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[Spyxos]

Simply mentioning the name "Denuvo" among some gamers is pretty much guaranteed to get you an instant, strong reaction. Just look at the comment threads underneath any Ars article covering Denuvo and you'll see plenty of complaints about the DRM-enhancing anti-piracy technology.

But Huin stressed to Ars that he sees Denuvo as a positive force for the gaming community as a whole. "Anti-piracy technologies is to the benefit of the game publishers, [but also] is of benefit to the players in that it protects the [publisher's] investment and it means the publishers can then invest in the next game," he said. "But people typically don't think enough of that."

Aside from generalized philosophical discussions over whether DRM should exist at all, by far the most substantive complaints about Denuvo's tech are about its alleged impact on game performance. Sometimes these accusations come from the crackers themselves and have to be weighed against strong denials from Denuvo and the game's developer. Other times, the accusations come from game makers, like outspoken Tekken 7 Director Katsuhiro Harada, who said in a 2018 tweet thread that the game's "anti-tamper third-party middleware" (i.e., Denuvo) was responsible for "frame rate drops" in the game.

In the case of anti-tamper, I think there is a clear statement that there is no perceptible impact on gameplay because of the way we do things.
Irdeto COO of Video Game Steeve Huin

To get around that mistrust, Huin said Irdeto is working on a program that would provide two nearly identical versions of a game to trusted media outlets: one with Denuvo protection and one without. After that program rolls out, hopefully sometime in the next few months, Huin hopes independent benchmarks will allow the tech press to "see for yourself that the performance is comparable, identical... and that would provide something that would hopefully be trusted by the community."

Denuvo wants to convince you its DRM isn’t “evil”

COO says coming benchmarks will show anti-piracy tech has no performance impact.

arstechnica.com

Edit:

 

[nowhat]

In related news, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf just released a statement saying that Baghdad is holding firm and the foreign invasion is being brushed off as we speak.

 

[graywolf323]

 

[winjer]

 

[Spyxos]

In related news, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf just released a statement saying that Baghdad is holding firm and the foreign invasion is being brushed off as we speak.

 

[Kilau]

 

[nowhat]

Know your history man. During the second US-Iraq war, he was like the propaganda mouthpiece for the Saddam Hussein government, basically going "this is fine" all the time.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Denuvo trying to clean up their image among gamers lol

 

[Crayon]

They should lean into it like one of those bad guy wrestlers.

 

[T4keD0wN]

Here is an exclusive footage of Irdeto COO as he was making his claims:

The biggest concern with denuvo was never the performance, although i would like to see the independant benchmarks show 0fps once they are unable to launch the game because of the activation limit.

 

[winjer]

I can´t imagine any other company I would like more to see go bankrupt and close. Or hit by a meteor. Or by the plague.

 

[KyoZz]

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

They can fuck off, liars.

 

[rabbity-thing]

 

[Mithos]

Sure.

Gimme a check for €10 million.

 

[Guilty_AI]

To get around that mistrust, Huin said Irdeto is working on a program that would provide two nearly identical versions of a game to trusted media outlets: one with Denuvo protection and one without. After that program rolls out, hopefully sometime in the next few months, Huin hopes independent benchmarks will allow the tech press to "see for yourself that the performance is comparable, identical... and that would provide something that would hopefully be trusted by the community.

lmao

 

[Roni]

"Anti-piracy technologies is to the benefit of the game publishers, [but also] is of benefit to the players in that it protects the [publisher's] investment and it means the publishers can then invest in the next game," he said. "But people typically don't think enough of that."

That just means it benefits the publisher twice!

 

[Barlow]

Not evil but bad

 

[Comandr]

The problem is that Denuvo so often penalizes the paying customer. There are absolutely cases where denuvo is poorly implemented or whatever and causes performance issues. Meanwhile the fuckin game is cracked in no time and pirates get the superior experience.

That’s the fuckin problem.

 

[Drizzlehell]

 

[Fuz]

All DRMs are evil.

 

[Fuz]

But Huin stressed to Ars that he sees Denuvo as a positive force for the gaming community as a whole. "Anti-piracy technologies is to the benefit of the game publishers, [but also] is of benefit to the players in that it protects the [publisher's] investment and it means the publishers can then invest in the next game," he said. "But people typically don't think enough of that."

Hey, remember when digital distribution should have benefitted the players because of cut production and distribution costs?

 

[M.W.]

 

[mortal]

If that were the case then people wouldn't need convincing.
They cannot reason their way out of this. Their tech blows and people are simply letting them know.

 

[Hudo]

Denuvo is Austrian, they are inherently evil.

 

[Wildebeest]

PC game ports have come a long way in the last year. They can be made totally unplayable just by regular game developers without using Denuvo thanks to innovations like DirectX12 and Unreal Engine 5.

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

 

[acm2000]

outside of the vocal mega nerds no one really cares, if its a big game that they want they will buy it no matter what

 

[Fake]

Satan and Lucifer say the same thing.

 

[CleverCaviar]

I think as someone who has bought the software, I shouldn't have to put up with your meddling phone home layer in it. It's not about some "trust" in you, although you clearly don't "trust" me, I just don't want your crap all over it.


