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Denuvo, are we putting the keys to PC gaming in the hands of an unknown third party?

Caffeine

Member
No more than 20 AAA games have use Denuvo in the past 2 years, some of them requiring online connection so Denuvo is the least of their problems, you have a list on Wikipedia.

damn guess i was wrong but that list was basically all i bought in the last 2 years haha.
 

Acosta

Member
Does it limit me in any way? No.

Does it stop modding? No.

Do I notice it? No.

I'm fine then (but that's me, in case I have to state such thing).
 

zeelman

Member
But people can't tell cause there's no game where you can test the performance with and without Denuvo. It could have no performance hit or not, that's not something we can say for sure.
As for the calling back home a lot of Denuvo protected games already do that as far as I know. You can prove me wrong with facts if you have any?

There's nothing to confirm Denuvo causes performance issues or damage to SSDs at all. There have been Reddit posts and videos debunking this myth.
 

_machine

Member
I believe your second answer should be "yes"
Not to "stopping"; some JC3 mods still work and multiplayer mod is on its way, and on the side of official mods you have Total War: Warhammer which supports modding. However, it can affect executable injections, which is definitely not good, but it's not going to stop modding.
 

Vagabundo

Member
There's nothing to confirm Denuvo causes performance issues or damage to SSDs at all. There have been Reddit posts and videos debunking this myth.

First I've heard about Denuvo. DRM game protection has always been interesting, and the cat and mouse game around it.

I'd be very surprised if it didn't cause performance issues considering how the crackers think it works:

...
it uses a custom version of VMProtect 3 to virtualize: loader/wrapper library, license checks, steam authorization and on average a hundred or more game functions.
...
I will not go into VMProtect internals in detail here, even if they're the most interesting part of the protection, as that would be far too lengthy and complex. Short overview of VMProtect internals: x64 code is translated to a stack machine, stack machine byte code is obfuscated and interspread with integrity and timing checks realized in various ways. The encryption of the bytecode is polymorphic and bound in such a way that the next instruction's key depends on the current instruction. The interpreter of this bytecode is obfuscated as well, and the interpreter is unique in that it contains randomly generated decryptors for the bytecode. There are 10 of these interpreters in use for all the game-related code, and they're unique to the game, but they're all generated from the same template, this is true even for the very first Denuvo games.
The loader/wrapper part has anti-debug checks, decryption code and it also creates events and environment variables that the game can check for their presence to know if the game has been unpacked or cracked.

This would be done in real time as the game is running, so there is some overhead and maybe some latency. Very hard to say how much.
 

MUnited83

For you.
Does it limit me in any way? No.

Does it stop modding? No.

Do I notice it? No.

I'm fine then (but that's me, in case I have to state such thing).
It limits you if you like to play offline, it definitely stops modding, and you will notice it when trying to play them offline.

First I've heard about Denuvo. DRM game protection has always been interesting, and the cat and mouse game around it.

I'd be very surprised if it didn't cause performance issues considering how the crackers think it works:



This would be done in real time as the game is running, so there is some overhead and maybe some latency. Very hard to say how much.
People recently cracked a anti-tamper DRM on GTA V that acts a lot like Denuvo, and saw a improvement in performance. Unless the Denuvo devs are software magicians, I dont doubt that Denuvo is hurting a game's performance in a significant way.
 
Does it limit me in any way? No.

Today? No, but later?

Does it stop modding? No.

Stop? Perhaps not. Is it an obstacle that wasn't there before? Yes.

Do I notice it? No..

Today? No, but later?


Don't be afraid to ask the questions, and have the discussion.

"I will NEVER buy another AAA PC title with this Denuvo bullshit..."

"...until it's $7.50 on a Steam sale."

And it's the same for me.

Denuvo is not a showstopper, but it does devaluate the games. Why should we pay the same money as before, when the publishers and dev add more restrictions that are of no benefit for us as customers and consumers?
 
"I will NEVER buy another AAA PC title with this Denuvo bullshit..."

"...until it's $7.50 on a Steam sale."

