyway" and spend their time doing something else. buying a game from a no-name team carries risk - you don't know if the team will just give up on working on the game once they get your money, or whether the game will be full of bugs, or whether you'll even enjoy it or not, and for a lot of games, 2 hours is not enough to get a feel for it. buying a game from a big company nowadays also carries risk - you don't know if the team will just give up on working on the game once they get your money, or whether the game will be full of bugs, or whether you'll even enjoy it or not, and oh look at that, they're the same reasons! quality control in the market is so poor, trust is so low, and the market is so saturated, that you cannot expect someone who would have originally pirated a game to buy said game if pirating it wasn't an option. there's just too many alternative paths they could have taken that are far easier. finally, there's a fatal flaw in all of these studies, and that's with cost attribution. how do you know a successful game was successful because it was shipped with anti-piracy measures and _not_ because it was, you know, _a good game?_ how do you know a failure flopped because it got pirated and not because, you know, _it was filled to the brim with bugs and was just generally unfun?_ hell, even actually good games can flop because people didn't know it even existed. some games do terrible at launch, only to suddenly have a massive spike in activity several years later - like that one minor indie game you might have heard of called "Among Us", which was created in 2018 and didn't actually see any players for _two years_ before it suddenly became ingrained in internet culture. game creation is not an exact science, which means there are many, _many_ variables at play, a great number of them completely out of the hands of developers (you can't just _cause_ a pandemic to ensure people stay inside playing your game that released around the same time. no, don't give EA any ideas). and because of that, it's really difficult to say whether or not a game did well or not just because a crack existed for it. maybe the game was just really, really good and word of mouth ensured that people bought it despite there being no cracked copy. maybe the real problem with the game wasn't that it was cracked, but that it _physically_ cracked your hard drives when you tried to run it. and different genres attract different folks. a deal breaker for one fan base could easily be a core feature in another. when did it launch? where did it launch? was it region locked? how many major bugs did it have? what was its rating? did it show up in any news articles? what did they say? did anyone talk about it online? what genre of game was it? what was its price? who was the developer? who was the publisher? is the game banned in china? does it have politics? does it come with additional packaged software, and what are they if yes? what was the economy like at the time? it's just wholly inaccurate to boil it down to "did this game have a crack, and how much did it sell" when there are so many other uncontrollable variables at play.
Hot take. If your Denuvo game needs connected to the internet to function, you may as well just make it reliant on your servers and expect a steam account.
true but steam is alot more leeinint. like you can instal steam on a laptop, install the game on said laptop. run it ones (not sure if you actuall need to). unplug the laptop from the internet. jump on a train and you can play your steam game for more or less as long as you want. and if steam (after days) think its time for a internet check its a 2 min 33K/b phone connection at most and now the offline timmer is full. meanwhile other DRM. oh internet Droped for 0.5 sec kicked out of the single player game. note I lost internet connection in wow for 15+ sec (2012) while on a 90-600 MS ping internet connection and wow never complained.
I'll also just not understand game companies paying denuvo at minimum 6 figures for "potential sales" then cram micro transactions in the game. Save the money and don't put useless microtransactions in your game. Am i the only one who sees the irony of the situation here? Like DMC 5 doesn't have any denuvo and i'm fairly certain capcom reported it was one of their best selling games in 2022-23.
Actually Steam does sell DRM free games, and steam offline mode work indefinitely, meaning that you can download a game then launch it in offline mode immediately. Edit: also another thing about steam preload, from what i know, steam preload encryption is uncrackable.
12:53 That is not true. It's the publisher's choice to use steam's DRM. I own several games on steam that can be put on a USB and play without steam even being installed.
You don't need Denuvo. I never pirate games, if I can't play the game, then I don't play it, devs loss. Its ultimately the devs responsibility to make the game available for all regions and make the pricing fair. If the devs were fair, they wouldn't have any issues.
Denuvo always makes the game a hard pass, so much so that it isn't even a consideration. However, skipping Denuvo doesn't mean I'm automatically going out to buy it. Veilguard's "I'm gay, the library is to the east" writing automatically makes it a no-purchase even without DRM.
It's simpler than that. Microsoft has stated it is removing all kernel level access in the next year or two. The crowd strike crash. Instead they are building a limited API. No one knows what it'll be, just that it's happening. Also, no one wants to be dumping resources into a product they know will be functionally useless in a year or so.
@@lordfreezer9550 words on the street is that they will limit kernel level access but it is only but a bandaid solution and most likely its not consumer wide but enterprise services only so yeah not everything that ran on windows will get this
Ooohhhhh, the it's not our fault arguement. I'm not convinced. I hope more businesses don't use them until they fix their problems and not blame everyone else for their short comings.
14:24 As mentioned seconds before, more and more games are dropping Denuvo a few months after launch so it will only get easier to benchmark games before and after such patch and get a definitive answer.
@@tartiflette6428 Only if the before/after comparison doesn't also contain other patches, which is rarely what happens. When devs go to remove Denuvo, they generally have bug fixes, patches, and optimizations that are implemented at the same time
6:00 .. 20% more revenue?.. piracy was rampent in the 90s because distribution was poor and it was often the only way to get many games. I really don't think these days that many people actually pirate games and am sure that the majority of people who do, cant afford them.. that said, anti piracy measures will not make this market miraculously be able to afford them!
There's also the fact many games we want to play now are just inaccessible. Either the game isn't distributed on a country that really wants to play it or it's exclusive to a console that is no longer sold. Case and point, there's a large sample of piracy for Ghost of Tsushima and GOW Ragnarok because Sony banned selling it to 180 countries. Or the strong case of Emulation for Nintendo Games because nobody has a DS anymore. Heck, some games were better off played on PC even with Switch being fresh in the market because the system couldn't run it properly. And for the people who can't afford the games. Those aren't sales lost. In fact, some of them go on Reddit telling their story of buying the game they once loved but they played it as a youngun on a laptop they got for college.
Performance Benchmarks? Exonerating your rigorous DRM from the accusations of performance impact on highly demanding applications? Localised entirely within your Strasbourg Offices?! May I see them?
What I learned from this video: Wait until publishers stop including denuvo in their game after the initial launch period before buying the game. From crowd funded game scams, to pre-ordering released-broken games, to having to deal with intrusive "anti-piracy" malware on your system - it seems like the answer is pretty simple: Just wait longer before buying the game.
Steam DOES sell DRM-free games. Using Steam's DRM is an option the developer chooses to do. There are games on Steam where you can back up the game files and run them without Steam without it trying to launch Steam or even needing Steam installed. I just tested it with Dusk myself to make sure that they haven't changed this. Downloaded Dusk. Completely exited Steam. Moved Dusk's game files out of the Steam folder. Ran the game perfectly from the exe without it re-launching Steam. It's just that most developers don't do this because Steam's DRM is generally less intrusive than most DRM solutions that I'm aware of. (And probably not worth doing if your game relies on Steam for other services like multiplayer or payment - not impossible, but certainly a lot more work to have fall-backs for when they're not available)
@12:53 Steam DRM is not obligatory on Steam. Publishers are free to publish games without Steam DRM if they wish. PC gaming wiki maintains a list of games where little to no DRM is implemented on Steam distributed games.
Steam has proven time and time again. If you make a good game on a solid distribution platform people will still actually buy. They've shown plenty of data that having DRM or not having DRM makes no difference in the sales. Russia preSteam was considered a no mans land because piracy was so prolific till Steam came along and it presanctions became a big market. Ultimately, people will steal if they're gonna. Many don't unless priced or hedged out in some way. And all this DRM was often inevitably cracked anyways. These DRM often encouraged more stealing because games played better without them sometimes. It's like some DVDs were better because the illegal version didnt' have all those mandatory commercials slathered on it and other obnoxious things. Click, play, good to go.
@@Revkor I don't remotely see how your statement applies. I literally said if DRM is bad enough it did. But far as wrong, Steam published the sales data for companies that were using DRM then those that dropped it. It made no difference, other than that company usually paid a sizeable chunk of cash to buy, subscribe, and code for that DRM.
Go to ground.news/Bellular to see through media bias and stay fully informed. Sign up now with my link to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan. Sponsored by Ground.
You mean like the bias you publish?
That or they will use a different program. Also wasn't denuvo developed after teh company was bought by the same arm of sony that developed securom?
Screw Denuvo.
I wouldnt trust scam bias services like this most of the time itll lean one way or the other
@@soundsparkElaborate
The best thing Denuvo has done for gamers is to charge publishers a recurring fee so that they are incentivised to eventually remove it from their games.
The greed that proves that they are, in fact, doing it for themselves and not to help studios
Some dont even remuvo Trashuvo after +5years
@@dingickso4098 Man don't remind of Yakuza Judgement series
@@dingickso4098probably because they negotiated different contracts and it's still profitable for them
They still offer a one-time payment, unlimited option.
People playing pirated copies of their games isn't what's killing their launch window sales. People playing completely legit copies of their games, then revealing just how dogshit those games are to other people over the internet, _that's_ what's killing their launch window sales.
Or us patient gamers who wait for a year or two before picking up the game at a deep discount that actually reflects the cash value of the product for me instead of the profit projections of executive management.
