Look at the history of every DRM ever.
Because you hate people that like to play offline, mod to the full extent possible and play games you bought 10 years ago?
That's a weird view, but sure.
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PC version of Inside seemingly using Denuvo
- Thread starter JaseC
- Start date
That's a weird view, but sure.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
Name some PC games that you can't play today because of their DRM. Bonus points if you can do it without even googling.
I'd say it's probably because of their general reluctance to see forests from trees
and I'm about as hardcore a PC evangelist as GAF allows for
More_Badass
Member
A lot of these arguments have a very player-centric view, and don't seem to consider indie developers at all. Only what helps the players matters
The sense I get is that the DRM debate seems to mainly revolve around AAA games, and an indie dev using DRM outside of Steam's is rare.
ScientificPizza
Banned
Sure, put the burden of proof on me. Show me one major form of DRM where all of the games are now completely unplayable.
A shitload of them wouldn't if cracking wasn't a thing
Consider this: DRM treats legitimate consumers as pirates. If you're a legitimate consumer, you shouldn't have to deal with that bullshit.
Everything points to Denuvo not leading to any verifiable increase on sales, and we had several million sellers on the indie side just fine without them having Denuvo.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
Aren't games with Securerom DRM essentially not working with Win10? Also, are there not older GFWL titles that don't run properly anymore?
I think if pubs/debts committed to say patch out Denuvo after first year or two, most of the preservation arguments would go away. Loss of modding would suck though.
For offline, how often do Denuvo titles check in, once a month or so? Steam is also a culprit here as it auto forces patches vs say GoG (yes, it doesn't have DRM, but just talking patches) which forces Denovo check.
I think if pubs/debts committed to say patch out Denuvo after first year or two, most of the preservation arguments would go away. Loss of modding would suck though.
For offline, how often do Denuvo titles check in, once a month or so? Steam is also a culprit here as it auto forces patches vs say GoG (yes, it doesn't have DRM, but just talking patches) which forces Denovo check.
More_Badass
Member
Okay? That's like saying a lot of houses without alarm systems don't get broken into when asked if a particular alarm system is effective. That's great, but I was asking how that alarm system worked
ScientificPizza
Banned
Games still being sold without DRM is not a good argument against it?
Huge Succeeded
Banned
So? Your point? Is it that devs feel no impetus to disable their own DRM down the line? As if that should pose an issue to me on the basis of games preservation, considering cracking is a thing?
Will you please cede to my request and post examples of PC games that simply can't be played in 2016? Games that haven't effectively been preserved? It seems like that would strengthen your point a lot more than nonsense hypotheticals do.
Pray tell, what constitutes 'everything' in this case? Where is your evidence for that? Is it purely conjecture? Lack of data isn't evidence for anything, but I feel like I've put forward a much stronger and more reasonable argument for Denuvo enabling more sales (particularly for this indie game) than you've put forward for Denuvo not possibly having any impact on sales -
stronger in the sense that I've actually using reason to validate my opinion as opposed to regurgitating the kind of dated rhetoric I used to only see floating around torrent tracker forums. Especially in a world where indie games and AA games are damn near the last piratable games left on PC, how could you possibly imagine that despite the general ease of locating, downloading, and cracking these kinds of games, an effective DRM solution cannot offer any sales benefit? As though nobody who pirates would purchase a game if it was the only viable way to play it? As it stands, you appear to be exactly the kind of poster I described in this post -
If I know that a game has DRM then I won't buy it.
Hard to tell in Steam though if a game has it
If I wanted to rent or hire a game I'd rent or hire a game.
Gaming As A Service (GaaS) coming to you now. Get that out of here.
What if I buy a book for $20 and someone comes and takes it off me 5 years later. Not a problem you say. It was only $20 and you enjoyed that book for many years
Hard to tell in Steam though if a game has it
If I wanted to rent or hire a game I'd rent or hire a game.
Gaming As A Service (GaaS) coming to you now. Get that out of here.
What if I buy a book for $20 and someone comes and takes it off me 5 years later. Not a problem you say. It was only $20 and you enjoyed that book for many years
CecilRousso
Member
It's good to be player-centric, considering how many developers and publishers want our money, how often they want it, and how much of our rights as a consumer they want us to give up. Everyone should be on their toes against that.
Indie devs have to play with the same rules as anyone else who wants money for their product - deliver a good enough product in a way that the consumer is comfortable with.
As for my responsibility and I do for them:
I pay for my games.
If they're interesting enough, then I buy them day 1.
