Denuvo would make a worse version for our legit customers - Shadow Warrior 2 dev

Sauce

“It’s not downgraded. Actually, we added tons of new GFX features and content. For example, we have added volumetric fog and light shafts (from Pax East 2016), we added real-time reflections (from Quacon/Gamescom 2016), enabled real-time shadows for a lot of lights (from Quacon/Gamescom 2016)…”

“We don’t support piracy, but currently there isn’t a good way to stop it without hurting our customers. Denuvo means we would have to spend money for making a worse version for our legit customers. It’s like this FBI warning screen on legit movies.”

why are not more developers are like this? very user friendly, very PC centric, very consumer oriented. denuvo has ruined every single game it touch (well except Doom and its miracle), even Deus Ex MD to some extend when it comes to optimization.

Flying wild hog deserve all respect.

Who still pirates games when there is stuff like steam sales, automatic updates, workshop support, ... ?

absolutely. those who buy game will buy game. nowadays there is lot difference between pirate and legit game. pirate game can not be patch, can not be update etc. yet dev are still hurting legit customers by using stupid denuvo.

@ghosts4ever: Yeah I think pirates are already screwed over enough, because they mostly get vanilla versions of the game;

And you don't even have to spend 50-60 dollars if you shop around some, and if you are really tight on money: just wait for a few sales. You don't need to play a game day one.

But if you buy the game you get a patched version that is way more playable. It's not like many games these days are perfect day one.

I never pay full price and buy on day one. I mostly buy from CD keys. that is very cheap

Denuvo is not the fault for deus ex and there are games using Denuvo that run just fine, it's not killing performance... It does however limit modding possibilities. It is however not free, would they make that amount of money back by using it? hard to tell, most likely not

Good move. It's not like pirates can't play Denuvo protected games, so there's zero reason to use it.

pirates play better version of denuvo game. crackers remove denuvo in order to work thus better version.

denuvo making pirate version better than legit version.

Every Denuvo game I have played has been completely unaffected, I see nothing but people throwing a fit about it and crying but absolutely no effect of it existing in games, nothing, flat out, people are idiots..

It's the same crowd of morons who cry about Uplay every time a Ubisoft game releases, "Uplay = No buy!"... People have absolutely no concept of the things they complain about and the inconsequential effects they have if any, it's ridiculous entitlement and a wave of band-wagoning ignorance.

how? and which titles are actually cracked and not just some bypass?

pretty much, even to this date there hasn't really been proof of Denuvo causing performance issues and it has been around for quite a while now, Inquisition was one of the first titles? That ran fine, Lords of the Fallen issues had nothing to do with Denuvo etc.

Pretty much. I've played a bunch of Denuvo games, no issues, and I wouldn't even know about it if I didn't see people mentioning it on forums.

Nothing against the devs view on piracy, nothing against them not wanting to use Denuvo, but I'm not sure why it's seen in such a negative light.

Nice.

Also agree with @R4GN4ROK

every title has been cracked except deus ex. mirrors edge recently cracked. it take two month to crack denuvo but its been cracked. thus useless.

You are so far off the mark, because as at the time of this post, at least 20 well-known Denuvo games remain uncracked, with 2 of which only bypassed. Even something as old as Just Cause 3 remains uncracked.

Besides, even if it takes only two months to crack a Denuvo title, the pirates are STILL losing. It's basic maths really. In 2014 there were 3 Denuvo titles, In 2015 there were 9 Denuvo titles. It's 2016 and the year is not yet over, and we already have 29 Denuvo titles. There isn't enough time in the world for the pirates to overcome the flood.

By now, nearly every major game publisher has adopted Denuvo, the key exception being Activision Blizzard which focuses on online multiplayers.

Really not a fan of Denuvo for what it does to the mod community. Although you can't even just blame Denuvo for how badly Doom's snapmap feature is.