I'll probably do that because I don't think it's a crazy statement. I replay old games and so part of that $60 is being able to play it when I want so I'll probably purchase those games eventually but I'll absolutely wait for a larger discount than before. $5 is my breaking point for most stuff.
 

_machine

Member
People recently cracked a anti-tamper DRM on GTA V that acts a lot like Denuvo, and saw a improvement in performance. Unless the Denuvo devs are software magicians, I dont doubt that Denuvo is hurting a game's performance in a significant way.
Can you link the source? As far as I know, the DRM was cracked quite soon after release and had no impact on performance, and the only thing that had impact on performance was an added script obfuscation to address multiplayer hacking (which had a small performance effect, and broke some mods momentarily), which they did fix. I can't find any source for that, and the only modder for GTA V I know hadn't heard of anything like that either (whom I trust, being a senior engineer in the industry).

I would definitely like to see some proof on the performance effect/degradation, as from what I know/have heard they definitely promise "but has no effect or limitation on the legitimate consumer" and "Anti-Tamper has no perceptible effect on game performance" as a part of their pitch and I've yet to hear any negative experience in engineering side (the actual results/effect of the DRM is probably way too high-up to be part of any back-chatter or at least anything I could hear). I'm no engineer, nor do I really know the actual effects of Denuvo, but I seriously question the performance effect as it'd be a very tough sell if it had any.

I mean, it can't be hard to imagine the kit costing a lot of money, so for continued licensing from publishers should probably give some indication where as Securom eventually failed as a continued business model.
 
What's this then? Or did you miss the part where he said that they are very limited in what they can do (which is something that an independent studio will ultimately face when working with a publishers)? Or maybe asks the guys actually developing the mod with blessing and communication from S-E, if they think Avalanche are cunts like you said: https://community.nanos.io/index.php?/topic/69-development-blog-week-9/ ? Who are still going strong with mod despite the patch and showing progress often.


No, the modders said that the patch broke support for some mods, not "how avalanche went out of their way" at least how JC3Mods reported it:

Unfortunately, patches breaking mod support is extremely common when we are talking about unofficial support. Even games with official mod tools struggle with it (any Beth title, Cities: Skylines, Ark). Not to mention that it simply makes no god damn sense (expect maybe R* felt that the multi mods might have cannibalized their economy, but that's hardly the case with most other titles), there's no ROI and hell, even publishers know that intentionally breaking mods is not good.

Again though, you obviously have no clue on how it works from a developer-side, so calling generally all developers cunts is pretty fucking gross.


.
Read the part I quoted again

And they did what exactly? They sure as hell didn't help the mod team with the mp mod. Allowing it to be a download on steam afterwards doesn't mean shit.

And again: the issue in jc3 with denuvo is that you can't simply revert to an older patch (only what the official launcher will let you install ,which is the latest version).


Usually devs can cock up mods all they want, you can still choose to install an older patch of the game and keep enjoying your mods.

But that's yet another choice that gets taken away from users. (unless the -often incompetent, lazy if not downright spiteful- developer graciously lets you)
 
In any number of doomsday scenarios, many publishers/devs will remove Denuvo from their games. But it's unlikely all will.

Missed this before, but exactly. When it comes to Steam, then (as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong) Valve can mod all of the games not require the client anymore.

With Denuvo? Not the same. And even if developers and publisher could, how many of them would, and how many of them will be around for it.
 

_machine

Member
Read the part I quoted again
I did and it doesn't mention that they specifically worked to break support (in a patch that was supposed to address things that could actually be related, like code integrity and performance) , and you still ignore the fact that as an independent developer working for a publisher, on a multiplatform title, supporting modding in concrete code changes is usually simply out of the question. They did talk with the modders JC3MP to go through their plans, which way more than you would expect, and probably helped them quite directly. You also failed to prove how they deliberately broke modding, contradicting the actual modders who said that it could be either way. Not to mention it makes no damn sense to spend money on something with absolutely zero return on investment (which is what specifically disabling modding would be).