@@IRGeamer I mean with how many games are shoved out as a buggy mess these days that's kind of mandatory these days. There's a number of companies who I'll never buy a game from on launch day because I know it'll be awful and just full of game breaking bugs.
@@IRGeamer I dunno about that tbh. I'd rather not pay them if they'll tank my performance. I didn't buy good components so they can squander the performance on their stupid DRM and give me stutters.
@@IRGeamer also i don't have to wait for a patch to fix the quest the QA missed (or the shipped without fixing anyway), along with all the performance issues and comparability issues that are now fixed, and the features that were released in the DLC that actually make the game way more enjoyable.
And the returns/refunds
Who knew that having atrocious DRM was actually a bad idea and did nothing but empower the very thing it was fighting against.
The cobra effect. If those that sail have a better time finding and accessing treasure at the sea that companies refuse to make it conveniently available or have police boats so false-positive prone they would fire a cannon if something looks remotely like a pirate ship, then no wonder why there are such that many pirate ships at the sea.
Denuvo is like ship port that have many security features like you would experience at an airport, but multiply that by 100. So much screening, metal detectors, turnstiles and such that experiencing the treasure would cause performance issues.
Most games make the majority of their sales within the first few weeks, which is about how long it takes a game with Denuvo to get cracked. So really, Denuvo does it's job rather well, hence why it kept being used for so long.
@@RunePonyRamblings it does its job well at the big cost of game performance :d
@@RunePonyRamblings if I'm going to play at lunch date I'll buy it... For example, I'll just buy Monster Hunter Wilds at release date and I don't care if it has Denuvo or not (I have a 7800X 3D so my CPU can handle it), as I bought Black Myth Wukong... BUT in the same side of the coin... I'm not caring to play Dragon Age Veilguard right now... Maybe one day... At sale... If I don't have anything else to do... Again maybe... Even when I probably would be able to pirate it cuz DRM Free... NO... TOO LAZY TO DO THAT.
For real, business and people can't understand how hard, long and tedious pirate something is... Deal with torrents, premium download services, blah blah... My time it's more precious than my money and for many PC gamers it's like that. Don't underestimate our lazyness...
It's kind of funny because the only games that have it are games i won't bother to buy anyways. Well, except DD2.
The fact that Denuvo denied everything at first and then they got caught lying about just shows you the type of company they are.
"Bu-but this time it's completely different, brah!"
It's almost as if people who make literal malware for a living, aren't the most honest folk. 🤔
Denuvo did admit on their own website years ago that their software was totally ineffective and was almost always bypassed day 1.
All companies are like this.
The day copy protection software prevented me from playing a game I legitimately purchased and installed, and then their customer service accused me of piracy even with receipts in hand to prove I bought it, was the day I lost all trust in copy protection, and assume it will do nothing but harm the consumer. I still never got to play Neverwinter Nights 2.
its on gog
Did you try getting it on GOG? That sounds like it sucked
I didnt know Neverwinter Nights 2 had DRM on it. I've still got my Lawful Good edition in storage and never had a problem with installing or playing it.
Considering its 2024 I'd recommend picking up the version on Good Old Games on a discount, its still well worth playing.
That sucks NWN2 is such a good game and never had a problem running it hope you find a way to play it
I have an original release version of F.E.A.R. Little did I know that you are only allowed 5 uses of the CD key for activation before your key is deactivated. I still have the discs and the manual with the CD key but it's worthless. I had to purchase it again on Steam to legally play it again. Same thing with Halo 2 for Windows Vista.
"Yeah, we have a bad reputation, and we're going to fix it by saying it's _everyone else's_ fault"
"Our client's customers are all criminals and our clients are hiding things from their customers." -Denuvo
Lets see how it plays out.
This genuinely sounds like something Todd Howard would do
"It's the developers' fault for implementing our software poorly"
Do they really think gamers care who's fault it is? The bottom line is gamers pay for a worse experience. They need to get that in their small heads.
Best part is that they wheren't even necessarily wrong in most points. But the points where so minimal and they provided no other reasons...
Like, sure, devs are not implementing the DRM properly. But that costs money, and profits is the REASON they paid for the DRM, there are no points for them here.
"People mad cuz they want free games" when the real victims are the people PAYING for the game. So they are crapping on the main source of money of the industry.
Only thing left for them at this point is dissapear and hope that whatever they make next doesn't carry over the bad reputation.
@gordonfreeman1163 no, Todd would just allow the game to be modded and fixed by the community, like always.
Denuvo protects me from buying games at launch. I'll get it once it gets removed, likely on sale.
Same
But do they ever remove the DRM? I'm guessing not :p
I used to travel a lot due to my job so I had gaming laptop, any stuff that requires internet connection is simply no go for me. I can understand it's not a common issue but imagine that someone could just have less access to entertainment if they would switch the job due to company selling a product making it intentionally worse for consumers. Pretty insane stuff.
@@PatchedUp As mentioned even in the video: there's an ongoing cost attached to keeping Denuvo in the game. You are right in some capacity: some games never remove it; but it's not like I lack in games to play.
@@lexvstee in general having drm software is only really economically viable in the launch weeks where most people who want to buy fullprice copies get them. At some points the game gets pirated. there's little value in paying the ongoing costs
Here's the thing: I don't care about piracy as a customer! For real, I don't! The claim that I'm somehow made better as a player because the company gets more money? Yeah, that might work if these scumbag companies weren't also nickel-and-diming me with scumbag monetization practices! "But, it would get a sequel!" Yeah, let's ask the Overwatch folks how THAT turned out, eh? For a single player game, Denuvo does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for me as a player no matter what the company claims. And for a multiplayer game, anti-cheating may be a good thing, but guess what? A pirated copy creates more players in the lobby!
i genuinely dont care if they're making more or less money.
they could be printing infinite money and the games will still be 10x worse than the games made on a tenth of a budget 15 years ago.
@@commentinglife6175 the fact that 40-60 dollar games are coming out riddled with micro transactions makes it hard to sympathize with developers. Video games have gotten a lot more expensive to make, but the majority of the AAA industry has gotten worse at using these inflated budgets to make actually good gaming experiences, not to mention the atrocious state of optimization. Sony spent $400 dollars on Concorde, a game that most gamers knew was gonna flop the moment they saw it. Game direction from big studios has become completely out of touch with consumers and they have nobody to blame but themselves.
Ironic that Denuvo is trying to save corporate games money by making the game un-piratable, but charging those corporate games an arm and a leg so they can't be pirated lol.
And then have it both not work and also turn people away even more.
Is not really that expensive for AAA companies according to leaks pricicing
@lstsoul4376 you say that when AAA companies will do anything and I mean anything to save every-single-penny.
@@TheBlargMarg Adding denuvo allows them to get more initial saving because people won't be able to crack it so it depends
@@lstsoul4376 only if the 20% more sales is to be believed, what according to other studies on piracy, seem to be highly exaggerated, or at least lacks context (refunds for example).
Cyberpunk 2077 launched day one at GOG, so naturally there was a torrent day one available with no crack needed. Yet it is one of the biggest PC launches of all time and most of it's sales were on GOG. More proof than that the DRM is useless you will never get. DRM is coping for corporations executives sleep better thinking they are stopping something unstoppable and gaining something out of it. People will buy games if they are good and have a good value proposition (reason regional pricing is super important), people will either ignore or pirate your game if they are unsure of it's value, if the game is good some of the pirates may buy it and if it's bad they will never touch it again legitimately or pirated. What I'm sure that never will happen is that someone that pirate games for whatever reason buy a game they are unsure if it's worth the asking price because a pirated version isn't available. The most likely scenario is that they will ignore it and the majority of people for the majority of games will never look at "old games" again if they didn't played them at the launch window. With the exception of course of those massive 10/10 games with lot's of legs (Cyberpunk 2077, Witcher 3, Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate, any Rockstar game since GTA IV, Bethesda games, etc).
The gradual drop of denuvo is probably because companies are trying to shift to bigger sales windows, trying to build games with sales legs that are not that much front loaded and sell well more than in the first few weeks alone, specially those massive 50-100 hour titles. And in case of Veilguard in general by the pre-orders numbers EA probably knows that this games will at least under-perform if not outright flop, why the hell would you undercut themselves more giving a cut of every sale to denuvo or pay a huge fee upfront?
I would argue that Denuvo is a scam. They are scamming publishers by selling them lie that piracy have a meaningful negative effect on sales.
In many cases piracy is a free marketing.
bethesda games are not 10/10 games lmfao
Lets just forget how awfull Cyberpunk was on launch
@@EdyAlbertoMSGT3 Well now think how awful it would have been when instead of trying to fix stuff they spent the last months before release to implement Denuvo badly.
@@EdyAlbertoMSGT3 but it did had an excellent launch, even made Red Projectk the most valuable company in Poland, at least for 1 weeks until pp realise how shitty the game optimization was
"It's not our fault that games with denuvo often run badly, its the developers for implementing it poorly!" Doesn't change the truth that if denuvo was not there in the first place then implementation wouldn't be an issue. If it happens so often then it must be pretty tricky to implement well. Imagine if that development time went to actually improving the game instead.
They promised their engineers will implement the cheat to work optimally with the customer (Devs) request, so if they claim it's the devs fault they can be accused of false advertisement.
