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I haven't pirated games since I was in highshool, but this nonsense has resulted in the worst UX for games I have paid for - with no recourse on my part. I gues

I haven't pirated games since I was in highshool, but this nonsense has resulted in the worst UX for games I have paid for - with no recourse on my part. I guess it's like Cloudflare: some people have to suffer because other people don't behave nicely

alias_neo 1y ago
I also haven't pirated games since I was a child, but I run Linux, and I game on Linux, whether desktop or on my ROG Ally (Bazzite). The experience for me, when I buy a game, is that I either don't buy one with DRM, or, I buy one that _might_ work, and then I spend a little while trying to get the right version of Proton that runs correctly, and get banned / blocked temporarily for switching my machine identifiers or something too much. It really is a sick joke that the experience for gaming, music and video is all far, far better for those who _don't_ pay than for those who do.
- Kokouane 1y ago
  > It really is a sick joke that the experience for gaming, music and video is all far, far better for those who _don't_ pay than for those who do. Denuvo is effective enough that if a game has it, it is almost impossible to pirate. So in most cases, it is either pay or do not play the game at all. There was one key player who knew how to crack Denuvo DRM. They went by the name Empress but haven't cracked anything in the past year, and also mentally deranged, often including very transphobic rants in the NFO file of the torrents they release.
  - alias_neo 1y ago
    > it is either pay or do not play the game at all That's still a net win for the pirate I'd argue; for them it's zero steps to "don't play the game at all", for someone like myself it's pay->waste time trying to get it run and fail->refund/no-refund.
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      The wasting of time is because you are using an unsupported operating system. It sounds like if you switched to one you wouldn't have to waste time since the OS would support everything the game needs.
      - protimewaster 1y ago
        It feels optimistic to think that the DRM works perfectly on every possible configuration running a supported OS though, does it not?
      - kbolino 1y ago
        There is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence that many Denuvo-protected games run worse on the recommended hardware and O/S until the Denuvo protection is removed. The end result is a worse day-one experience for the people who pay the most than for either the pirates (if any) or the people who wait for the game to fall out of the early hype phase.
josu 1y ago
>some people have to suffer because other people don't behave nicely It's self fulfilling though. Some people won't behave nicely if a game comes with Denuvo.
izzydata 1y ago
What part of the experience suffers from Denuvo? I've had games with Denuvo and then had Denuvo removed and at least in my limited personal experience there has been no discernible difference. I can understand the argument against DRM in general and owning things you buy, but that seems like a different problem.
- RedCardRef 1y ago
  https://youtu.be/07NMuobVVwQ?si=6X_uZQoK11ZJcebI https://youtu.be/07NMuobVVwQ?si=6X_uZQoK11ZJcebI https://youtu.be/1VpWKwIjwLk?si=JxjXuhJJAutXp1ww https://youtu.be/1VpWKwIjwLk?si=JxjXuhJJAutXp1ww
  - izzydata 1y ago
    Interesting. For how effective Denuvo is the impact is negligible. Less than 1% average framerate and seconds of loading time. The disk space usage is weird, but 100mb to 300mb executables is irrelevant in the age of terabyte drives and 50gb game installs. Nice to confirm that there was no way I was ever going to notice its impact.
    - nneonneo 1y ago
      The clever thing here is that Denuvo is only used to protect certain functions, not the entire game. The functions it protects should be functions that run infrequently, but contain enough critical game logic that they can’t just be replaced wholesale by a cracker. I believe the game developer themselves chooses what functions to protect. If they protect too much (or protect the wrong functions) performance can suffer, whereas if they don’t protect enough, the crackers’ job is too easy.
      - izzydata 1y ago
        I wonder if Denuvo the company charges more or less depending on how much function protection the developer chooses or if it is a flat rate.
onli 1y ago
Just in case that's helpful, there is a Steam curator that marks games protected with Denuvo, to make that fact more visible before you buy them. https://store.steampowered.com/curator/26095454-Denuvo-Watch/ https://store.steampowered.com/curator/26095454-Denuvo-Watch...

alias_neo 1y ago

I also haven't pirated games since I was a child, but I run Linux, and I game on Linux, whether desktop or on my ROG Ally (Bazzite). The experience for me, when I buy a game, is that I either don't buy one with DRM, or, I buy one that _might_ work, and then I spend a little while trying to get the right version of Proton that runs correctly, and get banned / blocked temporarily for switching my machine identifiers or something too much. It really is a sick joke that the experience for gaming, music and video is all far, far better for those who _don't_ pay than for those who do.

Kokouane 1y ago
> It really is a sick joke that the experience for gaming, music and video is all far, far better for those who _don't_ pay than for those who do. Denuvo is effective enough that if a game has it, it is almost impossible to pirate. So in most cases, it is either pay or do not play the game at all. There was one key player who knew how to crack Denuvo DRM. They went by the name Empress but haven't cracked anything in the past year, and also mentally deranged, often including very transphobic rants in the NFO file of the torrents they release.
- alias_neo 1y ago
  > it is either pay or do not play the game at all That's still a net win for the pirate I'd argue; for them it's zero steps to "don't play the game at all", for someone like myself it's pay->waste time trying to get it run and fail->refund/no-refund.
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    The wasting of time is because you are using an unsupported operating system. It sounds like if you switched to one you wouldn't have to waste time since the OS would support everything the game needs.
    - protimewaster 1y ago
      It feels optimistic to think that the DRM works perfectly on every possible configuration running a supported OS though, does it not?
    - kbolino 1y ago
      There is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence that many Denuvo-protected games run worse on the recommended hardware and O/S until the Denuvo protection is removed. The end result is a worse day-one experience for the people who pay the most than for either the pirates (if any) or the people who wait for the game to fall out of the early hype phase.

josu 1y ago

>some people have to suffer because other people don't behave nicely It's self fulfilling though. Some people won't behave nicely if a game comes with Denuvo.

izzydata 1y ago

What part of the experience suffers from Denuvo? I've had games with Denuvo and then had Denuvo removed and at least in my limited personal experience there has been no discernible difference. I can understand the argument against DRM in general and owning things you buy, but that seems like a different problem.

RedCardRef 1y ago
https://youtu.be/07NMuobVVwQ?si=6X_uZQoK11ZJcebI https://youtu.be/07NMuobVVwQ?si=6X_uZQoK11ZJcebI https://youtu.be/1VpWKwIjwLk?si=JxjXuhJJAutXp1ww https://youtu.be/1VpWKwIjwLk?si=JxjXuhJJAutXp1ww
- izzydata 1y ago
  Interesting. For how effective Denuvo is the impact is negligible. Less than 1% average framerate and seconds of loading time. The disk space usage is weird, but 100mb to 300mb executables is irrelevant in the age of terabyte drives and 50gb game installs. Nice to confirm that there was no way I was ever going to notice its impact.
  - nneonneo 1y ago
    The clever thing here is that Denuvo is only used to protect certain functions, not the entire game. The functions it protects should be functions that run infrequently, but contain enough critical game logic that they can’t just be replaced wholesale by a cracker. I believe the game developer themselves chooses what functions to protect. If they protect too much (or protect the wrong functions) performance can suffer, whereas if they don’t protect enough, the crackers’ job is too easy.
    - izzydata 1y ago
      I wonder if Denuvo the company charges more or less depending on how much function protection the developer chooses or if it is a flat rate.

onli 1y ago

Just in case that's helpful, there is a Steam curator that marks games protected with Denuvo, to make that fact more visible before you buy them. https://store.steampowered.com/curator/26095454-Denuvo-Watch/ https://store.steampowered.com/curator/26095454-Denuvo-Watch...