And they did what exactly? They sure as hell didn't help the mod team with the mp mod. Allowing it to be a download on steam afterwards doesn't mean shit.
Umm, it means a ton actually. It means they actually convinced their publisher (which involves communication, legalese and costs), it means they did actual work to get a mod distributed on Steam, it means they give out legitimacy and marketing to a modding team (and actually went to hire some modders later on). That's actually pretty fucking a huge deal, and the mod developers themselves acknowledged it. What more would you expect when patching their game is probably way out of question? Give me a quote from any of the team members about how they didn't help and we can talk again.

And again: the issue in jc3 with denuvo is that you can't simply revert to an older patch (only what the official launcher will let you install ,which is the latest version).


Usually devs can cock up mods all they want, you can still choose to install an older patch of the game and keep enjoying your mods.

But that's yet another choice that gets taken away from users. (unless the -often incompetent, lazy if not downright spiteful- developer graciously lets you)
But that's more of an issue with the distribution platforms rather than the publisher/developer and game/drm, and something that largely hasn't been possible in most games, DRM or not (as Steam installs the latest build by default, and there is no alternative to it). Yes, it's possible to set multiple revision on Steam these days, but it does come with it's setbacks, and again, in both publisher relations and support costs is not necessarily a wise choice.

And, again, way to be fucking insulting to what's probably most of my friends, myself and other people who have worked tirelessly years to even try to make great games and serve audiences way bigger than here. They sure as fuck are not incompetent when you factor in the amount of experience you need to have to reach a position where you work with these systems, they sure as hell are not lazy working 60+ hours a week (which I'm glad I don't need to) and they sure as fucking hell are not spiteful to the general player base who actually help them make a living. I'm honestly too tired for this discussion want to use expletives that are not suited for this forum because you have absolutely no clue about anything with regards to game development.
 
Once again, Steam itself has no first-run online check. The only games that display these messages:

OiH5QSZ.jpg

drmlsxqk.png


...are those protected by Denuvo. Additionally, I'm sure you can see that said messages are not being generated by the Steam client but rather the executables of the games.

It's not a CEG thing because of what I just said above. It's not a proprietary thing as the messages are consistent across different games from different developers/publishers. The logical conclusion is that it's a Denuvo thing.

Edit: CA's Denuvo FAQ confirms that Denuvo "validates" PCs upon the first launch and, at least in this case, limits the number of PCs you can install the game to within a given 24-hour period to five. See below.



CA's comment regarding "initial online authentication via Steam during installation" refers to, I presume, what you mentioned earlier about having to be online to install a game, not an online check at runtime. I verified this for myself, just now, by installing Empire and running it in Offline Mode without incident immediately after the download completed.
There's definitely an online check on steam. I don't know what causes it (but I assume long periods of not logging in ) but I constantly get steam to instant turn off when I click "start offline mode" when using no internet and only gets restored when you go online once to restore.
 

Vinland

Banned
Wow, way to be a total asshole. Developers are not generally cunts, nor do they intentionally work to support or disable mods, it's usually a side-effect them not doing anything regards mods unofficially so it's not their job to ensure mods work after patching code (which, usually happens to multiplatform).


Did you miss the part where they were publically ecstatic that modders found a way to create a multiplayer and were willing to help them "in any way they can", despite acknowledging that it's very hard for them to do so. As a developer working as a second party developer for a publisher, you can't even begin to understand how hard it is, and legalities behind the process.

But here is the thing. As a consumer I don't care about your hardships and excuses. If what you want to solicit is empathy I can give you that in spades. Fans of games do so already with our purchases and the criticisms, positive and negative. That is the feedback loop that has always existed within gaming.

But DRM has not been proven to defeat theft in any meaningful way that can be conveyed to Jane Consumer before she starts to hear accountant created, ad hominem filled, masterbatory rhetoric on why we should put up with it. Consumers met developers and publishers half way when we begrudgingly adopted Steam a decade ago. Publishers still ask for more, and fracture the player communities, and remove player driven tools like dedicated servers et al.