Isn’t it Denuvo’s obligation and in their interest to see that developers implement their product properly. “Poorly implemented by developers” means “poorly supported by Denuvo”
that's just straight mocking their customer ngl.
Someone tell digital foundry we found out why game optimisation has been dogsh1t for a decade
"hey buy our product, it will help you make a profit"
"Hey it's not our fault that THEIR game was built like shit"
It's not very often mentioned; but Denuvo is also a hindrance to game modding (by design), wasting a lot of modders time. A lot of cases of mods breaking after updates can be attributed to Denuvo, as it randomly messes with the game code to make games harder to mod.
Man on top of modern games are already hard to mod unlike the old days..
@@linkfreeman1998 /cackling
Modern games are running on like three engines: Unreal, Unity, .NET frameworks.
I'm not 1337 enough to claim I work in assembly or wizard magic like that, but I've worked with some particularly teeth-pulling fan-created editors because they were the first editors around. Specifically, I've seen Fire Emblem GBA modding form thanks to Nintenlord and the Nightmare 1 modules, then the evolution to Nightmare 2, then to FEEditor, then to FEBuilder.
The "old days" of modding are easy texture swaps and painstaking hex editing and were ANYTHING but easy. You could only really do ANYTHING with the old games if they were mod-friendly or the devs released dev tools to the public (which both Bethesda and ID Software did)-- and even then Bethesda only did it for Morrowind up; Andyfall (the first Daggerfall "classic" mod) had to be done by opening up Daggerfall and changing the game's files around and reverse engineering Bethesda's patches to Daggerfall.
What you think is "easier" is just because you're reaping a whole community's efforts to decompile and reverse engineer and build the tools needed to work with it. (case in point with Doom: the entire reason modding is so huge is because fans took the engine and made their own to add the features they wanted. Most games whose devs handed over dev tools for fans' usage also have some sort of "script extender" or fanmade modding framework to push it beyond what the devs designed their tools for, too.
The only thing that's stopping modding in modern games is that no one is willing to make the tools to break open finished Unity/Unreal games to go in the proprietary code, deobfuscate as needed, and play with it, like they are with older games.
BepinEX is the "universal" mod framework for XNA games running on the .NET framework, which I've found out because both Megaman X DiVE Offline and Slime Rancher hook into it, and I've seen references to other games also springing off from BepinEX to support their fanmods.
Anyway, TL;DR you're seeing an illusion of a past that didn't even exist.
Anyone who's remotely familiar with old games and what was possible back then VS now can tell ya that much.
For most of these companies, that's a positive. Better no modding than modding only through some store they operate, right? A mixture of wanting to keep more control over the image of the game, and their 'intended experience', and blah blah blah.
Good point
@@linkfreeman1998 I don't think that is true, I've seen way more mods for certain games vs their old prequels. Alan Wake 2 has far more mods than 1 for example and i saw the same for metro exodus vs metro the last light. I could be wrong but still
Why would anyone trust a company that not only forgot to renew a domain name, causing hundreds of thousands of people to be unable to play games they had legitimately purchased for an entire weekend... but didn't even have any monitoring in place to warn them about the expiry.
That proves they are an incompetent tech company, and also proves there is probably a point sometime in the future when they decide not to maintain that domain and you can lose access to legitimately purchased games. So nope, if a game has Denuvo that is a guaranteed lost sale to me.
y'know. in the modern days, that would make any game using denuvo be pulled off the online markets, and possibly forcefully removed from peoples libraries
Never underestimate the stupidity of these companies.
Give a valid point, yes - but I gotta say the thing “say you don’t work in corporate without saying you don’t work in corporate”
denuvo is a scam thats why any company that uses it is falling for that scam, it does nothing. a pirate aint buying the game there is plenty to play already either way, denuvo is to push always online digital only so they can shut down servers, so they can say your timed licence has ran out and your out of luck cause it wont play anymore, denuvo is basically a way to push rentals in future.
people buy games they love to play once they have the money, a demo, a sale, denuvo stops all that and looses all those sales, there is no long term data cause long term denuvo looses them so many sales wouldnt suprise me if what they pay for denuvo is what they save Lmao, wow company removed denuvo, to bad i dunno about it cause it was on my ignore list years ago. denuvo is a red flag they want the control and they have no confidence in the game, ignore them and move on, they will never fix the bs activation limit which is easy to do by matching it to your graphics card or netwok ip,
This kinda shit happens to every single company. Someone managed to buy the Google domain briefly.
The whole Tekken 7 Denuvo performance thing was proven by Harada himself that Denuvo was messing with the code thus creating lag and input delays cuz Denuvo does periodic checks on code. As soon as Denuvo was removed, those issues were gone.
The main issue isn't periodic checks, but rather that modern Denuvo doesn't keep all of the game's code in an executable way in memory; it keeps part of the game's code encrypted, so when that function is called it will decrypt it, run the function, then trash the memory it was in to prevent crackers from seeing the code. This, obviously, means that the specific functions protected that way are running dozens, if not hundreds, of times more slowly.
The trick is to find functions that are run infrequently enough, are never run when the timing of player inputs is essential, but are essential for the game code and hard to replicate, to protect those; in an ideal scenario you might see a few milliseconds of lag every few minutes and at a time where nothing much is happening, which is not exactly noticeable. Flag the wrong function for this protection, though, and you could have constant lag spikes, potentially even happening specifically at moments when you need good timing, ruining the experience.
AFAIK flagging the wrong functions for this protection is done more often than not.
Eh seeing how terrible tekken 8 runs, it could still be bandais fault for poor implementation.
@@subzerosanijsreally? I thought tekken 8 was working fine.
@@bulthaosen1169 If you have a decent PC with either gtx1080ti or rtx above 2070 and an i7 above 6th gen, then it runs fine, with some tweaks 60fps is achievable (no idea on amd specs) Otherwise the game is gonna be slow also AI UPSCALING IS MANDATORY you CANNOT turn it off and if your videocard has no tensor cores your performance will suffer. my game has settings so low it looks more like tekken 3, while that's on me for having a bad PC i am able to run any other fighting game on high settings in 1440p
@@subzerosanijs ah. The UE5 problem. I get it.
Regardless of how effective Denuvo is, the argument that it only affects paying customers is valid because paying customers are the only ones who ever have to deal with it.
Developers having faulty Denuvo implementation is also not a good argument in favor of Denuvo. If they weren't using Denuvo, there would be nothing for them to implement in a way that unintentionally impacts performance.
Except the pirates that have to crack denuvo to get it to run...
Hey, I'm a patient gamer that hasn't bought a "AAA" game new, for more than 1/2 price since Diablo 3 launch, and I hate denuvo, but there is no excuse for this wilfully ignorant BS when there is more than enough legit criticism if you would only try...
@@IRGeamer One person has to crack Denuvo to get it to run.
Then, a would-be player does not have to deal with Denuvo on the cracked product.
Meanwhile, if I pay for the product while it has Denuvo on it, I receive a gimped, failure-prone version of something that the pirates are running literally just better.
I will pay whatever is asked for the best available version of the product, myself.
@@IRGeamer Your argument also willfully ignores the fact that the vast majority of pirates will never touch a non-cracked denuvo game in the first place, as RaptureSR's comment still rings true despite what you say. "Regardless of how effective Denuvo is, the argument that it only affects paying customers is valid because paying customers are the only ones who ever have to deal with it."
Pirates who see a non-cracked denuvo game are gonna have three options;
Option 1. They ignore the game alltogether and go back to other games that have already been cracked.
Option 2. Dedicated pirates will throw attempts at trying to crack the denuvo protection, to varying degrees of success or failure.
Option 3. The pirates stop being pirates and buy the game.
Option 3 won't happen, people want free stuff and especially so if they believe it's for whatever cause they might have ideas about.
Option 2 will only be for a minority of pirates, as with denuvo's increasing quality comes with a decrease in pirates skilled enough to navigate those protections. The skilled pirates continue, in much smaller numbers, while the vast majority flock to our final option.
Option 1, which constitutes the majority of pirates, means that your "idea" that pirates still being affected by denuvo entirely falls flat. Congrats, you've inconvenienced a small minority of pirates, while the majority go back to playing cracked games anyway. You've effectively done so much, for so little gain, and also affecting your actually genuine and legal customers with software that might as well tell you to fuck off if you try and use it without big brother denuvo's permission.
I've gone on a slight tangent with that, but complex topics require comparatively longer paragraphs.
@@unnoticed4571 Don't forget that for the dedicated cracking subset of people, having your group be the one to break a game is a mark of honour... therefore whilst a tough one to crack may get less attention, someone will be looking at it somewhere.
@@jeagerblackpaw2922 I didn't mention this, but you are correct there.
The problem with Denuvo is not performance, it's GAME PRESERVATION. And eventually even the copyright will expire.
And there are companies like Frontier that NEVER remove Denuvo.
Sega as well. I legitimately don't trust them to remove it once Denuvo goes under.
I am so annoyed with Frontier.
They take series that are present on GOG and slap Denuvo on their sequels for all eternity.
Performance is still an issue.
The Denuvo games that came out in 2023 - 2024 weren't worth cracking or pirating. The "quality" of AAA games is becoming lower and lower to the point where pirates don't want to waste their time cracking a game that's a PoS and going to be a waste of time. The best way to prevent piracy is to make a crappy game that no one wants to play, buy, or pirate, and it seems like AAA companies have figured that out.
