I've been burned by GFWL - Denuvo is not in the same league at GFWL, and has yet to impact me in any meaningful manner. I don't love the idea of overly restrictive DRM but the reaction in this thread is hyperbolic to say the least.
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Life Is Strange: Before The Storm PC uses Denuvo
- Thread starter axisofweevils
- Start date
I've been burned by GFWL - Denuvo is not in the same league at GFWL, and has yet to impact me in any meaningful manner. I don't love the idea of overly restrictive DRM but the reaction in this thread is hyperbolic to say the least.
Denuvo is potentially worse. If the GFWL service is shut down, you'll just lose access to the few games that don't support offline/local profiles; if Denuvo is shut down, you won't be able to play a game if there's a "major" system change (e.g. GPU driver update) or, for some reason, said game is patched again. If you're a PC gamer, odds are that Denuvo's authentication servers going offline would cause you far more headaches than Microsoft finally killing off GFWL simply by virtue of how strict the former is with reauthentication.
Denuvo isn't much of a bother in the here and now, I agree, but the here and now isn't going to be the status quo forever, which is largely where the concern is coming from.
Let's have this conversation in 5 years time when Denuvo is dead, or when we're on the next major branch of Windows that for some reason doesn't like Denuvo's implementation.
Things would simpler if every publisher agreed to remove Denuvo once it was cracked. I understand the value it might provide for the first week, but then it just becomes increasingly pointless with time or outright useless after it gets completely cracked. Agents of Mayhem is the latest release with this stupid DRM and it only took 10 days.
CecilRousso
Member
A public agreement about that would be even more incentive for crackers to work harder.
i'd disagree - it would present less of an argument to crack if a temporary DRM was in place to protect the launch window of a titles release.
CecilRousso
Member
The suggestion was that it was to be removed once it was cracked, which gives crackers an incentive to crack it, and to do it as fast as possible.
You're severely overestimating the amount of competitive hackers. Based on that logic, everyone would have stop trying after RE7 because it took only one day to crack it. Where's the incentive to hack when someone else only took one day?
Alexander DeLarge
Member
I'll admit people took it as a challenge to crack RiME but I'm glad it got cracked as fast as it did because it exposed the fact that Denuvo was the root of the performance issues.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/06/crackers-say-denuvo-drm-caused-slowdown-on-rime/
A two year period until an automated removal would be a reasonable time frame for consumers that are concerned about longevity and the stockholders/publishers' interest. I would say sooner but misguided stockholders that don't know a damn thing about the industry are the ones they gotta appease unfortunately.
GFWL is removable. In fact, Bethesda links to a community-created removal patch for Fallout 3 instead of distributing the GOG version to the millions of people who own it on Steam (which is one of my arguments as to why the whole "they'll remove it if it becomes a problem" is B.S). Denuvo is not and from what I understand, the bypasses that people are referring to as cracks won't work when the auth server goes down. I can only hope someone creates a Denuvo V4 emulator like V3 has because those are the only games that are guaranteed to run if they stop paying the AWS bills. As much as a piece of shit GFWL was, it wasn't nearly as dangerous as Denuvo. Their previous service (SecuROM) was only maintained for six years before being abandoned and I've been stuck cracking games that I paid $50-$60 for so frankly I don't even trust them. Not doing it anymore.
Also, it's funny to note that if that Fallout 3 thread weren't stickied, it would be in violation of the Steam Discussions TOS and I'd be banned for even talking about it.
(Thread I'm referring to) http://steamcommunity.com/app/22370/discussions/0/828937546147175081/
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/06/crackers-say-denuvo-drm-caused-slowdown-on-rime/
A two year period until an automated removal would be a reasonable time frame for consumers that are concerned about longevity and the stockholders/publishers' interest. I would say sooner but misguided stockholders that don't know a damn thing about the industry are the ones they gotta appease unfortunately.
GFWL is removable. In fact, Bethesda links to a community-created removal patch for Fallout 3 instead of distributing the GOG version to the millions of people who own it on Steam (which is one of my arguments as to why the whole "they'll remove it if it becomes a problem" is B.S). Denuvo is not and from what I understand, the bypasses that people are referring to as cracks won't work when the auth server goes down. I can only hope someone creates a Denuvo V4 emulator like V3 has because those are the only games that are guaranteed to run if they stop paying the AWS bills. As much as a piece of shit GFWL was, it wasn't nearly as dangerous as Denuvo. Their previous service (SecuROM) was only maintained for six years before being abandoned and I've been stuck cracking games that I paid $50-$60 for so frankly I don't even trust them. Not doing it anymore.