If they're interesting enough, then I pay full price for indie games, whether it's $40 for The Witness or $20 for Invisible Inc.
I accept Steam.
And I have on several occasions double dipped on GOG to get Steam games DRM free.
I think that somewhere around that, my responsibility for a games success ends, and whatever beef they have with pirates is not something I should have to get involved with.
It's more like the alarm system doesn't really work in preventing thieves from entering your house, but it will annoyingly not stop beeping whenever someone is visiting you legally.
Sure it does. If piracy affects as much as people claim it does, those games would never reach those kind of sales.
Cracking is a thing on other DRMs. Cracking isn't a thing for Denuvo as it currently stands.
But it doesn't. People who pirate will just move to other games they can pirate and just ignore Inside completely. It's as much of a conjecture as your is, but mine is at least backed by the fact that none of the Denuvo games has shown a significant magical increase of sales.
Also, a little reminder: cracking is illegal in some countries so even if you think cracking is inevitable and Denuvo games will be preserved anyways, it will still be something not ideal at all and that could even result on legal consequences to people for trying to play a game THEY BOUGHT.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
That would imply they care about preservation, which they clearly don't care in the first place since they are using denuvo.
Blam
Member
It has been cracked by Reloaded. Just hasnt been released yet. I'm gonna assume it'll be out once a bunch of games are able to be cracked.
Actually Microsoft disables anything with SecurROM on it because of security reasons believe.
This game could straight up install some malware on my pc and I would probably still want to play it, it looks fantastic. Put me firmly in the IDGAF camp. I have not had one instance of this horrible evil Denuvo making it difficult for me to play a game. I bought Rottr I played Rottr.. the only reason I know it has Denuvo is because some tinfoil hat on the interwebs told me so. I can understand an indie developer wanting some form of protection, even if you can provide anecdotal evidence that challenges the legitimacy of how much protection it even offers I can understand it.. we live in an age where a good chunk of the population sees nothing wrong with the theft of digital goods.
Being upset over DRM on a digital item is like being upset that a local retailer has equipped items with ink tags or alarm trips.. should I just stop shopping at these stores because they make me feel like a criminal?
Being upset over DRM on a digital item is like being upset that a local retailer has equipped items with ink tags or alarm trips.. should I just stop shopping at these stores because they make me feel like a criminal?
Crimsonclaw111
Member
Shitty analogy since those are removed when you buy them.
Also go ahead and enjoy malware, most of us don't want that.
Katzenjammer
Member
Despite the negative impact on game preservation (which devs can actually do something about in the future) I think this is a very good thing. Denuvo seems to be the first PC DRM that keeps pirates out, and if it becomes the norm rather than an anomaly, I think people's stance on paying for games will change too. People will keep wanting to play games in a future where all games are protected by DRM like this, and that will be overall beneficial for the industry.
CecilRousso
Member
What reactions posted in this thread are the ones you feel are knee-jerk reactions?
More_Badass
Member
How can you make that claim when there aren't solid statistics and empirical data to analyze?
Similar games and saying DRM free games sell a lot aren't exactly useful data if you trying to analyze the sales of a game with Denuvo; then it's just noise. A legit way is to have a game with Denuvo and the same game without and compare.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
An alarm trip isn't permanantly attached to my clothes and won't start triggering the alarm after not using it for a while without getting a check in the shop I bought it and neither will be unable to use it if the shop closes some time in the future.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
There's that false dichotomy again. Endeavoring to nip piracy in the bud isn't an implicit suggestion that a dev house believes their games can't be successful in a world of piracy.
And I'm certain that won't last, as it hasn't for any other DRM solution. I don't understand being convinced otherwise, but perhaps you can validate that suggestion? Maybe by posting examples of PC games that have gone uncracked or unpreserved? You'd think that'd be a simple proposition if your fears were truly founded.
The bolded statement is utterly meaningless. As I pointed out last page, you could never obtain the metrics to actually quantify that statement. Comparing two different games with different marketing cycles and styles, demographics, etc. etc. certainly isn't the way to do so, either.
but herein lies the impasse. You somehow believe, again, that pirates simply never purchase games that they can't just pirate. As though pirates never spend money on video games. As though pirates have never been faced with a game they genuinely wanted to play enough to pay for. That's asinine, disingenuous, I shouldn't have to explain why, that sort of logic flies in the face of common sense, but it sure does make for a convenient talking point!
So do you think that there's nobody out there, who, for example, had paid for DOOM 2016 in order to play it, who would have otherwise pirated the game for free if the option were available? Please answer this question.
