Denuvo... on a rhythm game?

[Shadic]

Which dope was responsible for that choice? lmao

[Shadic]

Originally posted by Kaldaieℵ₀:

Originally posted by TheGrimReaper0011:

The point still stands though. Why even have denuvo? This is only gonna affect paying customers as pirates always crack denuvo. ALWAYS.

Cause it's a niche rythm game? People would just download it otherwise.

Nobody's going to crack this game, it's not worth their effort. Not that I think any piracy groups these days are even active anymore? Makes my life a hell of a lot easier, no constant incompatibility reports from pirates.

Yes, hardly anyone cracks denuvo anymore especially. Denuvo is fine to protect opening sales, but I think personally they should remove it after a while once everyone who even wanted to buy it had purchased it.

[Lavian]

https://news.yahoo.com/2017-09-22-eu-suppressed-study-piracy-no-sales-impact.html

Directly from the PDF of the study linked in the article:

In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of
displacement of sales by online copyright infringements. That does not
necessarily mean that piracy has no effect but only that the statistical analysis
does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect. An exception is
the displacement of recent top films.

and even more striking:

For games, positive effects of illegal downloads, streams and games played on
chipped consoles on sales can be concluded, in particular for legal downloads
and cloud games such as Gaikai and Onlive.

Despite the large uncertainty of the estimates, the most likely
effects are:

• Films/TV-series and books: sales are displaced by online copyright
  infringement at a rate of respectively 27 and 38 per cent;
  
• Music: no displacement by online copyright infringement;
  
• Games: out of every 100 online copyright infringements, 24 induce an
  extra legal transaction.

For games, the estimated effect of illegal online transactions on sales is
positive because only free games are more likely displaced by online copyright
infringements than not.

I understand the reason for DRM, but I personally do what I can to avoid extra layers of DRM on top of the already existing Steamworks DRM, and as you can see, it's questionable (not definitively concluded one way or the other) if piracy even hurts game sales at all. If piracy doesn't hurt sales, then DRM, the thing implemented to stop it, doesn't help sales. All it does is add an extra potential point of failure onto a consumer good that doesn't really need to exist.

[Michel Baie]

Originally posted by Lavian:

snip.

Ah, yes, that study.

Data's not that precise, it's based on everything "computer games" and includes consoles games and even (maybe) hardware and it's also from 2013. There was quite a few changes since then in gaming.

Steam already existed obviously but wasn't as opened nor strong as today : Valve was just getting out of their "we couldn't beleive typically japanese games would sell on PC" mentality they gave up after launching Steam Greenlight, meaning a lot of stuff was available only by piracy or consoles, GoG wasn't on the AAA games market, and our topic of the day, Denuvo, didn't existed.
And that's only PC.

I don't remember the state of then current gen console piracy and how easily doable it was to do when this data was made... which is a significant factor, as you're going to be less willing to go through the hassle if you're not already deep in gaming anyway and likely to pay for games.


But there's also that. Page 138.

"For games the reason for the positive effects may be that players may get
hooked to a game and access a game legally to play the game with all
bonuses, at higher levels or whatever makes playing the game legally more
interesting."

And as gamers and not some EU dude who had to write a report, we know what make games "more interesting", don't we ?
Having the game actually properly work, for starters, but also patches, access to multiplayer, and everything online dependency.
You could say, from that study, that releasing broken or incomplete games, that pirates may want to buy if they're seeing potential, is why we're seeing a positive correlation between piracy and sales.

Now, there's obviously also the goodwill of some pirates who'll actually buy a game they simply pirated to try. But the proportion of them is up in the air.
Remember, we're talking global numbers here, so the most important actor is the normie hooked to AAA games, not the niche gamer dedicated to help indie devs.