Also, it's funny to note that if that Fallout 3 thread weren't stickied, it would be in violation of the Steam Discussions TOS and I'd be banned for even talking about it.
(Thread I'm referring to) http://steamcommunity.com/app/22370/discussions/0/828937546147175081/
test_account
XP-39C²
Steam DRM is also in the game files, otherwise the DRM wouldnt work. Its there to stop you from simply copying the game (to take backup or give it to another).
The community manager of Life Is Strange said that the game works offline.
I'm pretty sure that if Valve shuts down Steam, things need to be patched to remove the DRM. The same can be done with Denuvo.
Peterthumpa
Member
No, it wasn't. People need to stop spreading false shit like this. Just because the game performed better for a few users doesn't make it true. Loading times were marginally improved and that's all, performance is still the same with or without it. In fact, I'm yet to see a game that was magically improved with Denuvo removed.
Alexander DeLarge
Member
Steam has publicly stated that there are measures in place in the event Steam goes down. Denuvo has put out no such statement and if they had mechanisms in place, I'm sure they'd be shouting it from the mountaintops to avoid this PR nightmare.
This has been their statement regarding the hypothetical for the last 7 years (actually earlier if I am remembering some interview with Gabe Newell from around 2003-2004 correctly, but I can not find an older source).
The multiplying Denuvo calls were tanking performance and it was far too widespread to be misinformation. I had the game and I saw an immediate improvement upon using Baldmann's bypass. For some people it performed like crap as soon as the game started, for others it was like a memory leak and performance tanked as the triggers multiplied. I always call out misinformation regarding Denuvo bricking SSDs and poor performance as a result of it but this one time, it actually was the culprit. I just wish someone did some proper benchmarks and by the time I considered doing it myself, the game had already been patched.
The difference in performance between 1.0 and 1.01 (Denuvo removal) was literally an overnight fix that addressed a bunch of people's problems. Mine included.
I'm of the opinion there's actually more to Valve's mystery contingency plan than some think:
Removing CEG may certainly be a part of it, though.
Audioboxer
Member
You contradicted yourself in your own post.
Even if a game loads 1 second quicker without Denuvo that is objectively an improvement. It might be such a minimal improvement you would hardly notice it, but still, it's a measurable improvement.
That's what it basically boils down to. Publishers doing the latter don't take their own customers seriously.
test_account
XP-39C²
That maybe be the case indeed, but its no problem to provide tools that can remove DRM. Some games have gotten their DRM removed by the developers at a later date. I just wanted to comment on what was said about Denuvo, that if Denuvo (the company) stops operating, then all games will stop working. This isnt the case, there are solutions for it.
All the games will stop working, and you're going to rely on pure luck for a couple few of them to have it patched out.
test_account
XP-39C²
In theory yes, but i disagree that this will be the reality. People say that Denuvo gets cracked fast anyway, so theres already a solution there for example.
I've never bought a game with denuvo in it and I never will. I was mixed on this game being a good idea anyway, and then there's the added issue of if I'd be crossing a picket line concerning the actor's strike. I haven't been following that lately and I was going to consider that when it came to it but it's all moot now.
luca_29_bg
Member
Absolutely wrong, run better without denuvo for me and many other people.
It is very much reality for the overwhelming amount of DRM-protected software and games for the last decades. Most never have their DRM officially removed, and you are relying on the off chance that some piracy/warez group created a way to remove it (and that's still available). That's not a "solution" at all.
test_account
XP-39C²
Maybe i was a bit unclear, but the reality that i'm thinking about is that games are playable, unofficially or not. What i replied to in the begining was what was said about games being unplayable, without any caveats. I definitelly think its worth mentioning that all the games with Denuvo wont be unplayable.
Basically every game in the last two decades have been cracked, so theres no off chance in those cases. You're a lot more likely to find a game that is crack than one that isnt. If we were talking about a DRM scheme that wasnt cracked, then it would be something different indeed, but people here claim that Denuvo gets cracked fast now, so it doesnt seem to be much of a unknown factor to rely on, or being pure luck.