Convenient. Somehow I'm sure you have examples of people who have seen the legal consequences of applying a crack to a legally purchased game firsthand.
ScientificPizza
Banned
This is just... what?
Go to the games section of any torrent site. If there is more than one seeder or leecher for anything listed there then that is too many. Protecting against that, regardless of if that changes sales or not, is entirely the choice of the developer and should be respected.
Not every game needs to meet your specific ideals, especially if that comes at the potential cost of a developers livelihood.
Removed yes, but they still apply the same connotation that you as the consumer cannot be trusted which is more or less the thing I was trying to drive home. Also, one does not enjoy malware... I am on your side.
I'm pretty sure they remove the alarms when you buy the stuff. If the store puts a permanent alarm trip on what you bought and it will sound the alarm when you try to use your items...
yes, you should stop shopping at those stores.
Sure they are. If it made a difference, the gap in sales between Denuvo and DRM-Free games would be HUGE. They are not.
Do you not understand what "significant increase" means? I didn't claim that there are no pirates ever that are going to buy a game that cannot be pirated. A tiny, tiny, tiny portion of them, that end up making no difference, while hurting your customers and even losing sales because they're using idiotic DRM.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
You keep repeating yourself on this point as though several posters haven't already pointed out to you in no uncertain terms why this rhetoric doesn't hold up. Again...
...
I don't know why you're so certain that these new purchases constitute "no difference", when they're apparently valuable enough to an increasing number of developers and publishers to justify buying into Denuvo to begin with. There's that dated torrent tracker rhetoric, again! Although I half expect you to claim that the number of customers lost to DRM practices eclipses the number of customers potentially gained through the elimination of piracy as an avenue toward playing their games, because logic does not appear to be your strong suit.
CecilRousso
Member
What? What kind of scenario is that?
Do you mean that the game is relased with Denuvo first, and then later on without Denuvo, and that we compare the sales numbers? You only get one release window, and the latter will always sell much much less.
Or do you mean simulteanous releases with both versions? A scenario that would confuse the consumer and render Denuvo worthless?
Katzenjammer
Member
Analogies to buying products don't really work, these days we're buying the right to play a game, i.e. a service. This situation is more akin to showing a pass every time you ride a bus. If the bus company goes out of business then your pass is invalid too.
exmachina64
Banned
You should assume that every game has DRM.
Well people have been longing for fantasy Total War since the beginning of the series and they finally delivered it especially with WH IP put onto it .... not really good case
noone knows from what I experienced it can be couple days to 3 weeks and there seems to be some other events that an trigger the need for reath (changing drivers, connecting new HW,...)
By this logic, what information can be inferred at all from any sales data ever, even outside of Denuvo and PC gaming discussion? This seems like a weirdly rigid standard to hold, especially since your example can't actually exist in the real world, and if it did, would not actually provide any useful information.
It does hold up fine, that's the thing. You are trying to say that the only possible metric ever possible to be brought up is an impossible one (so convenient) in that in alternate universes a DRM-free release is made, and in the other it comes with Denuvo and then compare the sales of the two.
The thing is, if it actually made a difference, you would actively see Denuvo games breaking trends and breaking records.
The thing is that it is actively completely different. Their anti theft measures continue to exist even when you already bought it, this doesn't happen on physical stores! The legit consumer does not have to deal with those measures! Your physical product won't stop working because the store closed down! You won't be doing a illegal act if they forgot the alarm trip there and you remove it yourself!
Right, but as I stated above you I was more focused on the fact that someone said DRM makes them feel like a criminal because it's like the developer putting anti theft measures in place.. which is exactly what retailers of physical goods do. So again, if you shop at a store and they have everything set up with alarm trips etc, does that in turn make you feel like a criminal, because the store automatically expects SOME of you to attempt theft?
DRM is no different, it's the developer making a choice and saying "we expect SOME of you guys to steal from us so.. here you go." I think some people are missing the point of what I said there and maybe that's my fault.
More_Badass
Member
If one wanted to do an empirical statistical analysis, that would be the way to do it. But I was speaking from a research/experimental perspective.
But since we don't have the sales data needed, it is impossible to make definite concrete statements that Denuvo hurts or doesn't hurt sales, or that the same game would sell better with or without. We can say it definitely reduces piracy, since a game with Denuvo can't be pirated.
ScientificPizza
Banned
You're also assuming that increasing sales is the only reason anyone would use DRM.
Ending piracy itself is a worthy endeavour to pursue.
Katzenjammer
Member
I get what you mean but as you see there are posters who point out that buying something from the store isn't the same, because the store tags are removed once the product leaves the store.