Wukong?
@@Syvern. wukong would have sold as well if they didnt pay denuvo, in fact, id always argue the sales won by frustrating players who cant play it for free (which are minimal) barely breaks even with the money spent paying denuvo
@@lordfreezer9550 he's saying that no games made in 2023-24 are worth cracking. I replied that Wukong was.
Most probably the reason denuvo hasn't been cracked lately is because the person who could do it in a constant manner, EMPRESS, went on a big rampage against trans people and I'm guessing hasn't gone back to cracking. Denuvo is a hell of a crack, too difficult for most pirates.
you just wait for AAAA slop generated with AI.... ....oh wait, we already have one of those, it's called Starfield
The argument that "it only affects legitimate players" has a better-worded alternative: "it **disproportionately** affects legitimate players." This is especially true with the always online stuff, and is compounded by the fact that if a person can't pirate something, it doesn't mean they were going to buy it in the first place.
The problem is I don't view Denuvo as actually saving the studios money. For starters, the money that Denuvo would be saving for studios is potential sale lost - cost of Denuvo = supposed profit earned. Potential sales are just that, potential. The people that pirate the game are in no way shape or form going to rush out to buy the game because they can't pirate it. Some will, how many is really going to be up to guess work. However, I absolutely do not believe 20% of sales are lost to piracy (which again, is were the profit is supposedly saved by Denuvo).
I can say at least from listening to the grapevine, they would never be day one/full price customers, ever. They would rather wait for a sale especially with singleplayer games.
It’s also worth noting that many game pirates are Non-US/EU based. They come from poorer countries like Brazil where exchange rates mean that a $60 game is like 10% of their monthly salary - without a significant regional discount they simply won’t buy the game.
what you are describing is effectively "sales out of frustration" no one in the US or EU is going to be frustrated over 60$, we, the majority, are leagues above that, considering you need 1500$ pcs to run these games in the first place, so these "frustrated" people who are going to buy the game because they cant play it for free dont exist. Who is this DRM for then? poor pakistan, brazil or india people which 60$ for them is like if we in the US or EU were to buy something for 300-400$. These people were never going to buy the game, whats to gain for game company then? peace of mind their game is not being pirated? because all i see is a net loss however you look at it, plus angering all the customers buying the game. Oh, and game preservation shenanigans too. loss-loss-loss for everyone except denuvo of course, thanks denuvo
@@lordfreezer9550 you are not completely correct. There are frustrated people who would buy a game if they can't pirate it. I, for example, bought Anno 1800 this way. And I'm from EU, and $60 is not exactly all that much, I certainly can afford any new game I want, it's just that I rather won't pay them if I could, thankyouverymuch. Not big on ethics, me. At least on ethics towards my own behavior.
Anyway, witnessing a lot of pirating communities, I've saw plenty of examples of people buying the game that can't be cracked in the first week.
One of the other factors to consider is potential sales lost from the association with Denuvo. I can only speak for myself, but I won't buy a game if I see Denuvo on the steam page.
Denuvo: "People are toxic and negative!" - This is a tired consumer-slander tactic anyone can see through at this point, and it's all their own fault anyway. Moreover, companies don't get to complain about "toxicity" and negativity. It's one thing if their employees were getting harassed or even just unduly exposed to normal criticism outside of work, but unlike them, a company is not a person, it's a professional business entity and should act like one.
Denuvo: "We bring value to players by increasing revenue!" - A minority of instances of piracy would be/are converted to actual sales if they could be/are prevented. I'd bet there are even less lost sales or lost full-price sales after the launch window, because pirates can be patient. If a crack never gets out, the ones that can or would buy the game wait for a sale. Moreover, we don't know how much Denuvo charges. That extra revenue could just be used to line Denuvo's pocket!
Denuvo: "It's not our fault! The developers implemented it wrong!" - This is still partially if not mostly Denuvo's fault. It's a failure of Denuvo to provide adequate support services to developers, especially before launch. It's in their own best interest (especially for their bottom line) that they ensure products that use Denuvo don't use it incorrectly, and they ignored that.
Corporations are people. So says the largest government on earth, the same one that pummels any resistance and is near-blindly followed by other powerful nations
It's ten times more laughable to hear Denuvo call gamers toxic. This is like a brain tumor calling chemotherapy "toxic"
"Denuvo has become harder to crack" Alternatively: fewer and fewer games have become worth the effort to crack.
I think this is most of it, tbh. The sorts of games that get Denuvo are often some that are the least worth cracking. People just don't give enough of a shit for it to be worth it.
@@tech-bore8839 It's also not even true. The real issue is the cracking scene got way weaker because all the best crackers got arrested.
Don't forget that all experienced crackers have basically left the scene.
Better yet: fewer games getting worth to buy or play.
what it really means is the 1 person in the world who was cracking denuvo quit because she got doxxed
so now there are 0 people with the time and skills
12:53 this is not true. Several *very* well known games run fine without steam up at all. Steam's DRM is a developer option.
yah, he has said this before. not sure why he keeps saying it. i have two games of the top of my head that i could play without steam.
@@adomuir2239 The game that might have been the biggest launch of last year, Baldur's Gate 3, is DRM-free on Steam. That's not some small indie game, it's an AAA game with a pretty well known licensed IP.
Yeah, they also released a game on steam they should know already that it's not forced on by steam.
Seems suspicious how he's defending Denuvo.
Both Baldur’s Gate 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 come DRM-free on Steam, not to mention the countless indies that do as well. Steam DRM realistically is there to appease the investors of other game studios by pretending their game is protected so they won’t use another DRM type. This seems very manipulative lmao
Any kernel-level anti-cheat is a huge problem. It is a massive security risk and will never be acceptable.
Then stop cheating
@@RunePonyRamblings I don't play multiplayer games
@@RunePonyRamblings braindead "vote with your wallet" NPC response. There will always be cheaters, it doesn't mean that everyone else should suffer and be exposed to kernel-level security breaches.
@@codybarrow4036 Not only that but there's nothing ethically wrong with cheating in single player games anyway
@@codybarrow4036 well you know what's an even bigger security risk? Hackers being able to do remote arbitrary code execution on your machine.
And you know, that's in addition to making the multiplayer experience unplayable.
Steam absolutely sells games that are DRM free, it's optional for publishers. It's quite common with Ancient DOSBox games, and many old games have No-CD cracks pre-applied.
If the game is also sold on GOG it likely doesn't have DRM on Steam either, and despite GOG's original mission, they sell more than just "Good Old Games" nowadays.
Not sure why the old Steam == DRM line keeps going around but bit disappointed to see it repeated even here, to be honest.
@@MareLookeIt is shit that Valve's own games like HL2 have drm tho
@@miguelpereira9859 Yeah but how much does that really matter if HL2 is extremely easy to pirate if you want to, goes on sale for like a dollar and Steam DRM is extremely unintrusive and doesn’t really negatively affect the user experience in any meaningful way? DRM is bad but let’s not pretend all DRM is the same now.
@@scottcaramel Exactly DRM offered by Steam is literally the least aggressive form of DRM in perhaps all of gaming .
PC gaming is a rabbit hole. You can basically play all games with multiplayer LAN/Split-screen, but you basically need to crack games and install mods/hacks.
This has nothing to do with payment. I've paid money for all the games I'm playing, but sometimes were forced to unlock features with unofficial methods.
Now we even have modders putting in small forms of drm.
How do developers not understand the core issue.
Major studios like Larian and CD Projekt don't use drm and provide LAN/mod support.
Mods with DRM is such a low point. I remember one that turned off the computer if it was being traced 😂
@@tablettablete186Does that DRM ruin the game?
@@TheDMan2003 It was for a Reshade mod, so not really related to any game in particular.
In other words, this mod had some code to turn off the computer if it detects a debugger tracing it.
They're also some of the few companies not chasing $70 game prices...
Really makes ya think, huh? 🙃
@@tablettablete186 that ff14 thing, i remember that. someone essentially forked the mod for features that it didn't have. then the dev threw a fit and made a forced shutdown code.
github had to shut it down as that's basically a criminal level of malicious code in most computer using countries as that could lead to all forms of data corruption.
They killed my HDD with Doom, Denuvo are full of it and can burn. Never again.
Aye!
m8 if your HDD dies, Denuvo would be the very last thing that would cause it. I have used a performance tracker program to check how much Denuvo costed me. After an hour of gameplay it wrote a grand total of 30 mb. For 1 TB of SSD/HDD, it would take Denuvo around a million year for it to finally brick it. So either that your HDD is on the edge of dying and the game/denuvo was the final push, or the HDD is faulty in the first place.
while i agree they suck, thats not possible. denuvo arent rewriting your drive's firmware to brick it.
4:51 Yeah no
If someone was willing to pirate the game themselve or wait until a pirated version was created then for sure that person wouldn't bought the game anyway
There won't be increase of revenue
maybe there would be in cases like for example people that want to test the game before paying, a lot of those people probably buy the game if they like, but also many of them will decide the game is not worth it after trying it. a lot of those people however would either refund the game or regret their purchases if they had to buy the game, what when looking at the statistics in a vacuum could appear like better sales.