Patching is needed in both cases (to remove the DRM), and you still would have to rely on things being available. Thats the case with both official and unofficial solutions.
To me, official or not doesnt really matter as long as its possible. Tons of older games (DOS games) doesnt work natively in newer versions of Windows, but i wouldnt call them unplayable when unofficial solutions like DOSBox exist.
The context you seem to miss is that a legal consumer should never have to go looking for cracks to begin with, especially not when the same publishers do everything lobby wise that those cracking efforts are considered illegal and punishable. That you call this a viable "solution" and a reason not to worry since cracks keeps appearing anyway only shows how absolutely broken this whole approach of the industry is.
Anywho, I can confirm the game works just fine offline. I turned off my wireless during gameplay and got a message that "online features" would be unavailable.
http://imgur.com/BWQ3tGO
Also started the game again in offline mode and again had no issues.
http://imgur.com/BWQ3tGO
Also started the game again in offline mode and again had no issues.
I regularly play games that are 20-25 years old on PC.
There are games <10 years old that I have bought which are now unavailable for purchase, unsupported by the developers (who are still around), and are unplayable now without cracks or other modifications. DiRT 2 is just one example of these games, off the top of my head.
Still being able to play games that I have paid money for more than a few years from now is very important to me.
Phoenix RISING
Banned
Yeah, I find it interesting that every time a game gets Duenvo, it's topic-worthy.
Like, you're not even discussing anything new. It's just "Duenvo sucks! DRM sucks/is useless!" every time.
It's a good thing. Serves as a PSA to not support these games at launch and take the wait and see approach with them instead.
osnameless
Member
True. This and the Devil May Cry reboot are two topics that, for some reason, people get really heated discussing them no matter how many times they are brought up.
Anyway, even for people who dislike Denuvo, they gotta admit that the technology has encouraged more publishes to release their games on PC, even though some people see that was for the wrong reasons.
Alexander DeLarge
Member
I don't admit that at all. Dark Souls' success is the one bringing all these Japanese games over from companies like Koei Tecmo and XSEED. As for Capcom, Dragon's Dogma did incredibly well and that was despite being released a week prior to release so they're becoming more adventurous. If the non-existent issue of piracy was actually keeping these companies from reaching an audience of at least a hundred million users, I'd say they're idiots and I don't want their games anyways. I'd rather not have their games at all than know that something like NieR Automata might become unplayable thanks to DRM that was never removed when it was cracked two months after it released (and that was using an entirely new version of Denuvo, new V4 titles are cracked week by week by week).
CheesecakeRecipe
Stormy Grey
There is absolutely zero evidence whatsoever to support this claim.
Phoenix RISING
Banned
I support "wait and see" for not purchasing video games at launch because there are only a handful of games released every year that are worth $60. Denuvo doesn't even register as a reason to withhold purchase to me.
Factually wrong. PC started getting more ports because it proved itself a viable market over and over and over and over and over again. Had jackshit to do with Denuvo.
Game is now already partially cracked, a full crack should come out soon.
GG dumbass publishers, you managed to have complete fucking zero effect on piracy and only fucked your own consumers in the process.
And considering Square Enix has yet to remove Denuvo from Nier despite it being cracked shortly after launch, good fucking luck getting SE to remove Denuvo on this.
GG dumbass publishers, you managed to have complete fucking zero effect on piracy and only fucked your own consumers in the process.
And considering Square Enix has yet to remove Denuvo from Nier despite it being cracked shortly after launch, good fucking luck getting SE to remove Denuvo on this.
CecilRousso
Member
Steam is the reason for that, by creating an attractive marketplace for the publishers, not Denuvo.
Interesting how this game has hit "Overwhelmingly Positive" on Steam even though it has Denuvo (and doesn't even mention it on the store page, but rather has a 3rd-party EULA notice) while Sonic Mania has been trashed with a storefront full of negative reviews complaining about Denuvo (it's down to "Mostly Positive") and it lists the 3rd-party DRM on the store page. Life Is Strange pushin' through, I guess.
The 96% approval rating on Steam doesn't really paint a picture of "fucked-over consumers".
The 96% approval rating on Steam doesn't really paint a picture of "fucked-over consumers".
