Yes, and you have to weigh the loss of performance and/or privacy on a case by case basis. What bothers me is that people take cases where DRM strongly impacts the experience of the thing, and apply it as a general argument against DRM, when that is not an argument against DRM, but an argument against using that particular piece of software.
I’m kind of tired of DRM headlines in my feed. Whether a game has Denuvo or not doesn’t actually matter when purchasing a game. What matters is this: is the game fun? Does the game pass the bar of acceptable performance? Discussions around DRM are mostly a distraction and a diversion from things that actually matter.
The common stance against DRM is not the “entitled” part, but to be able to keep playing it even if the companies involved are gone. For games with Denuvo or other DRM there are things like these to consider:
the Denuvo company’s server shuts off(whatever reason, blackout, maintenance,etc), your DRM now can’t verify if you have legit copy or not.
the game company shuts off, no one left to patch out DRM, your game is in limbo. (cause they have to pay Denuvo to keep the licensing/verification. )
your internet went off.(this part depends on game and how often they need to refresh the “valid” token)
With games that have no DRM you have none of the above concerns.
You know these are valid concerns, and I have two thoughts about this. The first is that I don’t understand how this doesn’t also apply to Steam or Epic Games or any other basic storefront (except GOG of course). I see a lot of headlines about Denuvo but none about Steam. People seem to selectively apply their hate in this matter.
The second thought that I have is that I agree that this is a problem, but I don’t see any other way around it. This is just the trade off of getting AAA games. These are big, complex pieces of IP that require millions to hundreds of millions of dollars of investment that the company making them has to recoup. To ensure that you actually get paid, you have to have DRM. Companies wouldn’t shell out the millions of dollars on DRM unless it was proven to actually work. As I see it, if you like AAA games you just gotta weigh the cost on a game by game basis.
The first is that I don’t understand how this doesn’t also apply to Steam or Epic Games or any other basic storefront (except GOG of course).
There were three points in the post you’re replying to. Not all Steam games have DRM; I’m going to assume we’re talking only about games using the their DRM:
DRM server shutting off -> Steam has been around for a long time, longer than Denuvo. Steam makes a lot more money than Denuvo. Steam is not as publicly hated as Denuvo. Because of these things, I don’t think Steam will be shutting down any time soon; Denuvo shutting down is a much larger concern, especially due to public perception. Here’s a decent answer to the question anyways: https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/255424/what-will-happen-to-my-owned-games-if-steam-were-to-close .
TL;DR 1: It’s not as much of a concern for Steam as it is for Denuvo.
Game company shuts off and is unable to pay DRM subscription -> This depends on the license agreement between the DRM provider and the company. The comment you’re replying to implies that Denuvo has a subscription fee for its use in a product, and I’m going to proceed under this assumption. I doubt Steam requires any form of subscription fee to keep the DRM working - I would expect that, as they are a storefront, they pay for that via a percentage of game sales. Denuvo isn’t a storefront, so I would expect if they have a subscription fee then this would be a Denuvo concern that doesn’t apply to Steam.
TL;DR 2: Steam is a storefront, and it’s expected that their sales percentage would cover DRM costs for the game. This is a concern for Denuvo, but not really one for Steam.
Internet going off -> Steam has a well-known offline feature that works reasonably well. Companies that use the Stream DRM system are using libraries intended to work with this feature - that’s not to say they can’t purposefully make it unplayable offline, but it’s generally well-done. The problem is that it requires you to enable offline mode before your Internet goes out. This is something that’s regularly complained about, so I don’t think your “[…] I don’t understand how this doesn’t also apply to Steam […]” statement applies.
TL;DR 3: Steam DRM is regularly complained about in this regard.
I dislike Epic , so I’m not the person to give them a reasonable defense/discussion - you’ll have to find someone else for that.
Funny how you mention performance as something than matters when claiming nobody is allowed to take a piss at denuvo, when denuvo is known to hamper performance in some cases.
But the way performance is framed by anti-Denuvo folks is that it is linearly correlated with enjoyment. This is not so. What I care about (and I will definitely give that this is subjective and depends on the individual) is that a game runs at 4k/60 on my computer at low/mid settings. If it runs faster than that, my enjoyment of the game isn’t increased. If it runs worse than that, my enjoyment is decreased.
So if the game passes that bar with DRM, it doesn’t matter to me if it would be faster without DRM. If DRM is the thing that causes the game to go below that bar, then I have a problem with DRM. But that is almost never the case.
Yes, and you have to weigh the loss of performance and/or privacy on a case by case basis. What bothers me is that people take cases where DRM strongly impacts the experience of the thing, and apply it as a general argument against DRM, when that is not an argument against DRM, but an argument against using that particular piece of software.
I’m kind of tired of DRM headlines in my feed. Whether a game has Denuvo or not doesn’t actually matter when purchasing a game. What matters is this: is the game fun? Does the game pass the bar of acceptable performance? Discussions around DRM are mostly a distraction and a diversion from things that actually matter.
The common stance against DRM is not the “entitled” part, but to be able to keep playing it even if the companies involved are gone. For games with Denuvo or other DRM there are things like these to consider:
With games that have no DRM you have none of the above concerns.
You know these are valid concerns, and I have two thoughts about this. The first is that I don’t understand how this doesn’t also apply to Steam or Epic Games or any other basic storefront (except GOG of course). I see a lot of headlines about Denuvo but none about Steam. People seem to selectively apply their hate in this matter.
The second thought that I have is that I agree that this is a problem, but I don’t see any other way around it. This is just the trade off of getting AAA games. These are big, complex pieces of IP that require millions to hundreds of millions of dollars of investment that the company making them has to recoup. To ensure that you actually get paid, you have to have DRM. Companies wouldn’t shell out the millions of dollars on DRM unless it was proven to actually work. As I see it, if you like AAA games you just gotta weigh the cost on a game by game basis.
There were three points in the post you’re replying to. Not all Steam games have DRM; I’m going to assume we’re talking only about games using the their DRM:
TL;DR 1: It’s not as much of a concern for Steam as it is for Denuvo.
TL;DR 2: Steam is a storefront, and it’s expected that their sales percentage would cover DRM costs for the game. This is a concern for Denuvo, but not really one for Steam.
TL;DR 3: Steam DRM is regularly complained about in this regard.
I dislike Epic , so I’m not the person to give them a reasonable defense/discussion - you’ll have to find someone else for that.
Funny how you mention performance as something than matters when claiming nobody is allowed to take a piss at denuvo, when denuvo is known to hamper performance in some cases.
But the way performance is framed by anti-Denuvo folks is that it is linearly correlated with enjoyment. This is not so. What I care about (and I will definitely give that this is subjective and depends on the individual) is that a game runs at 4k/60 on my computer at low/mid settings. If it runs faster than that, my enjoyment of the game isn’t increased. If it runs worse than that, my enjoyment is decreased.
So if the game passes that bar with DRM, it doesn’t matter to me if it would be faster without DRM. If DRM is the thing that causes the game to go below that bar, then I have a problem with DRM. But that is almost never the case.