This company exists to placate shareholders at the companies that have to integrate this crap.

 

[Fbh]

Fuck DRM, it benefits no one but the publisher.

"let's temporary protect our game from piracy by making the experience of the people who actually do pay us worse"

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

 

[RayBoy]

 

[Soodanim]

I wonder what the cost of Denuvo is and how it compares to the accurate (not Publisher estimate) loss in revenue to piracy.

 

[Phase]

If you're already starting from that position you're not gonna do yourself any favors.

 

[RespawnX]

So a needless company wants to convince you that it is not needless. yo ...

 

[Guilty_AI]

I wonder what the cost of Denuvo is and how it compares to the accurate (not Publisher estimate) loss in revenue to piracy.

Units	Description	1 MONTH
License Fee	Per game activation (license sold) protected by Denuvo Anti-Tamper	$0.5
Monthly Fee	Per game protected by Denuvo Anti-Tamper per month	$25,000

Loss in revenue is very debateable. The anti-tamper seller will naturally try to twist the numbers to say the loss is large, like equating every pirated download to one lost sale. But the truth is there is no proper way to know the full effect and probably varies greatly with circumstances, there were even cases where piracy helped sales of a product.

 

[DoktorCoktor]

On one hand Denuvo does suck, but on the other hand, it is one of the major factors contributing to most Japanese publishers' decision to go all in on PC as a platform. It's also why we still get day one releases alongside console.

 

[Guilty_AI]

On one hand Denuvo does suck, but on the other hand, it is one of the major factors contributing to most Japanese publishers' decision to go all in on PC as a platform. It's also why we still get day one releases alongside console.

From, arguably the JP dev that sells the most on pc right now, has no drm on their games.

They're not coming to pc because of denuvo, JP devs simply don't understand the pc market all that well yet. Probably just following some corporate cake recipe for publishing on the platform.

 

[Soodanim]

Units	Description	1 MONTH
License Fee	Per game activation (license sold) protected by Denuvo Anti-Tamper	$0.5
Monthly Fee	Per game protected by Denuvo Anti-Tamper per month	$25,000

Loss in revenue is very debateable. The anti-tamper seller will naturally try to twist the numbers to say the loss is large, like equating every pirated download to one lost sale. But the truth is there is no proper way to know the full effect and probably varies greatly with circumstances, there were even cases where piracy helped sales of a product.

Nice find.

That's why I said accurate, because there's no way we can take a publisher's estimates or Denuvo's estimates. Either would likely be in the billions per hour range. I'd be surprised if it was more than, say, 3 month's worth of Denuvo. Diminishing returns, for sure.

 

[RayHell]

Units	Description	1 MONTH
License Fee	Per game activation (license sold) protected by Denuvo Anti-Tamper	$0.5
Monthly Fee	Per game protected by Denuvo Anti-Tamper per month	$25,000

Loss in revenue is very debateable. The anti-tamper seller will naturally try to twist the numbers to say the loss is large, like equating every pirated download to one lost sale. But the truth is there is no proper way to know the full effect and probably varies greatly with circumstances, there were even cases where piracy helped sales of a product.

This amount is then indirectly transferred to the legally paying customer. And the processing overhead. And the spying. Tell me again this shit is not evil.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

Nah, I'll stick to DRM free like GOG.

 

[rofif]

Tell that to people who want to play Splinter Cell chaos theory and have to unplug their 2nd dvd writer !!!

 

[ReBurn]

DRM has never bought me ice cream. That tells me all I need to know about it.

 

[March Climber]

I like the idea of DRM, but the execution is a bit lacking on all ends.

I don't like piracy. To deter people from piracy, there should be less resource heavy options, there should always be sales and discounts for games over time, there should always be a way to play games offline or completely download them for personal use, and there should always be demos to play of every game. Nearly everyone is failing at one of these things.

Also on a side note, single player games shouldn't suffer due to the sins of always-online titles. I don't think pirates realize that they're also contributing to the future they don't want.

 

[Spukc]

denuvo is a necessary evil because fuck faces won't stop pirating shit
do i like it? no
do i get it? yes

it's insurances getting higher because fucktards scam

 

[Griffon]

I prefer Denuvo over games releasing 12 months late on PC.

People are getting up in arms over very slight performance costs, on only a few games that have barely noticeable dips to begin with. Ignoring the fact that without Denuvo, most of those games wouldn't even exist on PC.

 

[Fuz]

I prefer Denuvo over games releasing 12 months late on PC.

People are getting up in arms over very slight performance costs, on only a few games that have barely noticeable dips to begin with. Ignoring the fact that without Denuvo, most of those games wouldn't even exist on PC.

What a load of bullshit.

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

Lol, lmao even

 

[Shifty1897]

I prefer Denuvo over games releasing 12 months late on PC.

People are getting up in arms over very slight performance costs, on only a few games that have barely noticeable dips to begin with. Ignoring the fact that without Denuvo, most of those games wouldn't even exist on PC.

Maybe watch some videos of Resident Evil Village with Denuvo on vs off before calling the performance dips "slight".