They are also severely underestimating how many of us were so badly burned, so frequently, by a variety of "AAA" lies/scams/manipulations that we have become "patient gamers" that can easily wait a year or two for discounts large enough to make the game have a reasonable value for us instead of executive management desperately trying to leverage maximal profit for the shareholders.
@@IRGeamer this exactly. I will gladly wait 5+ years to play a title if it means I get to experience a superior product.
There's the increase in revenue from people that tried the pirated copy and decide to save up and buy.
But there's no decrease in revenue when someone was forced to pirate it first. If someone has to pirate to get a demo of the game and decides not to buy no money was lost.
Piracy in the place of absent demos sells 9/10 games to me, and only 1 game I ever pirated did I say "Nah, I'm fine skipping this" and uninstalled the pirate copy because the game was pants
Yeah it’s the small minority of people who would pirate the game but only if Denuvo is removed. If someone wants to pirate the game they’ll just wait till DRM is removed. There are not many people who say “I want to pirate the game, but it has DRM, so I’ll just buy it.” At least far fewer than the people who buy it with DRM and get performance issues
On the "Denuvo doesn't cause performance issues" you'll note that he immediately followed that with a "if done properly" caveat. From what I understand (which admittedly might be nothing at all) the way Denuvo is designed to work is it's to be inserted between the game logic and some necessary event that would be very difficult for someone to bypass without damaging the game logic. For instance object instantiation. Every time an enemy spawns it could be made to go through a Denuvo obfuscation and so someone trying to bypass it could wind up with a game that simply doesn't spawn enemies. However if your game engine makes no distinction between infrequently spawned objects like enemies and frequently spawned objects like particles, then suddenly Denuvo's code is being run thousands of times a second or more. And THAT's really what he was saying. "We want developers to pick something that's too important to trivially bypass, but not SO important that it's causing constant noticeable performance drops." And then he blames the developer for choosing "wrong."
If Denuvo genuinely had no performance impact then logically there would be no problem simply having the entire game logic run in their VM in its entirety. But obviously that can't be made to work because their obfuscated VM is too much of a performance impact so developers have to choose some small part to protect, but not so small that if it was removed entirely the game would still function. How much do you want to bet they've had the reverse argument with developers whose games were bypassed? "You should have protected MORE then." And if they had "The performance problem is because you protected too much." And so on.
The thing is Spyro the Dragon used exactly the kind of DRM Denuvo claims it's doing correctly.
Have you ever seen Spyro on PS1 get massive performance lags doing anything? No? Because the people implementing their anti-piracy were actually competent at designing the piracy trap checks, unlike Denuvo taking wrecking balls to everything and then blaming everyone else for the software equivalent of "YOU'RE INTERROGATING THE TEXT FROM THE WRONG PERSPECTIVE".
(also for Spyro it WORKED: it took over 6 months for people to correctly crack all the boobytraps, and it took 3 months for them to get past the first few layers that made the game unplayable past the demo level, so people getting the bootleg basically just had a free demo that was no more than a PSX Underground disc with less demos on it. That was enough to basically plug up the entire "console sales lost to piracy" window and deter the bootleggers looking for a quick buck, leaving just the ones that did it to prove their programming chops to spend 6 months to get the fully cracked game out.)
@@complexacious Yeah, I'm a modder and I also believe Denuvo works in pretty much exactly the way you described. It absolutely hurts performance, but only for the functions which are actually obfuscated by Denuvo. The functions which are unobfuscated are not affected. Most of the functions are usually unobfuscated in the games I've looked at, but the ones that are obfuscated are very random. These games normally run well for me, but they have a LOT of random hard lag spikes where suddenly my whole machine completely locks up for a good couple of seconds before unfreezing. I play a lot of games, and only the Denuvo games do this. I absolutely believe the spikes are because of Denuvo's unobfuscation process. If these games ever get a Denuvoless version, I would love to compare their performance to prove that.
Frankly, I'm not buying it. This isn't a matter of trusting the consumer.
No, I accuse EA, BioWare, and Denuvo of constructing a false narrative situation where the consumer will lose regardless. Veilguard sells well, they claim the "modern audience" is the future, and abominable designs will get pushed even harder. Veilguard flops, they claim it was because they trusted "toxic gamers", asserting that Denuvo would've saved them.
Also, Denuvo still relies on the false claim that pirates would buy games they can't pirate, and treat PROSPECT sales as real sales.
I was thinking exactly this. They're covering their asses on all sides so they have people to blame to their investors.
From what I've seen, Veilguard isn't worth my time even if I pirate it. I'd rather play any of the other decent looking games I have in my backlog. I can live without buying any games with Denuvo, but they'll go bankrupt if the market as whole rejects them.
Ironically enough, piracy is what lead me to but most of my library, and even buy games for other people. If you make a good game, people will eventually buy it.
And in my case, I'm talking games like RimWorld, which back in the day didn't go on sale. I think that game is up to $115 now? Kek
Same, i play games on a budget-budget, so i pirate most of my games, but if i really like those games eventually i’ll buy it for the sake of buying it.
Piracy is simply not a sales lost, it just wasn’t a sale to begin with, but make a good enough games and it will become a sale one way or another.
@@totalmisplay So true. Many games in my library are games I bought anyway after pirating them, simply because it is easier to keep up with updates when you have an official copy, or to add DLC's later, or for ease of use as a consumer. When a game is good, there is enough reason to buy it, especially when it goes on sale. I haven't even pirated anything in the past few years, because there wasn't anything worth pirating even, or I bought the games I was considering to pirate on sale instead for the sake of convenience.
"Steam does not sell DRM free games" is a false statement. Steam doesn't care if a game has DRM or not and sells many DRM free games that you can play without the launcher after install. Apart from many indies, every game by CD Project RED and Larian is DRM free. Yes, they don't even use Steam DRM.
Steam DRM is more or less drm free atp lol
I guess I would push back with "the customer implemented it wrong" with "then it's not simple enough". As the end customer, I don't care why Denuvo makes it slower. I care *that* Denuvo made it slower. It makes me wonder how much time it takes them to implement and test it when they could be using those resources elsewhere.
Blaming piracy for lack of sales is a massive amount of copium to being with.
Reminds me of that one old Developer Tycoon game that forces you into a bad end where every single player of your game pirates it if the anti-tamper is tripped. It's soo childish.
"We trust you" is kind of a shitty thing to say honestly. Imagine if a purchase at the shops went like
"Here's your money!"
"...aaand here are your trousers - I'll even remove the exploding alarm on it because *I trust you!* ❤"
"... What do you mean?"
"I just trust you so much I took the alarm off!"
"What do you mean you *trust* me?"
"I mean I'm just such a magnanimous person that I trust that you're a straight up customer. Aren't I great?"
"But I already paid for it. No trust is required. I gave you the money. You're implying that I might not have, after I already did it."
"..."
"Also I'm pretty sure that guy over there just cut off the alarm on that shirt he's running off with."
Comparing something material against something digital in terms of purchase and theft is not a good example.
Yep, it's extremely patronizing and a pathetic attempt to come off as the good guy.
"Look we won't cripple our own game for 0 benefit to you as a customer because we trust that you're not a disgusting pirate, like us please."
However, Denuvo does absolutely work and games that have will not be cracked anytime soon. No one in the cracking scene is capable of doing it which has been the case for 1.5 years now.
@@TheMrDewilI know, but I wasn't trying to compare them. I was making a play on why "We trust you" is falsely magnanimous.
@@omarcomming722I'm actually not at all against anti-piracy if it 1) works and 2) doesn't hurt the paying customers. If those two things are met, then heck yeah, great. I'd love for the developers and publishers of my favourite things to get paid well.
Thinking about it, I guess the comparison doesn't really work like this. It's more like if you walked into the shop and the salesperson came up to tell you they trust you not to steal.
"I'm not even going to keep an eye on you!"
"What?"
"I just *trust you so much* I'm going to let you look at our wares unsupervised!"
"I'm not a thief. I wasn't going to steal anything."
"Of course you weren't! Of course! I'll look away now and I bet those pants will be right there on the rack because you're so trustworthy
*reduces performance by 25%
“Good for customers”
maybe EA knows nobody wants to pirate the game
TRUE THAT!
Maybe they could pay me to play it. Not for free, for sure!
Watch them go back to their old ways by requiring Origin and Denuvo on some future remaster.
And you must be mad that Sonic x Shadow Generations is rated 97% positive on Steam.
Well, DA's been pirated...
More than performance, its that you are relying on an online service to be able to play your offline single player game.
This. I travel for work and stay in remote locations. I bought COD for the campaign to play at work only to find out my 70 dollar game I bought specifically for offline play need to be online. That day I vowed to never spend another penny on cod games
@@longshot5866 Doesn't COD use 3rd party launcher ? Because more often than Denuvo it is sh!t launchers like Rockstar social club and EA app that prevent offline play. I'll never buy games that requires such account linking. On that note, even Epic games is trash in this regard.
One of the grand ironies is that AAA’s insistence that they release unfinished games with persistent monetization has likely undermined them badly-they are protecting an unfinished games and becoming ineffective when the game starts to feel whole.