@ReadingRainbow4: It doesn't do anything to the modding community except preventing modification of the .exe file. I honestly don't see how that is a big deal, considering that 99% of mods do not touch the .exe.

Except it does. Script Extender (SKSE & FOSE) modifies the exe.

Then that falls into the 1%. :) Besides modding is grossly overrated by PC gamers.

@Pedro: The best Skyrim/Fallout mods uses SE

Actually pirates still get updated versions for most games.

And even most denuvo games are getting cracked.

I agree with your agreement.

Pc gamers making something out of nothing (no doubt butthurt over not getting a free ride) and developers trying to score cool points via goodwill, when really, little reason not to use it.

Instead of wasting money paying for DRM, publishers should use that money to release solid PC games like Gears of War 4.

drm is an inconvenience to the consumer and nothing else

Pirates had no intentions of buying the game in the first place.They have no problem waiting 2 or 3 months to play.

Awesome, have high respect for CDPR and Flying Wild Hog, such devs deserve to be supported.

Would you buy a game for 400$? that's why.

In third-world countries, where there's no local store for games, a 60$ game equals to one-third of the salary of an average citizen, it's just so expensive and ppl simply can't afford them.

"In Bulgaria, a new game frequently costs almost a third of a minimum wage earner’s monthly income."

Here's an in-depth article which i highly suggest you read it :

http://www.pcgamer.com/the-state-of-pc-piracy-in-2016/

And i am myself, living in a third world country, try to look for good deals (like Gears of War 4 Nvidia Code deal) and steam sales with like 70% off, otherwise i can't simply afford buying them .... back when i was a teenager, i used to pirate ...because that was the only way i could play games.

And btw, you can easily update them, only the multiplayer component is not playable.

@mjorh: But I heard steams' prices were way cheaper in eastern europe, to combat piracy ?

IF that's the case there is really no excuse. If people want to play a game day one and can't afford it, they should wait for a sale.

But if what you say is true and games costs upwards of half your monthly paycheck,... Then why the **** are big publishers fighting these people anyway ? It's not like they have the money they so desperately want. It's not like combating piracy will lead to more sales then.

Most denuvo games this year haven't been Crack yet so ppl will still use it on long as their successful

They don't have local stores in some of the third-world countries including mine (I'm in Iran), i used to buy games from Russia, which was, as you said, way cheaper but Steam locked it hence not possible anymore.

It's more of a sanction issue i guess, if they did have local stores here selling games with our currency then obviously we could've afforded buying them

I'm going to wholeheartedly agree with you about modding, I do it sometimes but it is a minor fraction of PC gaming. Honestly, if it ceased to exist I wouldn't really care that much. The only reason I find it useful is if a game developer fails to reach the graphical standards of their own game engine and the community can do it better.

i don't bother either but it's mainly because i'm not fan of the games in the first place, not a fan of Fallout 4 or Skyrim hence i don't care but for someone who's into the said games, mods play a crucial role. So i'd say it pretty much depends on the game and how heavy the game is modded.

And for some cases, like Dark Souls 1, mods actually improve graphics and fps so they matter here. Overall, yeah it's in minority, but it depends on the games as well.

I mostly play games without mods but sometimes mods help a lot. God bless CDPR for GOG. Those games are extremely easy to mod for someone like me who isn't too much into modding ("Will this mod work with this one without breaking the game"). DRM adds extra layer of difficulty on top IMO.

When I am playing old games like System Shock 2 and stuff, I use mods to improve visuals and remove some of the technical annoyances. But I still like to keep game balance of vanilla version. Games like Vampire aren't even playable without mods. GOG version comes with basic Wesp5 community patch that makes the game playable.

Some of the most popular games like Dota 2, Counter Strike, Team Fortress and many others started as mods. Every game should support mods. People pay for the game. It should be up to them to enjoy the game the way they want. Just like anything in the world that you purchase.