I rather not play a PC game of a title I like that would support DRM unless the price is low enough for me to treat it exactly what it is. Ephemeral. DRM is essentially a serviced based rental with a long polling system that is only there until the lights go out. This isn't exactly conveyed to the regular consumer in any meaningful way and it is a predatory practice when full or near industry standard pricing is concerned. If these rentals with undefined return dates were cheaper... this wouldn't be as big of an issue. But since double dip friendly SKUs and definitive editions and HD remakes are a thing... I don't see publishers backing off.

So I pick and choose my PC titles with care now.

Edit: also what Console games I pay full price for when I know there is a day 1 patch
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
There's definitely an online check on steam. I don't know what causes it (but I assume long periods of not logging in ) but I constantly get steam to instant turn off when I click "start offline mode" when using no internet and only gets restored when you go online once to restore.

I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but there definitely isn't. Offline Mode is still a little imperfect, however it's supposed to be indefinite.
 

MUnited83

For you.
Can you link the source? As far as I know, the DRM was cracked quite soon after release and had no impact on performance, and the only thing that had impact on performance was an added script obfuscation to address multiplayer hacking (which had a small performance effect, and broke some mods momentarily), which they did fix. I can't find any source for that, and the only modder for GTA V I know hadn't heard of anything like that either (whom I trust, being a senior engineer in the industry).

I would definitely like to see some proof on the performance effect/degradation, as from what I know/have heard they definitely promise "but has no effect or limitation on the legitimate consumer" and "Anti-Tamper has no perceptible effect on game performance" as a part of their pitch and I've yet to hear any negative experience in engineering side (the actual results/effect of the DRM is probably way too high-up to be part of any back-chatter or at least anything I could hear). I'm no engineer, nor do I really know the actual effects of Denuvo, but I seriously question the performance effect as it'd be a very tough sell if it had any.

I mean, it can't be hard to imagine the kit costing a lot of money, so for continued licensing from publishers should probably give some indication where as Securom eventually failed as a continued business model.
It was "cracked" before, as in it could be pirated, but the anti-tamper was still there. The anti-tamper DRM was only completely cracked and removed recently by Skidrow. Some people have said they got better performance but I have no actual data about it.
 

_machine

Member
But here is the thing. As a consumer I don't care about your hardships and excuses. If what you want to solicit is empathy I can give you that in spades. Fans of games do so already with our purchases and the criticisms, positive and negative. That is the feedback loop that has always existed within gaming./QUOTE]
And that is fair enough and something I completely back; it's not the consumers job to agree or justify a developers or publishers choices nor do they need to buy the products they don't feel like supporting. The feedback loop is extremely crucial and criticism is completely fair when we are talking about paid products. However, I was responding to posters ridiculous conspiracy theories and calling generally all developers "cunts, lazy, incompetent and spiteful", which is an accusation I don't take lightly without any proof.

But DRM has not been proven to defeat theft in any meaningful way that can be conveyed to Jane Consumer before she starts to hear accountant created, ad hominem filled, masterbatory rhetoric on why we should put up with it. Consumers met developers and publishers half way when we begrudgingly adopted Steam a decade ago. Publishers still ask for more, and fracture the player communities, and remove player driven tools like dedicated servers et al.
That is a good point; without concrete data consumers don't need to be able justify their opinions regarding DRM. It's unlikely that we'll ever see the research or data (nor will it be completely accurate as you can't A/B-test the world), but I also don't see why it would be hard to see how publishers can justify it, even if it's not necessarily cheap. I also wouldn't say that Steam was begrudgingly adopted, or that the general Jane Consumer on PC even cares about DRM, but that's beside the point.

I rather not play a PC game of a title I like that would support DRM unless the price is low enough for me to treat it exactly what it is. Ephemeral. DRM is essentially a serviced based rental with a long polling system that is only there until the lights go out. This isn't exactly conveyed to the regular consumer in any meaningful way and it is a predatory practice when full or near industry standard pricing is concerned. If these rentals with undefined return dates were cheaper... this wouldn't be as big of an issue. But since double dip friendly SKUs and definitive editions and HD remakes are a thing... I don't see publishers backing off.

So I pick and choose my PC titles with care now.

