Statement about the use of Denuvo

[Nacon]

Hello everyone,

We have seen the discussions surrounding the 2Dark DRM system and we have heard them.
2Dark uses Denuvo Anti-Tamper DRM system. This DRM system has proven useful against piracy and many game studios make use of it in order to protect their creations. As the publisher of 2Dark, Bigben Interactive is also responsible for the protection of 2Dark and its intellectual propriety against piracy. This DRM will, in addition to Steam’s own DRM system, help the creators of 2Dark continue doing what they love: bringing great games to players!

Gloomywood’s crowd-funding campaign did not mention a DRM, but the campaign has evolved much more than originally anticipated. After all, there were no initial plans to develop for PS4 or Xbox One consoles, record the soundtrack with an orchestra, and provide a voice to Smith (as well as many other things.) This was all made possible because Bigben, and the 2Dark fans, believed in Gloomywood’s creative vision and wanted to support the game.

The support of responsible players is really important in ensuring that Gloomywood, and many other game studios, are rewarded for their efforts and can continue to make great games you love! With this DRM system, piracy can be prevented and studios can focus on being innovative and creative.

Update (19.04.2017):

Based on recent events and the shear amount of community feedback we received regarding 2Dark’s use of Denuvo, we have now taken the decision to remove Denuvo from 2Dark.

At the time of this message, we have released a small update to the game which removes Denuvo, allowing you to play Denuvo-free.

We want to thank all of you who provided your feedback.

[♡ Katalina Aryze ♡]

Originally posted by Gromit:

You want mute all guys who don't like Denuvo because they are "obviously" pirates for you ?
It's a dictature or what ? Kim jong un is that you ? ^^

Well there is a pinned thread and realistically it's annoying to see the forum clouded with the same handful of 10 people re-posting the same thing. I didn't expect my comment to be popular.

The fact is that I don't like Denuvo but I understand why it's being used but I wish we could have threads that actually benefited consumers and people who are interested in the game rather than listening to the same whiners speak their peace on 20 duplicated threads.

Maybe it will all make sense now.

[Hobbes]

"The support of responsible players is really important in ensuring that Gloomywood, and many other game studios, are rewarded for their efforts and can continue to make great games you love! With this DRM system, piracy can be prevented and studios can focus on being innovative and creative."

No. Just no. CDProjektRed would love to have a word with you about "The support of responsible players"

You say the words, but from you they are lies that come from your tongue like so many other 'developers' who pretend they are more than they are worth.

Be honest with your customers and yourself, you did this because you lack the confidence to sell your product on merit, and you saw a way to ensure you got some sweet cheddar and damned to your "responsible players".

[NewMoonShadow]

Originally posted by BigbenCM:

Hello everyone,

We have seen the discussions surrounding the 2Dark DRM system and we have heard them.
2Dark uses Denuvo Anti-Tamper DRM system. This DRM system has proven useful against piracy and many game studios make use of it in order to protect their creations. As the publisher of 2Dark, Bigben Interactive is also responsible for the protection of 2Dark and its intellectual propriety against piracy. This DRM will, in addition to Steam’s own DRM system, help the creators of 2Dark continue doing what they love: bringing great games to players!

Gloomywood’s crowd-funding campaign did not mention a DRM, but the campaign has evolved much more than originally anticipated. After all, there were no initial plans to develop for PS4 or Xbox One consoles, record the soundtrack with an orchestra, and provide a voice to Smith (as well as many other things.) This was all made possible because Bigben, and the 2Dark fans, believed in Gloomywood’s creative vision and wanted to support the game.

The support of responsible players is really important in ensuring that Gloomywood, and many other game studios, are rewarded for their efforts and can continue to make great games you love! With this DRM system, piracy can be prevented and studios can focus on being innovative and creative.

1: DRM doesn't prevent piracy. It has been proven time and time again. It delays it at best.

2: Some people WILL refuse to support the game BECAUSE of the DRM. Because DRM has always done more to inconvenience paying customers than to prevent piracy. The question becomes, is the number of people you prevent from stealing the game worth the people you drive away from buying it?

