denuvo? in 2025? seriously?

[scragglie]

are we still doing this? oh wait its nexon nevermind. it all makes sense now. the worst gaming publication on earth

[Sleepy]

Publicado originalmente por sgrey:

Have you actually went and looked or do you just like to argue based on hearsay? Because I actually went and looked and every game with denuvo released in 2024 that I checked is available for download on pirate websites.

Okay then, I'd love to know where I can go to download Black Myth: Wukong.

Oh wait, you're just lying to push some agenda. Thanks.

Publicado originalmente por Chacheya1G:

Denuvo is usually employed when the publisher has no trust in their game selling on its own merit.

Yeah, which is why Black Myth is one of the best selling games of all time.

[Giganx]

Denuvo protects day 1 sales, and in this age where everyone buys digitally day 1 sales tend to be the most important. The steam community forums seems to be where a lot of broke children and pirates hang out.

Publicado originalmente por Sleepy:

Yeah, which is why Black Myth is one of the best selling games of all time. :lunar2019deadpanpig:

Black Myth Wukong is one of the best selling games of all time IN CHINA. Mediocre sales everywhere else.

The CCP was involved in the development of that game and offered incentives for Chinese citizens to buy it; that's just how things work there. Had nothing to do with Denuvo.

[+-VonDz-+]

People still complain about Denovo in 2025? srsly?

[dachte]

Publicado originalmente por +-VonDz-+:

People still complain about Denovo in 2025? srsly?

Yes, because bizarrely some devs put this malware in their games.

[Greed Is Addiction]

Publicado originalmente por dachte:

Publicado originalmente por +-VonDz-+:

People still complain about Denovo in 2025? srsly?

Yes, because bizarrely some devs put this malware in their games.

It's due to altered thinking from the wealth addiction program. Some people cannot see beyond the addiction.

[khamthien251]

Publicado originalmente por Giganx:

Denuvo protects day 1 sales, and in this age where everyone buys digitally day 1 sales tend to be the most important. The steam community forums seems to be where a lot of broke children and pirates hang out.

Publicado originalmente por Sleepy:

Yeah, which is why Black Myth is one of the best selling games of all time. :lunar2019deadpanpig:

Black Myth Wukong is one of the best selling games of all time IN CHINA. Mediocre sales everywhere else.

The CCP was involved in the development of that game and offered incentives for Chinese citizens to buy it; that's just how things work there. Had nothing to do with Denuvo.

Game Sience's CEO just show 30% players of BMW is outside of China... let do some maths and 30% of 25 millions coies sold is 7,5 millions copies. Can you named some games that sold more than 7 millions copies WORLD WIDE in 2024?

[Dawkins]

Publicado originalmente por FROSTY:

Whats the deal with denuvo? Can I get a quick rundown?

Years back Denuvo was proven to harm game performance in badly and noticeable ways so it was generally hated. In the late years thanks to both CPU improvements and probably to Denuvo improvements as well it's become a non-issue for the majority. Of course people still running older hardware are bound to hate it even more as games get more demanding on their systems, and of course some people hate it on principle.

From my own experience most people only pirate games because they can't afford them at that point in their lives, so working so hard to prevent them from playing them is economically inefficient and pointless but I can see the suits with their metrics-driven jobs having a different point of view.

[lukaself]

Publicado originalmente por khamthien251:

Publicado originalmente por Giganx:

Denuvo protects day 1 sales, and in this age where everyone buys digitally day 1 sales tend to be the most important. The steam community forums seems to be where a lot of broke children and pirates hang out.


Black Myth Wukong is one of the best selling games of all time IN CHINA. Mediocre sales everywhere else.

The CCP was involved in the development of that game and offered incentives for Chinese citizens to buy it; that's just how things work there. Had nothing to do with Denuvo.

Game Sience's CEO just show 30% players of BMW is outside of China... let do some maths and 30% of 25 millions coies sold is 7,5 millions copies. Can you named some games that sold more than 7 millions copies WORLD WIDE in 2024?

Your numbers are for all platforms but Denuvo is only on PC. On Steam the numbers are very different than console with 88% from China and 3% in the US. Checking the proportion of Steam reviews in Chinese highlights that it's still true today. Feel free to include a better source if you have one, anything else such as "trust me bro" statements will be ignored.

https://x.com/simoncarless/status/1825818693751779449

Also yes, I can cite a lot of games which sold more internationally (China excluded) than Wukong. Baldur's Gate 3 for instance, a 2023 game sold more copies just in 2024 than Wukong did for its whole lifetime outside of China. Even better, Palworld just revealed they moved 32 millions copies - including gamepass players (they do generate revenue so that wouldn't make much sense excluding them) - which is about ten millions more than Wukong sold globally - so much for the people who thought it was the top seller. Also, Manor Lords, Hades II, Enshrouded are all DRM-free titles which outsold that game outside of China that year. Even Balatro managed to sell 5 million copies with a tiny development budget and virtually no marketing, so if Wukong barely reaches above that outside China despite its multimillion-dollar marketing campaign, it would be embarrassing.

