Denuvo authenticates every few days?

[lotrofan15]

So I understand having Denuvo check your game the first time it launches and I even understand it needing to authenticate when an update gets launched but does it check your game every few days regardless of an update or not? I launched the game while connected to the internet to reauthenticate it after the last update and then put Steam into offline mode. It was offline for about two weeks yet when I tried to launch the game offline after that, I get a "To first launch, Steam needs to be in online mode, please check your internet and try again" sort of message. Why? It is obviously not the first time I launched the game and I launched it online when the last update came out. So does this Denuvo DRM check your game's "authenticity" every few days or weeks even if an update hasn't come out? If so, then I may not be able to buy anymore games with Denuvo from this point forward.

Ive been increasingly buying products from GOG not just because they don't have any DRM (or Denuvo DRM) but because they openly state that the games you buy are products not "licenses" or "services" etc. Steam I know has it as a license system but steam also gives the consumer great control over when they play their games (I have been offline with steam for 2 months for example and nothing forced me to connect online unless it was Denuvo). While the licensing vs product issue isn't the major factor in my mind (the Denuvo problem is), it is definitely becoming bigger than before when issues like these occur

[redblacktree]

Apparently not.. it's hard to get a clear and definitive answer to this though as there's so much rumour and conjecture around Denuvo and some pretty crappy communication from the company themselves. It's also possible that a Windows update, however small, may have triggered the phone home.

I can't fault a publisher for trying to protect their sales but leaving Denuvo in beyond the initial sales window (2.5 years now for JC3!?) is just frustrating your customers unnecessarily and potentially pushing them to the exact behaviour they are trying to avoid.

Games from GOG are very much personal licences that you purchase specifically "for your personal enjoyment". They are very much limited.. it's basically the same as Steam but without DRM. It's also the same for movie and music purchases and has been for a long time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of GOG but I've heard this before and it just ain't the case:

https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-User-Agreement

[e.bkapalka]

It should only check the first time and once every few months. If it keeps needing to re-check, the record of it authenticating is likely getting deleted. This could be a log file somewhere, a registry entry, or just missing file permissions to create the authentication in the first place. Your antivirus may be part of the problem but it could be a bunch of things unfortunately.

[UncleYar]

What's for sure is that once Denuvo goes out of business, all your Denuvo games will stop working unless the publishers invest some money to remove the DRM. Some do. Most don't. This is not conjecture, Denuvo needs to communicate periodically with their server for the DRM to work, period. This is just history repeating itself, there are many dead games that depended on GFWL, Securom, Starforce and all those other garbage schemes.

Also, regarding games being supposedly just licenses that you don't own: that's how software companies would like the system to work, but they can put whatever they want in their EULA, courts will ultimately decide if the 10 pages of gibberish everyone clicks through without reading is legally binding. And in many cases, they've ruled it's not: https://www.engadget.com/2012/07/03/eu-court-rules-its-legal-to-resell-digital-games-software/

I predict we'll get proper rulings on the issue when someone dies and wants to leave his Steam collection to his child (or split the games among his children), and Valve tries to deny it.