[♡ Katalina Aryze ♡]

So... It's amazing how many people are blaming devs/publishers and Denuvo for anti-consumer product when they should be blaming pirates. This generation is so reversed and it's sad to see.

People are accusing Gloomywood of being greedy in ine breath and in another breath openly admit they're pirates and in their delusion claim that piracy is helping the industry and Denuvo is ruining it. If you want DRM's like Denuvo to sieze existence, stop pirating. No, not sticking up for Denuvo but rather comsumers, the consumers who pay for their products fairly.

Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything here, if you dont like it, there are thousands of other games on Steam. A handful of people revolting isn't going to do anything (realistically speaking here), especially if you're being rude. And if you think a few people saying "You lost a sale, good job" is going to have any impact, you're not being honsst with yourselves. This handful of people aren't going to cause sales to decline or turn people away. The game is on other platforms and it's getting decent to great reviews.

I agree with a few of the people here because I've talked to them on other threads but there are a few on other threads who openly admitted their piracy habits. So when the dev/publishers see this, they will know they did the right thing. Great job to those people. As far as why Denuvo, we really don't know why, and we will never know. However, it's not logical to say "Let's add this to screw with our customers" explain to me how that makes sense people. It's not good for business. That is all.

[Rabid Urko]

Originally posted by Gromit:

You want mute all guys who don't like Denuvo because they are "obviously" pirates for you ?
It's a dictature or what ? Kim jong un is that you ? ^^

Because there isnt any real legit reason for all the moaning.

[♡ Katalina Aryze ♡]

Originally posted by RabidUrko:

Originally posted by Gromit:

You want mute all guys who don't like Denuvo because they are "obviously" pirates for you ?
It's a dictature or what ? Kim jong un is that you ? ^^

Because there isnt any real legit reason for all the moaning.

And the moaning will never end until a mod arrives to put people in their place, sadly. Fortunately all the moaning is just that. These comments won't affect sales - never does. Nor will it change the devs mind on anything. It's like seeing a thread where people "warn" others not to pre-order. Yeah... never ever works.

The threads will die or get locked and nobody's voice will be heard. All that effort is in vain. Hopefully people here chew on that and maybe save their self the energy.

[Rabid Urko]

Originally posted by DontBlink +_- UrDead:

Originally posted by RabidUrko:

Because there isnt any real legit reason for all the moaning.

And the moaning will never end until a mod arrives to put people in their place, sadly. Fortunately all the moaning is just that. These comments won't affect sales - never does. Nor will it change the devs mind on anything. It's like seeing a thread where people "warn" others not to pre-order. Yeah... never ever works.

The threads will die or get locked and nobody's voice will be heard. All that effort is in vain. Hopefully people here chew on that and maybe save their self the energy.

Your right.

[Hobbes]

Originally posted by DontBlink +_- UrDead:

The threads will die or get locked and nobody's voice will be heard. All that effort is in vain. Hopefully people here chew on that and maybe save their self the energy.

Oh aren't you delicious

So here's a little factoid for you. Voicing their opinion on this thread, coupled with actively refusing to buy this game (and thus hurting sales), if everyone who stated "I will not buy this game because of Denuvo" posts to that effect, well, let's just say I've seen other places where it's been effective in forcing developers to rethink idiotic decisions (HI LEAGUE OF GEEKS, HOW *YOU* DOIN'!)

Denuvo is -already- a busted flush, so discussing the ifs or buts about it's efficiacy as an antipiracy solution is kinda a waste of time, particularly when the turnaround is now within a week. So ultimately all it does is treat legitimate consumers like criminals, and given that as the case, why should we reward the developers who enable that mentality with our money?

Simples. We shouldn't. We should actively punish those who use Denuvo by depressing their sales, and making it patently clear that Denuvo is bad not just for the consumer, but for the developers bottom line.

Oh, and before you wheel out the "But what about the poor developers? How will they eat?", they lost my sympathy when they signed up with this nonsense of an "antitamper" solution. As far as I'm concerned, whatever happens to them, including loss of business, is fair game.