Shame you're in such a situation, man :(

I'll tell you one thing: Buying PC games on CDs and DVDs used to be so big. But it seems like for years now games haven't been releasing in the states on discs. Digital totally took over.

Now for me here in Western-Europe, I used to have no problems finding my games on disc. But lately, I see the PC section getting smaller and smaller. And I fear that buying a PC game on disc is going the way of the dodo.

Which is awful for me because just yesterday I bought Quantum Break Timeless Collectors Edition and it's freakin' amazing.

I can't complain too much, because I have lots of choice where I purchase my games: Steam, Greenmangaming, More grey-area keysites, or as of now: still on a disc.

Games over here cost about 60 euro. But I don't think I've ever spend so much on a game here. On discs I pay about 40 euro. And sometimes I can find games cheaper on Greenmangaming and the gray-area keysites (who get their games from Eastern Europe I think).

How much is a game for you ? And how much would that be in Euro ? And what kinds of sites can you use to buy games ?

And with sanction you mean foreign products are more expensive ? I can understand your situation.

Yeah for old games they come in handy, in a way that they significantly overhaul the game.

As for "every game should support mods", i'm in line with you, communities have proven to be creative, the thing is the amount of freedom you have in modding varies with games, for instance, there's not much to do with Batman games or with Mass Effect games ,etc, while on the other hand you can easily overhaul games like Skyrim to a point where the game is different ..that's why i said it depends on the games as well.

Isnt the fact that games are coming out unoptimized, full or bugs or glitches, or with microtransactions and dlc the reason people pirate stuff? They dont wanna pay for something broken?

Yeah it sucks but we adapt somehow.

Our currency is Rial, 1 dollar equals to 40000 Rials, now since we don't have any local store here, we gotta grab the games for 60$ (by using VPN), which would be around 240000Rials which is a significant amount of money being spent on a single product when you take into account the average income of 700000Rials.

And when you buy games digitally, which is the case for PC games, you also have the download issue, it's taking me two weeks to download Gears of War 4 and i pay 15$ only to download 80GB of data and this is the best case scenario.

Nah, by sanction i mean not having the products/services available for us so we gotta use VPN, for instance, we don't have access to Google servers, Rocket League uses Google servers but we don't have access to them hence not being able to play, and you can't use VPN to play online games due to higher ping and stuff, Or in Origin case, i gotta use VPN to get into it then when i wanna start playing BF4 i have to disable the VPN again (to lower my ping) ...it's all hassle, it's a mess.

I own Rise of the Tomb Raider, bought through Steam and I am having trouble because of Denuvo.

I work away from home for two weeks at a time with very poor/no internet at all most of the time. This, so far on my current job has prevented me from being able to run the game (because of Denuvo). Just be aware that there are still people in this day and age who work in areas where there is little or no internet coverage. This is a massive headache for legit players who buy games which have Denuvo protection, so much so that when I get home in a few days, I'm considering "cracking" the game just so I can play it when I'm away at work.

I also don't want to pay for McDonald, but it doesn't mean I should automatically get McDonald for free.

no. its an answer to evil corporate who treat custemors like trash. piracy is not crime, nor its stealing. its like if someone stole your car at midnight. you woke up and car still there.

its a duplicate copy of original. its file sharing.

also why dont you want to pay for mcdonald when they have best fries on earth? come on.

You have obviously never been to Belgium.

Just because piracy isn't stealing, doesn't make it right. It's a really weak excuse. If everyone cloned the same car the car industry would go bankrupt.

The best and most awesome mods uses the Script Extender...

Borrowing someone's copy of a game is no different in the eyes of the content creators its a lost sale. Or even 2nd hand market like with gamestop, a copy can pass through a half dozen hands resulting multiple lost sales over a period of time. If people are not willing to spend the amount asked for a retail/new copy of game, borrowing, buying a used copy or pirating have all the same type of affect to the content creators. And 2/3rds of those actions are not illegal anywhere while the 3rd "pirating" is a gray area.