Just to talk about 1:02 bypassing/cracking denuvo (which some people call "removing" denuvo) then finding the same performance benchmark result. . . that doesn't mean Denuvo wasn't/isn't hogging resources. It's still hogging resources with it's spaghetti code running in the game, it's just tricked/disabled "calling home" to a server, has infinite re-installs etc. Basically cracking denuvo then comparing performance before and after is not proof Denuvo doesn't have a performance impact because it's not really 'removed', just tricked. Still hogging resources.
If someone can't afford a game, denuvo doesn't give them the money to do so.
It's not a question of pirate or buy, it's a question of play (& spread word of mouth, engage in communities, most effective source of marketing industry) or don't play at all.
If someone wanted to buy a game, they would have done so already regardless of whatever DRM infests the exe.
Nope I refuse to buy games with kernel level drm. Don't care how much I love the franchise. I didn't get EA WRC, and won't be getting civ 7. I love those games.
@@CoreyKearneyyou might as well just spend those 70 bucks on anything else which is more useful. Like groceries.
I couldn't afford games before all I had was a decent laptop I got from my parents. I pirated most of the games on it to play. Now I actually buy those games whenever possible. I pirated because I couldn't afford. Most notable is the Resident Evil games. I pirated the 2 remake and loved it. I got into RE played all games (pirated) and now I've brought all of them except RE4 remake because my laptop can't handle that one.
@@Itsfinebuddy I got pirated Skyrim because I needed to use console commands to mod my PS3 skyrim save. My laptop at the time could run ultrapotato Skyrim with ultrapotato ini tweaks at like 15fps. Not enough to be anywhere near playable, but enough that I could use console commands just fine to spawn static objects as decoration and save them to my save, then use the PS3/PC save transfer tool to put them back onto my PS3.
I ended up buying Special Edition when all the Creation Club stuff got put in it for Anniversary along with a massive performance boost, the extra Dwemer dungeons and Ghosts of the Tribunal's new armors made it worth it for me, until then I was fine with cracked Oldrim and my legitimate PS3 version.
Not interested in any game that comes with included malware, which is what I consider this to be. Also this tends to make me want to blacklist the company entirely regardless of their product.
If they don't show me a minimum level of trust and respect, why should I show them any at all?
This is the way. If a company feels they need malware like that "to protect against pirates" then they're essentially saying that anyone buying it can't be trusted not to be a pirate. I don't appreciate that, so those companies can go bankrupt for all I care. Preferably go bankrupt, I think. The best games (for me) are fully DRM free. It means I can keep my copies of the game backed up and play the game outside the ubiquitous access to the Internet in the modern world.
I always comsider the date Denuvo goes off as the "release date" on steam.
Funny that this is added to the recent trend of some companies of rushing release dates causing extremely buggy releases
Christ they are pathetic. Still just treats your real customers as criminals. It being there means they did not trust you.
If thats actually happening, thats a massive W
Let's be honest, I don't think Denuvo has gotten much better. Most games nowadays aren't even worth the effort to crack to begin with. Most triple-A studios that made games that got pirated back then, make some kind of sloppy/buggy mess nowdays. Do you see people cracking Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League? Nah, not really , it's just not even worth the effort.
They sound kinda like a protection racket tbh
Nothing screams "Trust me" like a company that is built on virtualization technology saying any validation needs to be done in their control, in their offices, on their systems.
7:55 isn't that just because Empress retired or something?
Yeah she went on an indefinite hiatus and started a telegram cult or something
@@valmiro4164 the telegram cult came before the hiatus, empress went on a gooner powertrip and then got called out for it and stopped cracking denuvo. Not that I blame her, there was a bunch of transphobia being thrown around at her and that's not cool
a gooner power trip? nah see THATS why she got flak, dont be a goon and people wont mess with you.
last i heard empress stopped cracking games to create NFT's or something since he/she got fed up being roasted by the community for his/her insane rants (I'm still not sure if empress is a dude or a girl) but personally i didn't mind the rants . if you are smart enough to single handedly remove denuvo from a game within a few days i think you've earned the right to be a bit mentally unhinged
It's not just that. Selling offline accounts for protected games to third-worlders (and Russia) had found to be more lucrative than defeating Denuvo for street cred.
Of course, most gamers would emulate console versions anyway...
Denuvo WILL ALWAYS LOWER PERFORMANCE, end of story. Running extra code not related to the game, WILL LOWER PERFORMANCE. Just like if you were zipping up files in the background, or any other compute task.
Its just less of an ISSUE on some games, because the game is simpler in terms of CPU calls, and has has many CPU cycles to 'spare'.
That doesnt mean it isnt lowering performance, it means the hardware has enuff headroom to account for the extra dogshit code.
At the end of the day, Denuvo is pushed to publishers, not developers. Developers all know that it causes a performance hit, though the amount of a performance hit is dependent on how it is implemented, the more intrusive, the harder it would be to crack, the worse the game will perform. I cannot say for sure but I would suspect that Denuvo advises it to be as ingrained as possible to make it less likely to be cracked.
It is simply a matter of fact for programming that Denuvo simply being added to a game causes a performance hit that would otherwise not be there. And I see no way they will even attempt to dispute this fact, unless they wish to throw around frivolous lawsuits to scare people people from speaking.
Also it's kinda just a question of why would a publisher/developer want to add Denuvo to a game if they already know it's going to sell well. Some people do just outright refuse to buy a game if they know Denuvo is in it, or spend their lives moaning about it on the steam forums, which Denuvo has now validated by mentioning it...
Publishers are the ones who handle the legal side of things. Not only does it make it harder to crack the programs, but once it does happen it does give them more legal powers as not only is it copyright infringement but it also becomes illegal circumvention, especially in the US and EU.
You are missing the marketing pitch for Denuvo. It is easy for us outside of the conference room to see that Denuvo isn't all that it is hyped up to be, but the same might not be true if you are a high level executive whose main job is to make sure that the game will make money.
The situation with Denuvo isn't much different from antivirus when you think about it. You are payaing a fee to install a program that might help you to avoid further losses. And, in both cases, once you get sold the subscription, why give it up? Surely it was a good investment and has helped you thus far, right?
It's not that Denuvo is more resilient than before, it's that hackers got either arrested, quit cracking Denuvo's protection cause it was always a pain-in-the-ass to deal it, or in Empress case got consumed by madness and became completely detached from baseline reality.
I’ve never been convinced that the ‘piracy problem’ on PC wasn’t massively over inflated in the first place… it’s just been a boogeyman used to justify terrible anti-customer practices.
12:55 "steam does not sell DRM-less games" that's actually not true!
While it's not possible to get games w/o going through the steam app, once the files are downloaded it's up to the publisher/developer to get it integrated with steam, in all different ways. This goes from full integration, where parts of the game are done by the steam runtime (think mods, multiplayer), to simple "copy protection & licence management", all the way through to "nothing", this last one being steam is just the download client that plopped the files into your hard drive.
Notable examples of this are for example OpenTTD, which is a fully open-source clone of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, or (up to some time in the past, unsure about the state now) Kerbal Space Program.
In each of the cases above, you can (and I have myself) copied the install folder straight from the steam library into a network-less VM and successfully ran the game with no issues whatsoever.
Correction on Steam DRM. Steam DRM is separate from steam and developers have to implement it themselves. It is not on every Steam game.
There are many, many, games on Steam without DRM that can be run straight from the .exe without Steam even open. A notable example I can think of is the Arma series.
I know because my game (Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams) is on Steam and has no DRM. You can copy it to a usb and run it from there even.
Players: So you're saying you have absolute proof that your implemented product _doesn't_ affect a game's overall performance?
Denuvo: Yes!
Players: Can we see it?
Denuvo: ...No...
wow, vailguard is DRM free...Still not worth pirating
I wouldn't play it even if they paid me...
Piracy has really hit the sales number. They might have lost at least a million copies sales to pirates.
@@hirakchatterjee5240 They lost nothing to pirates, because no-one who pirated this would ever buy it, and not even close to a million people actually pirated this game anyway.
Damn, who knew that treating your customers like thieves would backfire?
Imagine going to a store to buy something and armed guards watch you closely, then when you buy it, you buy it with a security tag still there.
In any other scenario that place would be out of business already…
Less games with Denuvo being cracked makes sense when you look at the games that are being released with Denuvo. It's like Masterlock providing locks mainly for sheds full of shit and being proud that less sheds are being broken into.
thats basically a.... way for masterlock to brag that their locks can be opened by another masterlock
there are big titles locked behind denuvo, the shitshows may catch more attention, but there is real damage being done to good games: TW:WH3, jurassic world evolution 2, dead space remake, atomic heart... yeah, ubisoft's already bankrupt template games where you swap assets and have the exact same game but SW, japan, vikings, avatar, far cry 5,6,7,8-9000... we dont care about those, the can put all the drm they want on those (which btw they actually do, SW outlaws has 5 DRMs including denuvo...)
Much as Denuvo tries to blame developers for implementing Denuvo wrong for causing performance issues to convince us that their product isn't bad, that only proves just how bad their product is if so many developers don't know how to use it properly. I mean that would be like me starting my own car company, and then blaming my customers when the car I sold them doesn't run well because they weren't following all the instructions in the owner's manual properly.
Giant and bold assumption that even a decent percentage of whose who pirate a game would have bought the game at all regardless of denuvo.