[NewMoonShadow]

Originally posted by Hobbes:

Originally posted by DontBlink +_- UrDead:

The threads will die or get locked and nobody's voice will be heard. All that effort is in vain. Hopefully people here chew on that and maybe save their self the energy.

Oh aren't you delicious

So here's a little factoid for you. Voicing their opinion on this thread, coupled with actively refusing to buy this game (and thus hurting sales), if everyone who stated "I will not buy this game because of Denuvo" posts to that effect, well, let's just say I've seen other places where it's been effective in forcing developers to rethink idiotic decisions (HI LEAGUE OF GEEKS, HOW *YOU* DOIN'!)

Denuvo is -already- a busted flush, so discussing the ifs or buts about it's efficiacy as an antipiracy solution is kinda a waste of time, particularly when the turnaround is now within a week. So ultimately all it does is treat legitimate consumers like criminals, and given that as the case, why should we reward the developers who enable that mentality with our money?

Simples. We shouldn't. We should actively punish those who use Denuvo by depressing their sales, and making it patently clear that Denuvo is bad not just for the consumer, but for the developers bottom line.

Oh, and before you wheel out the "But what about the poor developers? How will they eat?", they lost my sympathy when they signed up with this nonsense of an "antitamper" solution. As far as I'm concerned, whatever happens to them, including loss of business, is fair game.

Pretty much this.

The bottom line is that making your paying customers happy is worth far more in the end than sticking it to your non-paying customers with DRM. CDProjektRed learned this lesson years ago when they turned profits from some of the most pirated games in gaming history.

And yes, to those of you who are telling others to shut up, voicing our problems with the game in a place where the Devs and Publishers can see it is absolutely a valid way to let our feelings about it be known and get change to happen.

Voicing complaints for always-online DRM got it removed from the X-Box One hardware.

Voicing complaints has caused a lot of changes in the gaming industry, actually.

[♡ Katalina Aryze ♡]

Originally posted by Hobbes:

So here's a little factoid for you. Voicing their opinion on this thread, coupled with actively refusing to buy this game (and thus hurting sales), if everyone who stated "I will not buy this game because of Denuvo" posts to that effect, well, let's just say I've seen other places where it's been effective in forcing developers to rethink idiotic decisions (HI LEAGUE OF GEEKS, HOW *YOU* DOIN'!)

That's not a fact though lol

Only it's the same 10 people posting virtually the same thing... the same thing people are doing here, has been done before on bigger game hubs/forums such as Rise Of The Tomb Raider and Abzu. Their sales weren't hurt and the revolt was stronger on their threads than here... alot stronger! Can people here really be foolish enough to think the devs/pubs didn't expect this reaction from a handful? I mean, they do know the business better than us, we're just consumers.

Originally posted by Hobbes:

Oh, and before you wheel out the "But what about the poor developers? How will they eat?", they lost my sympathy when they signed up with this nonsense of an "antitamper" solution. As far as I'm concerned, whatever happens to them, including loss of business, is fair game.

Who said I felt any sympathy for the devs/pubs? As said above, they knew the choices they made, they are strategic decisions that the consumer really knows nothing about.

You're right. A VERY small amount of loss of business. Probably less than 1% in sales of we're to be completely honest. As said before, almost nobody will see these comments and even less people will take these comments seriously.
 

Originally posted by NewMoonShadow:

And yes, to those of you who are telling others to shut up, voicing our problems with the game in a place where the Devs and Publishers can see it is absolutely a valid way to let our feelings about it be known and get change to happen.

Voicing complaints for always-online DRM got it removed from the X-Box One hardware.

Voicing complaints has caused a lot of changes in the gaming industry, actually.

Don't misunderstand me but also don't overestimate yourselves in this small thread/community. Don't forget that this game will sell much more on XB1 and PS4 than it will PC so the handful of people on this forum won't have any influence what so ever. Just because 20 people here say "Denuvo! No!!" That doesn't mean the dev or pub is going to say "Oh... we lost 20 sales we better change that" because that's not worth it. It's going to take an army to shake a mountain, not a small tribe.

