3 ms·

It doesn't have to be free for it to be worth it. Let's take that 80,000 number. After Steam takes its cut that's $42 going to Bethesda's pockets per unit sold

It doesn't have to be free for it to be worth it. Let's take that 80,000 number. After Steam takes its cut that's $42 going to Bethesda's pockets per unit sold (worst case, ignoring the lowered fees as units sold increases). There's no further distribution costs, so that's a straight 80,000 * $42 = $3.3M of revenue. If Denuvo costs even $100k then it's already paid for itself 30 times over. As for the 80,000 number, Doom 2016 sold 500,000 copies on PC in its first 2 weeks. You only need mid to high single digit percentage increase from DRM to turn into substantial amounts of money. Heck, if Denuvo costs $100k then even a 1% sales increase during that first 2 weeks would have been a net gain of $110k.

Retric 7y ago
Denuvo likely costs vastly more than 100k, and the difference in samples are unlikely to hit 80k. Using 2 million for the software and 20k net sales I hit a net loss of 1.1 million. Yep, those numbers where picked from thin air, but ”As of August 2018, the company employs 1,000 people“, so that math only works if their licenses are freaking expensive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo
- kllrnohj 7y ago
  > Acquired in January by digital platform security firm Irdeto, Denuvo has essentially grown from a company of 45 people to over 1,000. I believe that's saying that Irdeto has 1,000 employees, not that 1,000 people work on Denuvo itself. Instead it sounds like Denuvo "only" needs to cover the salary of around 50 people unless they've grown substantially since the acquisition as pre-acquisition they were 45 people. I'm guessing they didn't jack up the licensing costs 10x since they were acquired, so using numbers for ~50 people a cost of $2M seems way too high. In 2017, so pre-acquisition, there were around 50 games using Denuvo: https://www.game-debate.com/games/gamesWithDenuvo https://www.game-debate.com/games/gamesWithDenuvo I'm sure the scale of the game influences costs and a AAA would be more than an indie release etc... but the math still works for numbers far lower than $2M licensing costs. And presumably Bethesda & others have done these analysis and concluded the licensing costs are worth it.

Retric 7y ago

Denuvo likely costs vastly more than 100k, and the difference in samples are unlikely to hit 80k. Using 2 million for the software and 20k net sales I hit a net loss of 1.1 million. Yep, those numbers where picked from thin air, but ”As of August 2018, the company employs 1,000 people“, so that math only works if their licenses are freaking expensive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo

kllrnohj 7y ago
> Acquired in January by digital platform security firm Irdeto, Denuvo has essentially grown from a company of 45 people to over 1,000. I believe that's saying that Irdeto has 1,000 employees, not that 1,000 people work on Denuvo itself. Instead it sounds like Denuvo "only" needs to cover the salary of around 50 people unless they've grown substantially since the acquisition as pre-acquisition they were 45 people. I'm guessing they didn't jack up the licensing costs 10x since they were acquired, so using numbers for ~50 people a cost of $2M seems way too high. In 2017, so pre-acquisition, there were around 50 games using Denuvo: https://www.game-debate.com/games/gamesWithDenuvo https://www.game-debate.com/games/gamesWithDenuvo I'm sure the scale of the game influences costs and a AAA would be more than an indie release etc... but the math still works for numbers far lower than $2M licensing costs. And presumably Bethesda & others have done these analysis and concluded the licensing costs are worth it.