If a DRM model actually works and can protect day/week/quarter/year one sales, plenty of indie devs and the like will pay for a license to insure their profits for that period.
And, regardless of what the internet claims, implemented correctly (so not checking on every frame update like some games do…), denuvo is completely transparent to the end user (maybe less so now that steam decks are a thing…). And the issues with authentication servers going down or licenses not refreshing mostly go way if it is removed with a patch a day/week/quarter/year in to the life cycle of the game. Which I would assume devs want to do anyway to stop paying for denuvo licenses?
The lesson we failed to learn from The DRM Wars of the 2000s is that piracy and “boycotts” don’t make DRM go away. Because it just takes one uncrackable game (I remember Mass Effect PC being a great example of this) to send ALL the pirates to the store. Because if you haven’t been buying your other games, getting the one you want for full price from the kid at Best Buy is easy.
The reality is that, much like what CDP/GoG said back in the day, it is about convenience. Steam put the fear of god into people (get caught pirating and you lose all your games!) and provided a(n honestly pretty invasive) DRM solution while encouraging consumers to “just buy it”. But, over time, that has proven to not be enough as more people realize how easy it is to bypass steam DRM and third party solutions are desired again.
And we are going to see the third party solutions as well as regional restrictions (which DRM also helps with) as more and more people shift back to piracy and exploiting cdkeys and the like for regional pricing exploits.
I’m boycotting to save myself from more BSODs and bad performance, (even ABZU refused to run right on my computer and most of my MGS5 playtime was wrestling with getting things working and putting in validation numbers), and my backlog—like I’m sure most gamers’ is—is full of stuff to play without Denuvo.
Plus, there’s a weird (little but there) overlap of stuff that has Denuvo… keeps Denuvo… and gets launched on Gog and others without any DRM included… so, even the “surely they’ll patch it out” idea doesn’t hold water either.
It’s actually the other way around historically speaking, more DRM and locking down causes people to care less. The latest Darknet Diaries episode is about Team Xecuter, I think you would really enjoy that one! ;)
Dev’s don’t want Denuovo. Publishers or more specifically Investors want Denuovo cause they don’t understand or care what the end users want or how it negatively impacts them to have intrusive DRM. On their little power point, it says Denuovo saves them money, and that makes them happy. Even when that couldn’t be further from the truth.
The price of this game makes it one you should definitely be a patient gamer on. Not only will you save a ton of money but it’ll probably be Denuvo free eventually too.
Fwiw, Denuvo is actually really hard to crack. There’s like one well-known person who is capable and she’s incredibly unlikeable. Agreeable sentiment though; Denuvo sucks and harms legitimate consumers (arguably more than it inconveniences pirates).
Eh that’s not really true. When she was working on Hogwarts Legacy that’s when her really crazy side showed and she got a massive cult following as a result.
Good implementations of Denuvo have such a minimal impact on the quality of the game experience that I tend towards optimism when I hear this kind of news. That said, bad implementations of Denuvo cripple the game in a way that previous horrible DRM schemes could only dream of. I’m not planning on playing Payday 3 (I never had any fun with 1 or 2), but I hope that this is the former situation for its fans.
The main problem lies with the fact that the game already is online only, so adding denuvo feels a bit like a fuck you sign from the publishers. And adding the fact that payday 2 thrives from the modding community makes it hard to know if modding will be possible and encouraged by the devs with payday 3
DRM takes away from development budget (it isn’t free). If they are charging me for the experience, I don’t want to fund something that, best case, detracts from my experience using the product. If there were an actual argument that the drm would prevent developer losses (I’m willing to ignore the overwhelming data suggesting piracy, in fact, leads to increased profits), I’d be somewhat sympathetic, however this is an online only, co-op game that requires server handshakes. There is not even a hypothetical benefit to invasive DRM, so why would I agree to pay for it?
I could be misremembering and I’m not going to look it up right now, but I believe Payday 2 lost to corpo greed long ago when they added a bunch of microtransactions. There was also something about the original devs being screwed over if memory serves.
Personally, I’m fine with mtx if it supports continual development of a game i paid for and enjoyed prior to them being added. As long as the actual meaningful game additions are free or 1-time transactions.
What i don’t like is constant FOMO based p2w mechanics that are a requirement to play in any meaningful way, like most mobile time walled games. I also don’t like when corpos make decisions like adding DRM to an always online game, that is known to impact users, just points to a devs inability or a monetary kick back of said 3rd party drm to the devs shareholders.
IIRC payday 2 had glacially slow progression at launch. Now what if you could simply pay some (more) money to skip those boring early levels this time around?
I looked into it some more and it seems there was a “shady” script you could use to grant yourself any piece of paid dlc you wanted, so The Money People probably asked how they could ensure that doesn’t happen again and just didn’t care about the drawbacks for regular people.
DRM is part of an anti-cheat solution. Just like not being F2P is
If authentication is not properly checked, spinning up new accounts to evade bans becomes trivial. This is why so many live games will be “buy to own” or have different tiers in matchmaking that boil down to “spend five bucks on anything to play the real game”. And same with DRM checking for pirated copies.
The other aspect is regional restriction. Not sure if denuvo specifically does this, but you can pretty easily check what region a game was purchased for and what region it is playing in. If all those dirt cheap Brazilian copies are being played in Kansas? Report an error. It prevents people from exploiting regional pricing while still allowing those who have ridiculously low purchasing power to buy anything… and it mostly just screws over people who travel.
Overkill blew all their money with that WW2 spin off. And it crashed so hard there was a John Cleese shaped crater where it hit rock bottom.
They were only able to make Payday 3 with significant external investment. So basically, PD3 is going to be a gutted and whored game since those investors will get significant say what goes into the game. Denuovo just being the most obvious right now.
Agreed. I gave up on PD2 because their update scheme involved reinstalling the goddamned game every couple of weeks. Massive pain in the ass for a hotfix.
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