The upshot is that Denuvo has apparently been very successful in creating piracy countermeasures, to the point of making users at the 3DM forum sad pandas (because they’re Chinese - get it?!).
This is interesting stuff. I didn’t realize that the turnaround time on cracking new releases was so quick.
The hilariously short time-to-break on most DRM was one of the most powerful arguments that DRM was dumb. If these people can ACTUALLY keep this stuff unbroken for a meaningful length of time, it could be a game changer.
Arrr, I be wantin me game now.
I have to admit, a part of me worries about the archival implications of difficult-to-crack software with regards to abandonware. Are we going to be able to play and study these games in 10, 20, 30 years from now? In practice, it’s unlikely the sorts of AAA games likely to use these forms of DRM will fail to be archived, but there’s a part of me that’s nervous. (And always-online games with no end of life plan are a much bigger danger here anyway).
The overwhelming majority of a games sales happen during that first month, just keeping the pirates away during that time is a huge win. Used to be pirated games where available even before release most times.
That’s only if you accept the premise that piracy has a significant impact on the bottom line. I think the convenience of online distribution and features such as friends lists, achievements and auto updates have had a bigger impact on piracy than DRM.
If I was a cynic, I’d suggest that Denvuo was more about preventing modding, and protecting your paid DLCs from free competition, than piracy.
Eh, few of the games listed (Dragon Age: Inq., Mad Max, Just Cause 3, FIFA16, Rise of the Tomb Raider, MGS V, Arkham Knight) look like real “modding” titles anyway. DA:O was heavily modded but DA2 much less so. JC2 had its multiplayer mod created. I think a bigger factor with modding is that the more cinematic games become, the fewer opportunities there are to casually modify or create additional content for them.
I’ve heard all the arguments about piracy and don’t really buy that it has minimal effect on the bottom line. But it’s almost irrelevant to debate without a baseline of a game without piracy. If nothing else, this could help answer that question.
It’s not about modding, it’s about used game reselling. You don’t see PC games on the used game bin at gamestop, because of the DRM.
But you wouldn’t see them there anyway because of DRM like Steam activation. The question is effective anti-piracy DRM (lots of Steam titles are pirated); the second-hand PC software market’s been dead for probably close to 20 years, before even Steam came along.
Good, fuck pirates and the ghost ship from hell they floated in on.
What I think is irrelevant; Corporate executives at big game companies clearly think it does, or they’d have given up on this stuff years ago. Now it looks like someone is presenting on that actually WORKS. That’s a game changer. If this seriously makes games uncrackable, then it’s going to be a big reason for them to include it.
Also, modding doesn’t seem to be super affected. There are moddable games that use Denuvo.
Most mods do not need to mess around with the game’s executables.
I’ve never believed had as great an effect as the industry claimed. I’ll be glad when games are un-hackable and the publishers have to come up with another reason why their game was crap.
Piracy had one known effect on me personally. Games couldn’t be returned after opening (many years ago). After getting stuck with games that sucked or were buggy I stopped buying games. So, there was an indirect effect.
I have feeling once pirates aren’t the boogie-man it’ll be Steam. They’ll start claiming to lose money to people waiting on Steam sales.
Or, I could be an idiot with no clue.
I’m a “games only exist when they cost 5 bucks” gamer now, so i can see them going after steam next.
I imagine this is why EA decided to set up Origin. Even though the publishers are the final say in Steam sales, if they’re not on Steam at all they don’t have to worry about that pressure.
Still, I don’t see them actively going after Steam. I can easily imagine a day when Steam is almost entirely indie games and smaller publishers, though, as more of the big fish transition to their own digital distribution platforms.
I would hate that. Steam needs to do whatever it takes to get them on board.
I broadly agree with you (though I would rather see a true competitor than just more Steam).
I’m not sure what incentives they can offer to the largest publishers, though. “Sign on with us and we promise to deliver your games to consumers who expect regular deep discounts on all content” is not compelling to publishers who already have huge established user bases.
Well, I don’t think they need to defend that particular aspect of their business. Stats show that it’s simply NOT the case that most games sell when very cheap. Most sales on Steam, for most games, still happen when the game is not hugely discounted.
The issue publishers have, of course is the 30% cut Steam takes. Even with that cut, digital is more profitable than retail, but without, every sale is almost all profit, or nearly 3 times more profitable than retail.
They need to concentrate on making Steam a full service thing for publishers, and probably bite the bullet and lower their cut with some special deals.
Those 14+ million playing Diablo 3 on battle.net, I guarantee, many would also be interested in games like Path of Exile and Torchlight 2, and Grim Dawn, and Magica 2.
Not really; it gives them a great excuse for when their game turns out to be terrible. They just blame bad sales on nebulous “pirates”, instead of on no one wanting their game.
Has this ever happened? I know that companies have lots to say about piracy in general, but I can’t remember a company trying to shift the blame for sales of an *obviously *bad game to “piracy did it.”
Most cites I’ve seen have said that the majority of piracy happens with the most popular games.