Edit: also what Console games I pay full price for when I know there is a day 1 patch
Again, completely fair and I have definitely left some titles on the shelf because of an online-only integration that I felt had no value, and would rather spend my money elsewhere. I also have my doubts on the the functionality of individual services (I'm not too concerned about Steam or uPlay or Origin, but that's obviously a risk I'm willing to take) and I care deeply about archival purposes and being able to see our legacy, so yes, the service-based approach definitely has downsides without much direct value (though at least Steam offers some, especially tools like Steam Workshop or marketplace are a good example of how it can add value to the product).
 
What? Who was talking about damage to SSD??

It's been rumoured quite a lot before, but it's been debuncted from various sources, but unfortunately a lot of the debate about Denuvo still focuses on this and ignores other issues with the system.

Even if the performance hits aren't there, and even if the SSD's aren't taking a hit over time, Denuvo is not flawless, and should still be discussed.
 
It's been rumoured quite a lot before, but it's been debuncted from various sources, but unfortunately a lot of the debate about Denuvo still focuses on this and ignores other issues with the system.

Even if the performance hits aren't there, and even if the SSD's aren't taking a hit over time, Denuvo is not flawless, and should still be discussed.

I'm informed about the SSD rumors and that they have been debunked but I haven't mentioned them once in my previous post to which that poster was strangely replying to. I was talking about how we can't prove Denuvo doesn't cause a performance hit cause no one has been able to test a Denuvo game with and without it. (logically it's way more probable that it would cause performance hits based on how the tech works) I agree that the topic needs to be discussed cause the implications are above simple performance issues so the thread is a good idea.
 

Fafalada

Fafracer forever
Vagabundo said:
This would be done in real time as the game is running, so there is some overhead and maybe some latency.
You're asking this the wrong way - noone virtualizes entire executables (if we could do that, piracy and cheating alike would be all but impossible by now). Yes protected parts of the code run slower, but it's not like DRM checks are fast enough to run real-time to begin with.

BernardoOne said:
It's not.
 

nkarafo

Member
There should be a law or something that forces publishers to remove DRM after a certain period of time, say 1 year.

This way a game will sell as many copies as it should, according to the publishers, without piracy reducing it's performance for the period that matters the most and gamers won't have to worry if their games will work in the future.
 

Sijil

Member
Denuvo is nowhere near Starforce or any other types of DRM. It's light, unnoticeable and works in preventing piracy, it's the perfect balance between user and publisher needs.

I have over 5 Denuvo games, I just finished Mad Max offline. It has never been a hindrance, I never noticed its presence. Total War Warhammer is launching with mod support, and Denuvo does not stop modding all together merely tampering directly with the .exe file, which stops some mods but not all.

Here are the sales of some Denuvo enabled games:

Mad Max:
http://steamspy.com/app/234140

Doom:
http://steamspy.com/app/379720

Arkham Knight:
http://steamspy.com/app/208650

Rise of the Tomb Raider:
http://steamspy.com/app/391220

Just Cause 3:
http://steamspy.com/app/225540

MGSV:
http://steamspy.com/app/287700

Think it's fair to say that Denuvo is working, no game below 500K (Except for Doom, but it's still new). If Denuvo means more publishers putting more games on PC, then so be it, it's not even inconvenience in the first place since I hardly noticed it.
 

nkarafo

Member
Think it's fair to say that Denuvo is working, no game below 500K (Except for Doom, but it's still new). If Denuvo means more publishers putting more games on PC, then so be it, it's not even inconvenience in the first place since I hardly noticed it.
AAA games tend to sell just as good in general, with or without Denuvo.

By your logic, Witcher 3 should be a failure on PC since it's on GOG. But the PC version sold more than 1.5 million or something last time i checked.
 

Sijil

Member
AAA games tend to sell just as good in general, with or without Denuvo.

By your logic, Witcher 3 should be a failure on PC since it's on GOG. But the PC version sold more than 1.5 million or something last time i checked.