The main difference between this thread and the Xbox DRM situation is that this thread has the same 10 people complaining and the Xbox DRM complaints were made my millions of gamers who saw E3. In other words, it's about as poor of a comparison you can make, for many other variables as well.

I never said consumers/customers shouldn't speak out but there's an intelligent way to go about it vs what has been shown on this particular game forum.

Now I know, I know... y'all are probably looking at my comment like...
https://youtu.be/QYOA_ciyS6c

But I'm actually not taking the developer or publishers side here, I'm just being a realist. With an adult view at this whole thing. Bullying a dev/pub never works... it hardly ever works on a indie game.

[HellBoy-CPC]

I don't really believe that much people saying they won't but a game because there are DRMs or orther kind of protection. If they don't buy it because such of an argument, it's just that they did not really want to play it. I hate DRMs because of the constraints they bring to the players. On the other side, Denuvo is not easy to crack. And the last Doom is a good example. Guess why i bought it ? Because i could not find a cracked version and i wanted to really play it. In the end, I bought it because i really wanted to play it. So there are lots of people that would not buy a game that can be cracked while they might buy it if it's not possible to crack it. It does not mean all pirates will but many will. 2Dark is out, 2Dark has DRMs, who cares if you want to play it it does not prevent you to play it.

[Revisor]

Originally posted by BigbenCM:

Hello everyone,
...
Gloomywood’s crowd-funding campaign did not mention a DRM

I have not backed the game, but that sentence is a lie.

The developers have promised a DRM-free version. They said specifically

Which DRM will be used for 2Dark?

2Dark will be distributed through Steam, but also on other platforms (GOG, Desura, etc.) which don't use DRM. Which means the version you get won't have DRM...

Source: https://www.ulule.com/2dark/
Archive: http://archive.is/QKA91

Whether it was the decision of the developer (Gloomywood) or of yourself, the publisher, the game WAS promised to be released DRM-free.

I don't like lies.

[Kaex]

Originally posted by HellBoy-CPC:

If they don't buy it because such of an argument, it's just that they did not really want to play it. So there are lots of people that would not buy a game that can be cracked while they might buy it if it's not possible to crack it. It does not mean all pirates will but many will. 2Dark is out, 2Dark has DRMs, who cares if you want to play it it does not prevent you to play it.

Maybe because people can restrain their hype ? I really wanted to buy Nier Automata to support such weird creativity and all of that, but I won't, because I am considered as a thief even if I'm a legal consumer. Because I want to play the game again in 20 years, and give it to my child in the end.

Am I a so bad pirate for pirating a game I legally bought before because there is no other way to have a DRM-Free copy of it ?

I really wanted to play 2Dark, because it was supposed to be on GoG, because they made Little Big Adventure, Alone In The Dark. But the case here is worse than Nier Automata : they ask people for money with crowdfunding, telling everyone how indie they are, releasing on GoG and stuff, and in the end they give us this PR moron statement about "we heard your complaints, we heard so much that what I'm going to say won't make sense and so it will stay the same crap and we need to do that so our devs can dev again even if the creators were retired for 20 years before the crowdfunding. Thank you for your support responsible players, would like to spit on your hands again".

Overall, I still don't understand how people (not trolls) can support Denuvo when you think on the long term.

[Gromit]

The funny thing is that some guys say only pirates doesn't like Denuvo, that's why they don't want it BUT if you go in the crowfunding page of the game (and can read french comment of course) you can see all the dissapointement from backers (they already give money, they don't want pirate the game): they want a DRM free version without Denuvo, and a Linux mac version.

[sturmkoenig2k]

Originally posted by Gromit:

The funny thing is that some guys say only pirates doesn't like Denuvo, that's why they don't want it BUT if you go in the crowfunding page of the game (and can read french comment of course) you can see all the dissapointement from backers (they already give money, they don't want pirate the game): they want a DRM free version without Denuvo, and a Linux mac version.

Has anyone of the dissapointed backers asked the devs for a refund? I would try it and explain my reasons.

I do not support Denuvo. Denuvo is a crappy solution for a small game like 2Dark.