I could do this all day but I think that is enough to make my point: Wukong is an outlier which can't be used to determine the effect (or lack thereof) of Denuvo on sales. I'm by no means claiming that Wukong is a bad game or that the sales from China do not matter, only that it's irrelevant for our context of DRM vs No-DRM

The best part about the sales of DRM-free games? People could have downloaded those games for free unimpeded and they still massively decided to buy it. Because DRM being the only option against piracy is a myth. Don't believe me? Let's see what Valve's experts have to say:

Erik Johnson: There hasn't been a case where we're making a trade off that could negatively impact a customer's experience to reduce this theoretical piracy rate. Those always seem like awful decisions.

Gabe Newell: You were just saying, you're making this trade off, and it's always the wrong one if any customers can be affected negatively by it.

Erik Johnson: Being able to log into any computer and play our games on Steam was a feature that we thought was interesting in the early days of Steam, but has turned out to be an incredibly high value thing for customers, and that's the kind of thing where a flawed anti piracy strategy would be at odds with that.

Doug Lombardi: The other thing, too, is that gamers are generally good people. If you're making a good game and you've done a good job both from a quality and on the communications standpoint, they're more than happy to give you their money.

I think the industry will be just fine without Denuvo.

Edit: minor corrections, additional examples and phrasing.

[NotYourAlexie]

Publicado originalmente por Giganx:

The steam community forums seems to be where a lot of broke children and pirates hang out.

Is that why your thirteen-year-old account has 33 games on it?

[IchigoMait]

Publicado originalmente por FROSTY:

Whats the deal with denuvo? Can I get a quick rundown?

As long as the denuvo is part of the game, they can't pirate the game, that's the only reason for whining, there is no performance loss if you are not cpu bottlenecked in the game, and even then it's nothing. And any comparsion they can make is comparing and older version of a game with denuvo against a newer version of game without denuvo, so they can't even compare the same version of the game with and without denuvo.

[lukaself]

The main issue isn't with performance, it's with having to ask permission to Denuvo to play the game you paid for everytime you start. This will render the game unplayable if Denuvo is not removed when the servers close. Being treated as a thief by default is unconscionable and when it prevents the game from starting for arbitrary reasons, it's a 100% performance cost in my book. For instance:

You can no longer authenticate on new devices
Can't play MH:Rise because of DRM (live in front of 60k viewers)[clips.twitch.tv]
Clearly working as intended™

Unfortunately there are still some publishers in 2025 which believe that making the value of their product worse through aggressive DRM strategies is going to improve their sales.

[dachte]

Publicado originalmente por IchigoMait:

Publicado originalmente por FROSTY:

Whats the deal with denuvo? Can I get a quick rundown?

As long as the denuvo is part of the game, they can't pirate the game, that's the only reason for whining, there is no performance loss if you are not cpu bottlenecked in the game, and even then it's nothing. And any comparsion they can make is comparing and older version of a game with denuvo against a newer version of game without denuvo, so they can't even compare the same version of the game with and without denuvo.

Nah, I've bought hundreds of games and still do. I just refuse to buy games with the Denuvo malware anymore. It's like wanting a burger at a fast food restaurant but the employees spit some denuvo into your food. And then some weirdos get grumpy at you if you complain about the spit.

[Миша Вейнман Е.]

Publicado originalmente por sgrey:

Publicado originalmente por Grim Abstract:

Few days? It almost makes it impossible lol.

For some reason impossible to crack games with denuvo are all on torrent web sites right now. You can go and download them... And they all work.

And where i can download Dead Space Remake (2023)? Huh?

[Миша Вейнман Е.]

Publicado originalmente por sgrey:

Publicado originalmente por Sleepy:

33 games with denuvo were released in 2024
not a single one of them has been cracked

Have you guys been living under a rock or are you just in denial? Either that or you are just lying for some reason.

Have you actually went and looked or do you just like to argue based on hearsay? Because I actually went and looked and every game with denuvo released in 2024 that I checked is available for download on pirate websites.

Black Myth Wukong?

[K@zzSama]

When i had old PC it DID matter to me if denuvo malware tanked 20 fps cause it was a difference in playing on 60 fluid fps or 40-ish janky ♥♥♥♥ and i bet it does matter to many people on low/mid end rigs. So it was one of my main factors in buying a game or not and still is.