Witcher 3 is also one of the MOST pirated games on PC alongside Witcher 2. Witcher 3 is a game rooted in PC with a large following, not surprising it did so well, same with the Elder's Scrolls series, those games will always sell on PC and they always be pirated to hell and back. Don't think the games mentioned above would've sold just as much without Denuvo.
 

nkarafo

Member
Witcher 3 is also one of the MOST pirated games on PC alongside Witcher 2. Witcher 3 is a game rooted in PC with a large following, not surprising it did so well, same with the Elder's Scrolls series, those games will always sell on PC and they always be pirated to hell and back. Don't think the games mentioned above would've sold just as much without Denuvo.
I think it's pretty well known that most people who don't want to pay for games, or don't have money to buy games, won't suddenly pay because there is no crack. Some will but it's the minority. Most people who pirate games will pirate anything, that doesn't mean they would buy anything if they had money.

But ok, there is no way to know for sure and i understand that DRM is a way for the publisher to feel safe and be sure that anyone who was going to buy their game, won't be tempted to pirate it instead. I agree with this. But only as long as said DRM is removed after a certain period.
 

Setsuna

Member
Question: If I don't connect to the servers for Tomb raider and Metal gear solid 5 for a month, will I still be able to play the game if my internet is out?
 

Acosta

Member
Today? No, but later?



Stop? Perhaps not. Is it an obstacle that wasn't there before? Yes.



Today? No, but later?


Don't be afraid to ask the questions, and have the discussion.



And it's the same for me.

Denuvo is not a showstopper, but it does devaluate the games. Why should we pay the same money as before, when the publishers and dev add more restrictions that are of no benefit for us as customers and consumers?

I'll start worrying when the "later" part becomes "now".
 

prudislav

Member
Question: If I don't connect to the servers for Tomb raider and Metal gear solid 5 for a month, will I still be able to play the game if my internet is out?
not in my experience ...the licence expired around the 2nd week last time i was offfline for longer time period
 
Denuvo is nowhere near Starforce or any other types of DRM. It's light, unnoticeable and works in preventing piracy,

We know that, but that doesn't cover the concerns in OP.

Think it's fair to say that Denuvo is working, no game below 500K (Except for Doom, but it's still new). If Denuvo means more publishers putting more games on PC, then so be it, it's not even inconvenience in the first place since I hardly noticed it.

No, those sales for those titles are pretty much just the expected numbers for those. Not an indication that Denuvo has helped in a significant way.
 

_machine

Member
Denuvo is not flawless, and should still be discussed.
Absolutely, it's a discussion we should have, but not one which will be helpful in anyway if some posters keep spewing ridiculous conspiracy theories or insults. To address the point in the OP (which the online check), it might not actually be a standard part of Denuvo (or afaik, definitely is not) as they even specifically mention that Denuvo is not DRM, which an online check would fall under. It's more likely that they use another service (hoster either by themselves, or Steam, which could be confirmed by a trace) and Denuvo acts as the protection for the actual DRM. We also know that there are games protected by Denuvo that do not have a call-to-home feature, which would reinforce the theory. For archival purposes only it doesn't necessarily matter, but when we are talking about Denuvo specifically, these technicalities are pretty important.

No, those sales for those titles are pretty much just the expected numbers for those. Not an indication that Denuvo has helped in a significant way.
Problem is that even uplift of 1% in conversion would be significant, but because there's absolutely zero way consumers/outsiders can get hold of any relevant data, I think the value for publishers should not even be up for discussion when it's bound to be heated discussion of no reasonable data in any way.
 

ghostjoke

Banned
Man, a Total War game having Denuvo really makes me think about how a particular version of a game could be lost to the annals of time because there is no crack available. I remember spending ages trying to get my steam copy of Rome 1 to work well on modern hardware. Turned out that a patch had been released that messed things up on certain configs. Installed my old disc copy of gold and got significant performance increase, not ideal but playable. Throw on a CD crack and good to go.

Thinking of MGSV too, where I'd want a version before the Konami fuckery went into full force if I did ever play through it again, add on all the issues I forsee Denuvo games having in a few years when the inevitable "have your money, get fucked" routine comes out, and Devuvo really is one of those things that makes me outright avoid a game from here on out. It might not be DRM, but there's a high chance it'll cause similar problems down the line. I'd prefer to wait until someone cracks it before handing money over. I wish I could find humour in the irony of this circumstance, but I just want to play games without the creeping feeling of fuckeries past - main reason I use GOG when I can.
 