Also there is a big list of DRM free games on steam you didn't even try to look.
The antidote to piracy is "make good product."
People usually have a sense of fairness. If you give them something good, something that made their day better, they want to reward you. Giving money is a way of doing that, so is advertising it to friends and family. One makes money directly, the other saves it. Both mean more money in the business's wallet.
So, obviously, it follows that if people would rather not give you money than your product is not good enough for them. Either because it isn't their cup of tea or because it needs improvement in their eyes. So that means make better products and make a larger variety of products to appeal to more customers. That's the answer.
Everyone who still decides to pirate is simply a noncustomer, unwilling to give you money for any reason. But, at the very least, if the pirated version exists- they can be a living advertisement.
Make a product good enough for people to want to give you money out of gratitude, and don't bother thinking about piracy. That's the solution.
I've avoided buying a number of games just because they had Denuvo. I very, VERY rarely make an exception for it. Just garbage malware.
"I'm a gamer myself, therefore I know what I'm talking about." Absolutely stealing this line to use out of context literally everywhere.
I am a gamer myself, and therefore I know what I'm talking about. Denuvo is bad.
The true solution to piracy is to not be assholes and give us bullshit pricing.
Example: TV Show & Movie piracy went down IMMENSE amounts in the years following Netflix Online going worldwide. It was simply not worth the time & effort it took to source, download and often deal with shitty quality, missing subtitles or whatnot, compared to a cheap netflix subscription.
Example 2: Movie & Show Piracy has gone up massively again over the last few years, reason ? 20 different streaming services, each of them with a niche set of movies, often limited by country, with ever-increasing prices and sharing-prevention:
Game Examples ? "AAAA" games priced at 80$, garbage titles costing 60$ for horrible gameplay, DLC's that should have been initial content at 15-20$, etc. etc.
If you make the effort of cracking & piracy lower than the cost of the game, people will pirate. And in todays online world, even my sister's kids can find out how to get stuff and often without the old "Here, have this virus" that us old-timers dealt with in the days of Napster and such.
Oh and F Denuvo and their awful game-destroying "software" aka Spyware, root-kit virus-like shit.
The funniest part is that for most pirates it's a choice between pirating the game and *not buying it*
So like, most of the time there's little to no potential sales lost
"There can't be benchmarks because our partners won't allow it" is bullshit. Assuming there even are any contractual restrictions, they negotiated and signed those contracts.
Sounds like Denuvo have a very poor implementation that requires too much effort from developers to get it working "correctly". That's on Denuvo and they need to figure out how to achieve the goal without requiring developers to build their games around it.
There are 4 reasons people pirate.
1) They legitimately can't afford new games - fixed with better regional pricing.
2) They wanna try the game first - fixed with a good demo or trial version
3) They don't want to pay for games - this crowd is unlikely to buy even with anti piracy measures in place.
4) The pirated version provides a better experience/piracy is the only option to play - Find out why and fix it.
4 mostly applies to abandonware, but can apply to new releases if the anti-piracy measures are bad enough.
I have never bought and will never buy a game with that garbage in it. That's all there is to it.
Denuvo lowering performance by 5-10%.
"Not our fault"
BTW on the topic of anti-temper, Dying Light 2 had cheats on release, so no, Denuvo is not working at all from that side either.
The real trouble will be all the broken games once they go out of business
It's kinda by design? I'm not using this term with irony - modern audiences are rather fine with buying game again with remaster once title will go out of service.
I buy all stuff on GOG and I would literally borrow mine games to a friend of mine sometimes... It used to be normal nowadays it's pretty oldschool approach these days. Modern gamers just are used to completely different - straight up worse - standards.
I refunded games for having an auto-running system altering DRM software, but of course they save revenue for the publisher…
There are no "losses" from piracy. Only money not made. The two are not the same. Calling it "losses" is just just company jargon to make piracy seem like it causes more impact than it actually does. The only "losses" a company has is money spent preventing piracy. Money not made does NOT equal "losses". And the thing is that many of the people who pirate probably wouldn't have bought the game legitimately anyway. I'd guess that pirates mostly only get pirated software and probably rarely, if ever, legitimately buy - either they enjoy the 'challenge' and 'satisfaction' of piracy, or perhaps can't afford to buy those games anyway. These aren't losses - they were never even potential profit!! That isn't a company loss!! And the costs that he mentions here are probably only the start of what it costs to add DRM - there's probably a LOT of development time (money) put into it's implementation, which probably massively adds to how much it costs to put all that DRM on. Perhaps game making studios are only just starting to realise this very obvious stuff. Better late than never, I suppose.
To say that DRM, extra code that has to run through in order to play, doesn't affect fps rate has to be the one of the most stupid lying arguments. It's simply extra code and hoops that the game has to go through to play - there's no way that doesn't affect fps rate or make the game more intensive to run - the question is not WHETHER it does, but HOW MUCH. And the bottom line is that we legitimate buyers of this stuff have to pay extra for our games for something that doesn't benefit us but hurts us, is a pain in the *ss in the product we buy - runs our games slower or rougher, have legal jargon that we have to sign our lives away to comply with, and worse of all enforces internet connection, which is also, in my opinion, often unnecessary and is a massive turn-off - I personally don't buy games that require internet connection, DRM or not, because it means that my legitimately purchased game can be rendered unplayable at any time on some company's whim - and a company's whim is totally and irretrievably governed by whether they are making money or not by providing access to that game. Quite frankly, forcing internet is only a VERY GOOD reason to pirate instead!! Let me see, we could either buy a game legitimately knowing that a company can just, at any time, pull the plug on a game we paid good money for so that we can't play it any more, or pirate a game to ensure we have that game forever. Together with all the other downsides of DRM, it's a no-brainer!! Stupidly, pirating would actually seem the smarter option!! And that's pretty dumb!!
This whole thing is just a publicity stunt. Company reputation consideration is a thing of the past. Companies don't care about people - they care about profit, and will do anything to ruthlessly make that profit. And their decisions are based on profit in the here and now - not reputation. Reputation used to be very important to companies decades ago, because people had higher ethics and actually cared about the ethics of who they bought stuff from. That kind of thinking is loooooong gone. But reputation means very little to most companies these days - they simply don't care about reputation. Look at EA. A company with universally appalling reputation, yet there are a massive number of stupid people happy to buy their garbage, and there seemingly is more of those stupid people than there are thinking people.
I think that Gabe is mostly right. Piracy will always be present in a small number of people, just like other crimes - it can only be minimised. Make games easy to buy and reasonably priced and the vast majority of people will just buy them. But connect games to DRM that makes games run rougher, force people to accept signing a lot of their rights away in those DRM agreements (and some of them are outrageous and completely unfair), and making legitimate buyers pay for the privilege of all this guffaw is only likely to actually make more people favour piracy. I buy games on Steam because it's just an easy 5 second click of a couple buttons. The most annoying thing, and most laboriously intensive thing, is actually having to check to see whether the games have this stupid DRM or not!!!
_writesessays enters the chat_
the problem with their argument about having their partnered company earn 20% more revenue (thus justifying purchasing denuvo's services) is that it relies on one study that is based on faulty logic. the study argues that revenue is highest during the launch window (which is generally true), and that cracks released during this time period will have an impact on that sales window (which is also generally true). the problem comes from assuming what that impact will be. according to many _other_ studies, the impact is actually that the game generates _more_ money than if it had been protected. there are also plenty of other studies that say that piracy has _no_ impact on sales _whatsoever._ this is why you don't rely on a single study.
to begin with, the first assumption that is made is that "people will not buy the game if they can pirate it for free". this is one _hell_ of an assumption that is demonstrably just not true for at least a significant chunk of pirates. many pirates look at it the same way people look at demos - a way to "try before you buy". if they pirate the game and like it, they will, situation permitting, later turn around and buy the game. most pirates understand that games are not made for free, and that if no one buys a good product, then there won't be more similar products in the future. furthermore, pirates are, at the end of the day, still human beings, and human psychology suggests that _most people try to be good people,_ even if internet forums make you think otherwise. outside of exceptions (like kleptomaniacs), most people do not enjoy stealing, and most thieves would prefer legal alternatives if they were available to them, even at a cost, because doing immoral things makes most people feel bad, and they don't like feeling bad more than they dislike spending money on a good or service. the problem with this assumptions, is that it assumes the average person is a psychopath. fun fact, _the average person is not a psychopath._ do you know what portion of people does have a high relative population of psychopaths? executives. so executives will buy this argument because they will assume the average person thinks like them. but it is detatched from reality.
the second assumption that is made is the inverse of the first, that "people will buy the game if they can't crack it". this is, again, an unprovable argument. there's no way to prove that the people who are pirating a given game would have bought the game had the cracked version not been available. for the above mentioned "try before you buy" crowd, if they were sitting on the fence as to whether or not to buy the game, the inability to try it beforehand would incentivize them to just jump off the fence and go "you know what, I wasn't that interested anyway" and spend their time doing something else. buying a game from a no-name team carries risk - you don't know if the team will just give up on working on the game once they get your money, or whether the game will be full of bugs, or whether you'll even enjoy it or not, and for a lot of games, 2 hours is not enough to get a feel for it. buying a game from a big company nowadays also carries risk - you don't know if the team will just give up on working on the game once they get your money, or whether the game will be full of bugs, or whether you'll even enjoy it or not, and oh look at that, they're the same reasons! quality control in the market is so poor, trust is so low, and the market is so saturated, that you cannot expect someone who would have originally pirated a game to buy said game if pirating it wasn't an option. there's just too many alternative paths they could have taken that are far easier.
