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None of it. I meant that I wasn’t going to start delving into the deep with opinions as I felt that may spark discuss on those opinions validity.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear.
For Denuvo, it’s two parts.
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While yes it can be cracked, my understanding is it is just a bypass, not total removal.
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I try to vote with my wallet. Honestly, if I could find a full copy of Shining Resonance Refrain Draconian Edition second hand, I would prefer to buy it there. I don’t agree with the company’s decision to keep Denuvo well beyond its useful life. I don’t care if they want to put it in for the first x months. I care that they leave it in indefinitely.
From your point of view why is Denuvo bad though? A lot of the criticisms of the DRM have been roundly disproved, and whilst there are certainly some valid arguments, some of them could be used in a similar way against console gaming.
At the end of the day consoles are good for exclusives, PC’s for everything else, and the handheld market (whilst diminished) is a different thing altogether. The only reason I’d ever buy a current gen console is if the exclusives drove me to it…which they don’t when factoring in the weight of alternatives.
I got to experience the lovely DRM called Games For Windows Live. I am also aware of the current state of GFWL. When Denuvo finds the same fate, most devs will not be there/care to update it out of their game. At my current rate of playing games I own on steam, I’m potentially tossing money into the trash. Oh and I do still play some old games. I have Call to Power 2 that I play from time to time. Even Terraria is over 10 years old already.
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The funny thing is, GFWL had its shutdown handled better than most. As long as Zero-Day Protection was eventually patched out, you can STILL redeem GFWL keys and play the games that use the service without a problem, as it all runs on Xbox Live servers. I’ve got plenty of recent screenshots from Bulletstorm to prove it (as well as quite a few achievements for my Xbox profile).
SecuROM didn’t have that fate. Instead, Spore, Crysis, and countless other games that used it are plagued with all sorts of problems just trying to get the game to run on new systems. Of course, a large part of that came from a Windows security update that blocked SecuROM from installing, since it opens a backdoor vulnerability on your computer.
Oh, and SecuROM’s creators went on to create Denuvo. How fun!
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Putting aside the performance issues that many games had reported because of Denuvo
- There have been reports that if you happen to get some issue during the transaction while buying a game on Steam, there’s a chance that Denuvo will lock you out of all your games in your library, something only Steam support can fix once they bother to check on your claim
- Denuvo only likes windows, like seriously so, using Linux or a Mac you cannot even run games using Wine and such, especially egregious since some games are able to run perfectly fine on it once they had removed Denuvo from them.
- Some games run checks at a very regular interval, meaning that even if the game doesn’t even feature online gameplay of any kind, you still need to be online practically all of the time, otherwise you can’t play your game, and not everyone has access to a decent stable internet connection.
- Apparently, there’s been some cases where you cannot play a game if it is installed in two different machines at the same time like your desktop and your laptop (the same account, just installed, not even running).
- It won’t let you play your game either if it detects software installed that could be used for malicious purposes, like modding tools(they don’t have to be running, just installed).
- Denuvo facilitates stealth patches, you won’t even notice if a developer has decided to change something unless is very obvious, usually you’ll get at least a notice of a patch download.
Lastly, as @CptMold said, Denuvo creators previously made SecuROM, a rootkit that EA got sued for and had to settle and remove from all of its games, and for EA to settle a lawsuit…
you have to use the command line to remove the bastard
I don’t think anyone is against developers trying to protect their work as it is, not a huge number at least, they put effort on the thing after all, but the way current DRM software tries to do that, is borderline pointless, to the point that it may even harm the product by consuming developing resources that may have been better used somewhere else.
Not to mention some of these programs end up hurting the user and the company’s reputation more than helping them.
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As adamantly against SecuROM (and by extension, Denuvo) as I am, I will refute this claim:
Many users have found some success in playing Arkane-Prey, Battlefield 1, and other Denuvo-guarded games using Proton and DXVK, so the sub-claim of how even Wine will not tolerate Denuvo isn’t necessarily true.
From a native perspective, though, you’re right… which is why while the Windows version that many less tech-savvy users will download is protected by Denuvo, the Linux ports of many of these games (a platform generally used by more tech-savvy people) will lack this protection. You know… that makes sense, right?
That’s what truly matters about the conflict with DRM… at the end of the day, whether companies really care about the effects of its DRM is questionable at best. Plus, precedent shows that trouble is brewing already. Whether you’ve had issues (true for myself) or not (most people I’ve talked to), there’s going to come a day where Denuvo’s servers will go down. To everyone who says it will be patched out by developers, or that the DRM will never cause problems, you’ve already been proven wrong. Between Metal Gear Solid V, Resident Evil 7, For Honor, ArkanePrey, and countless other AAA games (even ones that aren’t being updated anymore!), they remain “protected,” often to the game’s detriment. (flash-edit to mention Arkham Knight and Dragon Age Inquisition because they still have Denuvo years later)
More importantly, Denuvo isn’t even doing its job. Games often get breached on the first week nowadays. There are some rare exceptions where at the expense of processing power, Assassin’s Creed Origins had a good run for about half a year IIRC… otherwise, 64-bit tools have caught up and the gap has closed between anti-tampering and tampering.
Denuvo has turned into more of a statement to stockholders that “hey, we’re trying.” Meanwhile, THQ Nordic (you knew the fanboy-plug was coming) straight-up dumped their entire main lineup on GOG and didn’t seem particularly hurt by it. When it comes down to availability, some publishers have locked their games down to certain restrictive platforms while others have put the game in as many places as possible. Which one do you think will have more support?
Say what you will about Steam and the early days, but Gabe Newell really knew what he was doing. You’ll still see people willingly buying Steam games when GOG releases exist, and why, exactly? It’s simple: they’re beating piracy and other platforms because they’ve sold their platform as a benefit. Steam support is considered a GOOD thing-- the Shift-Tab thingy, some basic DRM that does its job without too much of a noted impact, multiplayer via Steamworks, achievements… Valve approaches piracy by providing the better and more convenient service, and it’s the reason why they’ve remained on top of other platforms for a good decade and a half (we’ll see where Epic goes).
So yeah, there’s my little tangent on how Denuvo is a really out-of-touch move that possibly hurts a bit, and really doesn’t help. If Bethesda of all companies actually stopped using it, it might be a good time to at least be as with-the-times as the people that… y’know, used an engine so old that they had a Y2K bug happen.
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Please go ahead, much of what I wrote (as it is usually the case with this type of comments) was based on things others had reported and articles I’ve read, and I’m not exactly someone who follows along the news till the last of it, shout out to Chrono for keeping me informed about things like these 
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Always on PC except when I need the portability of the Switch.
ok but srsly they’ve become quite fast at doing that now, often even within a few hours
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I totally agree with your point here and I’m not supporting Denuvo. I’d rather games didn’t have this form of more intrusive DRM but it won’t prevent me from experiencing a game cheaply that I want to play (eg Mad Max). In reality the majority of users have no awareness of Denuvo in action.
However, DRM does raise an issue for the future and certainly that’s the area that concerns me the most.
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So I picked up RiME, Pokemon: Let’s Go Eevee!, and Super Mario Odyssey.
RiME was packaged with loose and thin plastic wrap (noticeable difference from other two). But what surprised me is it came with FAN ART and a code for the soundtrack!
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