Gattsu25

Banned
Why do people keep saying that Denuvo is not DRM? Because the developers claim it not to be? It's function is precisely the same as traditional DRM.

It's an encryption DRM implementation.
 

_machine

Member
Why do people keep saying that Denuvo is not DRM? Because the developers claim it not to be? It's function is precisely the same as traditional DRM.

It's an encryption DRM implementation.
No, Denuvo by itself doesn't manage a license, so it's not Digital Rights Management. You have to supply it with something that checks the ownership, whether it's Steam DRM or calling your own server, but by its own it does not qualify as DRM. A minor technicality when it will always be paired with DRM, but still important if we address the right issues. Encryption DRM works by itself to protect the copyright, Denuvo does not.
 

Gattsu25

Banned
No, Denuvo by itself doesn't manage a license, so it's not Digital Rights Management. You have to supply it with something that checks the ownership, whether it's Steam DRM or calling your own server, but by its own it does not qualify as DRM. A minor technicality when it will always be paired with DRM, but still important if we address the right issues. Encryption DRM works by itself to protect the copyright, Denuvo does not.
Looking into how Denuvo works, it seems to encrypt the data using a key based on the hardware of your PC. So it, itself, is a DRM system to unlock, err, itself. It's just a happy accident that it includes the game in the data that it protects 😺. They might call it something different but it checks against your hardware, authenticates against your hardware profile, and allows use of the protected software.

Its function is DRM. It just so happens that the 'license' is never called one but is generated at time of install and coincidentally encompasses the software that you are trying to access.
 

Mifec

Member
Denuvo is nowhere near Starforce or any other types of DRM. It's light, unnoticeable and works in preventing piracy, it's the perfect balance between user and publisher needs.

I have over 5 Denuvo games, I just finished Mad Max offline. It has never been a hindrance, I never noticed its presence. Total War Warhammer is launching with mod support, and Denuvo does not stop modding all together merely tampering directly with the .exe file, which stops some mods but not all.

Here are the sales of some Denuvo enabled games:

Mad Max:
http://steamspy.com/app/234140

Doom:
http://steamspy.com/app/379720

Arkham Knight:
http://steamspy.com/app/208650

Rise of the Tomb Raider:
http://steamspy.com/app/391220

Just Cause 3:
http://steamspy.com/app/225540

MGSV:
http://steamspy.com/app/287700

Think it's fair to say that Denuvo is working, no game below 500K (Except for Doom, but it's still new). If Denuvo means more publishers putting more games on PC, then so be it, it's not even inconvenience in the first place since I hardly noticed it.

Arkham Knight, MGSV and Mad Max are all cracked.
 
It is pretty ridiculous to have multiple layers of DRM.

I don't know if it's because executives at larger publishers don't recognise the reality of modern PC gaming and are still locked in a 2001 mindset (and if they are, its semi-understandable given large portions of GAF who are supposedly clued in gamers are also in that mindset), Steam as DRM is relatively unintrusive and offsets its negatives with positives for the consumer, and as such isn't perceived to be a 'real' DRM because there's no end user level buttfuckery going on (like a placebo effect in reverse, where a medicince can't be any good if it isn't foul tasting) or if the Denuvo salespeople have some extremely convincing patter to convince publishers to give them money.

It can't imagine being very hard to convince publishers:

"We have an unobtrusive DRM that users don't care about, so far it's uncracked which means no one can pirate your games, and since it's seamless to the user there's no backslash into using it"

"And here's some data from games that are using Denuvo, as you can see, they all sold at least this much: XXXXX, now let's look at some similarly budget games that didn't use our DRM and see how much it sold: YYYYY (Which is some lower number)"

"So we have something that will increase your sales and no one will boycott your game because of it."

And if the company is against mods (or not against per se, but want to capitalize on mods) that's even easier to convince.

I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but there definitely isn't. Offline Mode is still a little imperfect, however it's supposed to be indefinite.