Alexander DeLarge
Member
The only reason it took Nier as long as it did (two months) to get cracked is because it was using an entirely new version of Denuvo and Mass Effect Andromeda released with V3, got cracked, then updated to V4 with the patch that fixed those awful facial animations and the community prioritized it out of spite.
The only "protection" a publisher can reasonably expect from Denuvo is if it's using an entirely new version or if it's a crowded month and just pray it gets ignored for more than a week or two.
Paying customers will be experiencing the implications of DRM far longer than these pirates will have. I wouldn't say it's actively fucking them over.... Yet, but unfortunately, by the time those auth servers go down because someone forgot to pay the AWS bill, it might be too late to complain about it.
I'm pretty sure they intended for the $100,000 DRM to hold up for more than 24 hours. Judging by the community's response, I'd say they failed in getting as many sales as they otherwise would have and I can say with certainty that I was going to buy the game day one until they targeted pirates and alienated me as a paying customer in the process.
How do you know that? That they didn't achieve what they wanted to?
Everything you are adding to your game can ruin performance
True, but that's still a hypothetical. On the other side of that sword, hypothetically speaking, the publisher or developer could patch out the DRM before we ever get to that bridge. Getting up in arms about hypotheticals seems silly. Getting livid at others over hypotheticals is distressing. People are enjoying the game now, with the DRM in place. This seems to be lost on most.
Come on bruh this is a five page thread discussing this exact issue.
CecilRousso
Member
There's three threads going on about it now, with 5-10 pages each, explaining it. If this thread isn't enough, you can read up about in the Sonic Mania uses Denuvo thread, as an example.
Alexander DeLarge
Member
Your games are tied to an AWS-based auth server that need to receive generated authentication tickets at specified intervals (generally 21-30 days) and those servers are being maintained by a third party that abandoned their previous DRM scheme that was used in tons of AAA games (SecuROM, look it up if you're not familiar) after 6 years and have offered no such guarantee that it will be removed in the event of that server going down.
As always, it's a gamble whether DRM gets removed by the publisher. Some will get removals, many won't.
It isn't silly when we have precedent for this exact scenario playing out over and over and over again. Servers go down, companies go bankrupt, intellectual property rights transfer, source code and DRM-free executables get lost and the most common scenario is a game gets cracked but never receives a removal so the customer is the one stuck dealing with it. Just the other day I had to crack Fallout 3 because Bethesda never bothered to distribute the GOG version of the game to the 4 million people who bought it on Steam. Does every generation of gamers really need to get fucked over by DRM to understand why it is bad? Because it has only been several years since SecuROM and TAGES and Games For Windows Live.
Hmm? Bethesda still sells Fallout 3 on Steam. They even have separate listings for the vanilla version and its GOTY version. Why were you forced to crack it?
Turin Turambar
Member
I love people bending backwards to find a a problem.
Denuvo isn't a third party software installed on your pc. It's seamlessly integrated into the code of the game, like any api.
It's like the BS of impacting a game's performance. DOOM was one of the best performance graphic-intensive titles of the last three years and it used freaking Denuvo.
I'm pretty sure Alexander DeLarge means that he had to remove the GfWL from the Steam version of the game since he wants them to distribute the DRM free version on Steam.
Alexander DeLarge
Member
Games For Windows Live incompatibility with anything later than Vista. Fortunately, there's a stickied post containing the crack, which if not pinned by administrators, would be against Steam Discussions' TOS and I'd be banned for even discussing a removal/disabling mechanism.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/22370/discussions/0/828937546147175081/ (the GOG version has most of this all pre-patched so it's the definitive version in every way, ideal for modding out of the box)
It's important to note that such a removal would be impossible with Denuvo outside of dealing with the publisher/studio, god willing, someone out there has backups. We got lucky with Games For Windows Live, TAGES and SecuROM and it really hurts to type that. If 2007 me saw the 2017 version of me typing that, he'd shoot me in the face and put us both out of our misery.
When dealing with SecuROM (Denuvo's previous iteration) and SafeDisc, I have to either crack my legitimate purchase or modify registry files and go through a bunch of technical nonsense to use a DRM scheme that Microsoft doesn't allow on Windows 10 because it contains unremovable vulnerabilities exploitable by malware. On the other hand, at least it was crackable and wasn't reliant on online authentication servers.