finally, there's a fatal flaw in all of these studies, and that's with cost attribution. how do you know a successful game was successful because it was shipped with anti-piracy measures and _not_ because it was, you know, _a good game?_ how do you know a failure flopped because it got pirated and not because, you know, _it was filled to the brim with bugs and was just generally unfun?_ hell, even actually good games can flop because people didn't know it even existed. some games do terrible at launch, only to suddenly have a massive spike in activity several years later - like that one minor indie game you might have heard of called "Among Us", which was created in 2018 and didn't actually see any players for _two years_ before it suddenly became ingrained in internet culture. game creation is not an exact science, which means there are many, _many_ variables at play, a great number of them completely out of the hands of developers (you can't just _cause_ a pandemic to ensure people stay inside playing your game that released around the same time. no, don't give EA any ideas). and because of that, it's really difficult to say whether or not a game did well or not just because a crack existed for it. maybe the game was just really, really good and word of mouth ensured that people bought it despite there being no cracked copy. maybe the real problem with the game wasn't that it was cracked, but that it _physically_ cracked your hard drives when you tried to run it. and different genres attract different folks. a deal breaker for one fan base could easily be a core feature in another.
when did it launch? where did it launch? was it region locked? how many major bugs did it have? what was its rating? did it show up in any news articles? what did they say? did anyone talk about it online? what genre of game was it? what was its price? who was the developer? who was the publisher? is the game banned in china? does it have politics? does it come with additional packaged software, and what are they if yes? what was the economy like at the time?
it's just wholly inaccurate to boil it down to "did this game have a crack, and how much did it sell" when there are so many other uncontrollable variables at play.
Yet another black mark on Austria... as if we didn't historically have enough already... :(
Hot take. If your Denuvo game needs connected to the internet to function, you may as well just make it reliant on your servers and expect a steam account.
About that, ...
true but steam is alot more leeinint.
like you can instal steam on a laptop, install the game on said laptop.
run it ones (not sure if you actuall need to).
unplug the laptop from the internet. jump on a train and you can play your steam game for more or less as long as you want.
and if steam (after days) think its time for a internet check its a 2 min 33K/b phone connection at most and now the offline timmer is full.
meanwhile other DRM.
oh internet Droped for 0.5 sec kicked out of the single player game.
note I lost internet connection in wow for 15+ sec (2012) while on a 90-600 MS ping internet connection and wow never complained.
I'll also just not understand game companies paying denuvo at minimum 6 figures for "potential sales" then cram micro transactions in the game. Save the money and don't put useless microtransactions in your game. Am i the only one who sees the irony of the situation here?
Like DMC 5 doesn't have any denuvo and i'm fairly certain capcom reported it was one of their best selling games in 2022-23.
Actually Steam does sell DRM free games, and steam offline mode work indefinitely, meaning that you can download a game then launch it in offline mode immediately.
Edit: also another thing about steam preload, from what i know, steam preload encryption is uncrackable.
12:53 That is not true. It's the publisher's choice to use steam's DRM. I own several games on steam that can be put on a USB and play without steam even being installed.
You don't need Denuvo. I never pirate games, if I can't play the game, then I don't play it, devs loss.
Its ultimately the devs responsibility to make the game available for all regions and make the pricing fair. If the devs were fair, they wouldn't have any issues.
Denuvo always makes the game a hard pass, so much so that it isn't even a consideration. However, skipping Denuvo doesn't mean I'm automatically going out to buy it. Veilguard's "I'm gay, the library is to the east" writing automatically makes it a no-purchase even without DRM.
It's simpler than that. Microsoft has stated it is removing all kernel level access in the next year or two. The crowd strike crash. Instead they are building a limited API. No one knows what it'll be, just that it's happening. Also, no one wants to be dumping resources into a product they know will be functionally useless in a year or so.
had to immediately search this, its not true, google your own statement
@halycon404 i am pretty sure that's not true, atleast for anti-cheats
@@lordfreezer9550 words on the street is that they will limit kernel level access but it is only but a bandaid solution and most likely its not consumer wide but enterprise services only so yeah not everything that ran on windows will get this
Ooohhhhh, the it's not our fault arguement. I'm not convinced. I hope more businesses don't use them until they fix their problems and not blame everyone else for their short comings.
Steam does sell DRM-free games, the DRM is optional and at the decision of the developer whether they use it or not.
The majority of pirates would never buy the game anyway, so the piracy 'losses' are just nonsense. Bad marketing, bad leadership.
Monster Wilds said in Steam it uses Denuvo and still beating the pants off of Veilguard lol. Guess I won't buy either one. Capcom has not learned.
14:24 As mentioned seconds before, more and more games are dropping Denuvo a few months after launch so it will only get easier to benchmark games before and after such patch and get a definitive answer.
@@tartiflette6428 Only if the before/after comparison doesn't also contain other patches, which is rarely what happens.
When devs go to remove Denuvo, they generally have bug fixes, patches, and optimizations that are implemented at the same time
6:00 .. 20% more revenue?.. piracy was rampent in the 90s because distribution was poor and it was often the only way to get many games. I really don't think these days that many people actually pirate games and am sure that the majority of people who do, cant afford them.. that said, anti piracy measures will not make this market miraculously be able to afford them!
There's also the fact many games we want to play now are just inaccessible. Either the game isn't distributed on a country that really wants to play it or it's exclusive to a console that is no longer sold.
Case and point, there's a large sample of piracy for Ghost of Tsushima and GOW Ragnarok because Sony banned selling it to 180 countries. Or the strong case of Emulation for Nintendo Games because nobody has a DS anymore. Heck, some games were better off played on PC even with Switch being fresh in the market because the system couldn't run it properly.
And for the people who can't afford the games. Those aren't sales lost. In fact, some of them go on Reddit telling their story of buying the game they once loved but they played it as a youngun on a laptop they got for college.
Performance Benchmarks?
Exonerating your rigorous DRM from the accusations of performance impact on highly demanding applications?
Localised entirely within your Strasbourg Offices?!
May I see them?
4:32 🤣🤣🤣 only reaon i and half my generation of gamers know how to get cracked games working is to get denuvod games to actually work.
"Treating you like a criminal is in your best interest."
Yeah, nah.
Nothing could make me pay full price for DA:V. I'm not sure I'll even get it on sale
6:04 wow they travelled in time and used a journal from the future by the looks of it
What I learned from this video:
Wait until publishers stop including denuvo in their game after the initial launch period before buying the game.
From crowd funded game scams, to pre-ordering released-broken games, to having to deal with intrusive "anti-piracy" malware on your system - it seems like the answer is pretty simple: Just wait longer before buying the game.
Steam DOES sell DRM-free games. Using Steam's DRM is an option the developer chooses to do. There are games on Steam where you can back up the game files and run them without Steam without it trying to launch Steam or even needing Steam installed.
I just tested it with Dusk myself to make sure that they haven't changed this.
Downloaded Dusk. Completely exited Steam. Moved Dusk's game files out of the Steam folder. Ran the game perfectly from the exe without it re-launching Steam.
It's just that most developers don't do this because Steam's DRM is generally less intrusive than most DRM solutions that I'm aware of. (And probably not worth doing if your game relies on Steam for other services like multiplayer or payment - not impossible, but certainly a lot more work to have fall-backs for when they're not available)
So is placing the section break marker 20 seconds before the actual end of a sponsorship spot just the way things need to be done now?
Oh you had to listen to a 20 second ad to watch 17 minutes og content. How sad.
@12:53 Steam DRM is not obligatory on Steam. Publishers are free to publish games without Steam DRM if they wish. PC gaming wiki maintains a list of games where little to no DRM is implemented on Steam distributed games.
Steam has proven time and time again. If you make a good game on a solid distribution platform people will still actually buy. They've shown plenty of data that having DRM or not having DRM makes no difference in the sales. Russia preSteam was considered a no mans land because piracy was so prolific till Steam came along and it presanctions became a big market.
Ultimately, people will steal if they're gonna. Many don't unless priced or hedged out in some way. And all this DRM was often inevitably cracked anyways.
These DRM often encouraged more stealing because games played better without them sometimes. It's like some DVDs were better because the illegal version didnt' have all those mandatory commercials slathered on it and other obnoxious things. Click, play, good to go.
wrong. i stopped playing and uninstallign a game I liked because it had Denuvo
sorry were not rich for steam.
@@Revkor I don't remotely see how your statement applies. I literally said if DRM is bad enough it did.
But far as wrong, Steam published the sales data for companies that were using DRM then those that dropped it. It made no difference, other than that company usually paid a sizeable chunk of cash to buy, subscribe, and code for that DRM.
@@gondorianslayer4250 This means what? Lol.
@@NightmareForgegames are too costly to justify buying games even if there's no denuvo in it.
Denuvo adds zero value to me as a customer. I'll gladly wait until it's removed, or skip the game altogether.