Ok, it might be their goal, but thus far pretty much every time i need to use it offline, i need to use my phone to tether it and go online for steam to validate my pc again.
 

prudislav

Member
Ok, it might be their goal, but thus far pretty much every time i need to use it offline, i need to use my phone to tether it and go online for steam to validate my pc again.
strange never happened to me on non--denuvo games on steam , pretty much everything i had installed I was able to play offline on the boat trip (35 days) with the exception of denuvo games which "expired" on both steam and origin and were not playable after 10 days or so
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Ok, it might be their goal, but thus far pretty much every time i need to use it offline, i need to use my phone to tether it and go online for steam to validate my pc again.

I wasn't implying that you were lying, just making the point that the behaviour you're experiencing is unintentional and not a feature in the vein of an online check. You do have Steam set to save your login info, right?
 

mieumieu

Member
I think it's pretty well known that most people who don't want to pay for games, or don't have money to buy games, won't suddenly pay because there is no crack. Some will but it's the minority. Most people who pirate games will pirate anything, that doesn't mean they would buy anything if they had money.

But ok, there is no way to know for sure and i understand that DRM is a way for the publisher to feel safe and be sure that anyone who was going to buy their game, won't be tempted to pirate it instead. I agree with this. But only as long as said DRM is removed after a certain period.

Some people definitely did start buying games when there is no crack. Just look at 3dmgame forums if you know the language. I cannot know how many percent among them will do though, maybe it's just a tiny fraction.
 

prudislav

Member
Some people definitely did start buying games when there is no crack. Just look at 3dmgame forums if you know the language. I cannot know how many percent among them will do though, maybe it's just a tiny fraction.
honestly on similar sites i've seen more people trying to abuse family sharing and stuff likeregional pricing or fishy keysites than those actually claiming to buy it ... might be related to the fact that majority of the pirates are just kids and people from poor regions anyway.

Iirc there is even whole grey business going on around denuvo games account sharing ...
 

Nzyme32

Member
Ok, it might be their goal, but thus far pretty much every time i need to use it offline, i need to use my phone to tether it and go online for steam to validate my pc again.

From personal experience, our HP pavilion ancient laptop (last time I checked) was offline for 1.5 years (WLAN doesn't work), and you can still play the majority of the games on it in offline mode (iirc hl2, civ v, coh, return to wolfenstein, l4d2, xcom and some other stuff). That was new year 2015 though, not checked it since and not particularly bothered fetching it from the attic.
 
I wasn't implying that you were lying, just making the point that the behaviour you're experiencing is unintentional and not a feature in the vein of an online check. You do have Steam set to save your login info, right?
Yeah, I dunno exactly what I do, perhaps it's because I constantly log in in different places (but I've always last logged in to the device I try to access offline).

But it's not even a single game, not even steam works and just closes after asking to start offline mode.

Edit: And after logging in I can go offline, it feels as like my pc got deauthorized for some reason, like when you log in in another place but still its logged in somewhere else.
 

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
Denuvo is nowhere near Starforce or any other types of DRM. It's light, unnoticeable and works in preventing piracy, it's the perfect balance between user and publisher needs.

I have over 5 Denuvo games, I just finished Mad Max offline. It has never been a hindrance, I never noticed its presence. Total War Warhammer is launching with mod support, and Denuvo does not stop modding all together merely tampering directly with the .exe file, which stops some mods but not all.

Here are the sales of some Denuvo enabled games:

[links]

Think it's fair to say that Denuvo is working, no game below 500K (Except for Doom, but it's still new). If Denuvo means more publishers putting more games on PC, then so be it, it's not even inconvenience in the first place since I hardly noticed it.
Denuvo does nothing for user needs. It only caters to publishers. Denuvo also doesn't mean more PC games, that's been happening for a long time, before it was created.

One mod being stopped by Denuvo is one mod too much. Defending this is ridiculous, it does no good at all. Don't you care about authentication servers eventually going down and rendering the games unplayable? Don't you care about having to be online when you launch the game for the first time? Don't you care about some mods being stopped? All of this may not matter to you, but to frame it as pro-consumer or a good balance is nothing short of absurd.
 
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