Not that it all really matters anyway since
"It is striking that all coefficients [ of effects of illegal online transactions on legal
transactions ] are insignificant. This raises the question to
what extent estimates suffer from problems of respondents to recall exact
numbers of transactions, an issue that also applies for individual channels
discussed earlier. This means that estimates are only most likely effects given
the data, but with no certainty that the true displacement rate is close to the
estimate. Therefore the conclusion is that not too much significance should be
attached to the estimates." (page 139)


Which is why that article (and your post's conclusion) doesn't say there's actually a positive impact of piracy in games either, just that it doesn't seemed to impact much back then.

As to say if DRM help sales or not on PC games...
There's too many crap mixed in that study, with consoles and whatnot, to draw a conclusion on that one part. Plus, again, Denuvo - since it's the one we're talking about here - didn't existed and the most efficient DRMs back then were more hassles than real roadblocks.

[Lavian]

Originally posted by Kaldaieℵ₀:

Steamworks DRM can be removed in 5 seconds without Denuvo anti-tamper protecting it. Are you a pirate? Trying to convince everyone they should let their guard down because the joke is adequate? :)

Look, just because you happen to be a pirate bird thing doesn't mean the rest of us are.

[Lavian]

Originally posted by Hibachi:

Originally posted by Lavian:

snip.

<snip>

As to say if DRM help sales or not on PC games...
There's too many crap mixed in that study, with consoles and whatnot, to draw a conclusion on that one part. Plus, again, Denuvo - since it's the one we're talking about here - didn't existed and the most efficient DRMs back then were more hassles than real roadblocks.

DRM really isn't part of the question raised by the study. The question is if piracy impacts sales.

or more precisely

1. How do online copyright infringements affect sales of copyrighted content?
2. How much are online copyright infringers willing to pay for copyrighted
content?

DRM is a product designed to prevent piracy. In the event that it does prevent piracy, which it clearly does, that does not mean that a sales are gained from the prevention of piracy. Just because a person is inclined to pirate a game does not mean they would be inclined to buy it if they cannot pirate it.

The study concludes that

In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of
displacement of sales by online copyright infringements.

Meaning that, in terms of sales, there isn't sufficient evidence to show that piracy actually results in lost sales. Meaning that DRM doesn't actually gain sales (if piracy indeed does not displace sales), since those pirates aren't a "displacement" of sales in the first place, so there's nothing to be gained from them by stopping them.

Basically, they were never going to buy the game in the first place, so no sales were lost in the event of piracy. It's just that they can't play the game now that they weren't willing to pay for if DRM actually manages to stop them.

That aside, including console games means that you have more data and the proportion of PC data is less, sure. That doesn't make the data any less valid.

[Shadic]

Originally posted by Lavian:

Originally posted by Kaldaieℵ₀:

Steamworks DRM can be removed in 5 seconds without Denuvo anti-tamper protecting it. Are you a pirate? Trying to convince everyone they should let their guard down because the joke is adequate? :)

Look, just because you happen to be a pirate bird thing doesn't mean the rest of us are.

he hates pirates lol

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by Shadicluigi:

Originally posted by Lavian:

Look, just because you happen to be a pirate bird thing doesn't mean the rest of us are.

he hates pirates lol

Extremely irritated by them and their antics, but not necessarily hate them.

I've been banned so many times because they consider my mods malware since it doesn't work with pirated versions of Steam games.

[Minute-globe]

still waiting for this too be removed sega. despite what the fart huffing drm defenders in this thread think.

[Michel Baie]

Originally posted by Minuteworld94:

still waiting for this too be removed sega. despite what the fart huffing drm defenders in this thread think.

Oh yeah, I can hear the corporates shivering in panic because your majesty's will wasn't satisfied yet.

[Night]

Will buy once DRM is removed for technical reason. But I guess to some that makes me a pirate. I guess that would be true since I support Johnny Depp / captain sparrow and not the DRM sniffers / #MeToo fun lots :P

[Kimarnic]

Cope Piracies and Poor people lmao

[76561199009610810]

This thread is no longer constructive and has therefore been locked. Thanks for your understanding.