I think a lot of people see this DRM as buying a product that can theoretically stop working in a couple of years. It derails the conversation since the topic is really about buying a service, not a product.
Let's say I boycott the game because it has drm. I never get to play it. Then 30 years from now Denuvo shuts down, the game is completely unplayable and lost to time(not happening). I still don't get to play the game. To me, I'd rather support the devs for the games I want to play, pony up the money, and if my 20$ product is no longer working 30 years from now, I think I'm going to be ok with the investment over that time period.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
I genuinely don't understand how you don't see how little sense you're making right now. Piracy is far from the only contributing factor to a game's success (or lack thereof) relative to other games. There's marketing, there's timing, there's word of mouth, there's demographics. It doesn't make any sense to claim that games that can't be pirated would be universally breaking records across the board, simply for that reason alone. That's not how this kind of shit works. As I (and others) have pointed out earlier, you can't just compare two successful games, one with DRM and one without, and say "well here's evidence that DRM has no impact!" as though those games were being sold in a vacuum where DRM and piracy were the sole differentiator between how those products are valued and perceived.
I don't even know why I'm asking this because you attempt to sidestep every salient point made toward you, but have you a retort for this that takes into account what I've just said?
CecilRousso
Member
Eh, it wouldn't be, since it's impossible to get fair numbers from any kind of scenario like that.
The fair way is study a larger number of games, over a longer period of times, with and without Denuvo.
I'm not saying that it hurts sales either. I'm saying that it doesn't help to the extent that Denuvo supporters here seem to claim that it does.
It's not a worthy endeavour if it comes at a cost of the legitimate consumer. The legitimate consumer should NEVER be punished because of pirates.
Also, "ending piracy itself", as in, completely erasing it? If it's done, it also means the preservation of the games will get screwed in the process. If Denuvo servers go down, would be the only way for the games to be preserved.
You can't compare individual games, but you sure as fuck can compare trends over time just fine.
I could be uneducated on the subject matter but is there really anything to worry about with the DRM if you are a legitimate customer? Has any DRM ever stopped every consumer from playing a game permenantly? Has Denuvo in particular been known to do anything BUT anti theft? I could understand being upset if your T-Shirt set off alarms.. or the ink tags were never removed but I also for the life of me cannot seem to find a single example of DRM hindering my enjoyment of a title in that way either.
Digital goods and Physical goods are not the same.. retailers and developers should be able to have means of protecting their stuff and unfortunately with digital goods you can't just remove a sticker or take off a tag. For it to be effective at stopping someone from stealing it has to be a strong form of DRM. I hope one day we can find a happy medium to this so that both sides can stop bickering about it but as it stands I see nothing wrong with a developer wanting to say no as hard as they can to anyone who would try to play their game without making the purchase.
True, which is all the more embarrasing when major publishers state similar. Unrelated to your discussion, but it's embarrassing Ubisoft expected there are over 10 million extra potential sales out there that were being held back due to piracy. Now that piracy is so diminished, they are nowhere to be seen. It shows how idiotic the higher ups are in these companies are. They're being paid because of their expertise in the industry, where is that?
reminds me the good old Ubisoft's saying they have 95% piracy rate and every pirated copy is a lost sale ... so with this in mind Primal should have sold dozens of millions
CecilRousso
Member
That's a question where DRM is deciding factor, which few signs point to it actually being.
It also ignores the cost of implementing such DRM, as with Denuvo being the only one that "works", you can bet that it is quite costly. What happens when your game is a major bomb and you spent a significant part of your budget on a DRM that didn't do any difference in the end?
ScientificPizza
Banned
No one is being punished. You're being inconvinienced at worst.
Preservation of a game isn't a given, and that also doesn't mean that at a point it should become free. The preservation of games is important but if you think that equates to just being able to torrent anything over a certain age then your moral compass is way off. You act as tho preservation is a right, when that isn't true of any media.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
And yet those comparisons have no value when you refuse to acknowledge other differentiating factors that contribute to those trends. You seem to be perfectly fine with this idea that, since Denuvo-protected games aren't consistently breaking records, there's no benefit to the DRM whatsoever. And yet, you refuse to acknowledge the many other factors that contribute to how well a game sells, enough to consider your surface analysis of trends meaningful when it's not.
Ubisoft's logic was certainly warped. It's just as asinine to consider every copy pirated a lost sale as it is to believe that no copy pirated is a lost sale, but that's something that's easily understood, because not everyone who pirates has the capability or the desire to purchase those games in the first place.