Denuvo Anti-Tamper (anti-piracy solution)

[bystander36]

One note about the complaint the pirate supporters have against showing how many illegally downloaded copies are made. You claim to want facts, and not speculation. So what is the company supposed to report? The only facts they have is how many times it is illegally downloaded. There is no way to report a fact about how many of those were lost sales.

You can look at the pirated copies as "potentially lost sales". We all know that the actually sales lost is somewhere between 0 and how many pirated copies there were. You can't expect them to post anything but how many copies were illegally downloaded. Everything else is speculation.

 

[bystander36]

No, your problem is you are only looking at it from one perspective. It isn't a black/white area. You (and others) are also trying to say people are saying piracy is ok. While there may be a bit of truth to that, it isn't at all the point anyone is making.

It is black and white. Pirating is illegal. There is no dispute. That means it should not be supported. You can argue until you are blue in the face that it doesn't hurt anyone, but it is still illegal. Period. Black and white. Illegal.

You say it doesn't hurt anyone, but it does, we just don't know how much. It might be small, it might be big, but it does effect someone to some degree.

 

[master_shake_]

Basically you are saying that stealing is a moral issue, and should be ignored, because of moral diversity? Seriously, on just about any level, it is wrong and it is illegal.

If a game is not worth is price, just don't buy or play the game. Wait for the price to come down, or play a cheaper priced game. If you don't like the DRM, buy a game you prefer.

I keep hearing how it is ok to pirate. It is illegal, in every way. There isn't a justification for illegal practices, unless it is about just surviving. Games are not about surviving. Heck, I bet a good number the pirates who have posted here have very costly systems.

wth does this mean?

if you don't like the DRM buy a game you prefer?

is that a whole sentence?

 

[Carfax83]

Source?

Don't be ridiculous. Pirates are nothing but leeches who think they are entitled to enjoy the fruits of other peoples' labors without compensating them.

So they aren't exactly on the moral high ground in this debate..

You're intentionally missing the point. Games still use DRM that prevents legitimate users from playing the software they paid for.

Some games use them, because the developers haven't patched them out. Securom and StarForce have been abandoned by the industry, and rightfully so.

Denuvo is the new kid on the block, and it only obfuscates DRM like Steam, Origin etcetera so it's not exactly DRM itself.

That link has already been presented in this thread, along with the 10 million copies they sold.

Actually it was 6 million copies and that was split between two games.

 

[bystander36]

wth does this mean?

if you don't like the DRM buy a game you prefer?

is that a whole sentence?

Yes, it is a complete sentence, it just didn't fully explain what I was trying saying very well. You should still know what was meant. I'll fix it for you.

If you don't like the DRM, buy a game that allows you to use the game the way you want.

They have a product, and they use DRM's or not. We have the option to buy it, or not. We do not have the right to just pirate it, however.

 

[master_shake_]

Don't be ridiculous. Pirates are nothing but leeches who think they are entitled to enjoy the fruits of other peoples' labors without compensating them.

So they aren't exactly on the moral high ground in this debate..

this, paying full price for a game that has limited access at launch due to DRM problems and server overloads is part of being a gamer.

and those bugs pfffft! they are only there so we gamers remember to make reports on forums so the developers can fix them in a timely fashion...

or not at all!

so sampling a game to decide if you actually want to pay 50-60 dollars for a rotting piece of crap is NOT ALLOWED!

if they have to make demos they'd lose money!

Some games use them, because the developers haven't patched them out. Securom and StarForce have been abandoned by the industry, and rightfully so.

Denuvo is the new kid on the block, and it only obfuscates DRM like Steam, Origin etcetera so it's not exactly DRM itself.

and when they do patch them out they use scene cracks to do so.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1263556

but it was their software so it's technically their crack!

FREAKING ENTITLED PIRATES AMIRITE!

 

[ImpulsE69]

It is black and white. Pirating is illegal. There is no dispute. That means it should not be supported. You can argue until you are blue in the face that it doesn't hurt anyone, but it is still illegal. Period. Black and white. Illegal.

You say it doesn't hurt anyone, but it does, we just don't know how much. It might be small, it might be big, but it does effect someone to some degree.

I'm going to assume you are saying a 'collective' you. The overall arc here isn't about if piracy is right or wrong. Pretty sure we've established that years ago and there's always a handful of people that come in championing how wrong piracy is and how there is absolutely no reason to do it. (I won't even bother with why you are completely wrong), but the point is that's not the topic of this thread.

The point has always been does piracy hurt as much as companies claim, and does DRM help them at all to make it worth both the cost and the damage done to paying customers. That is the simple argument. No one cares for someone to tell them why piracy is right or wrong. It doesn't matter, they are going to do it if they want to.

My stance has overwhelmingly been that companies inflate piracy numbers and losses to pad a game that doesn't sell 'as well as they feel it should'. They were making 'estimates' about piracy long before there was ANY way to track it. Where were they getting those numbers? That's right, thin air based off numbers they THOUGHT they should have sold. We only sold X # of games and we expected to sell Y # of games, therefore, piracy must have made up the difference. How do I know this you ask? I used to work in the industry. It's not rocket science.

Today with torrents, they actually try to track those numbers. The problem is, it is not as simple as counting connections. Therein lies the problem and part of what many have stated. Just because you see 100 people sharing a file, does not mean that those 100 people are 1.) using your item, 2.) would have bought your item even if they couldn't pirate it, 3.) Didn't already / won't buy your item

No one knows, and this is where the divide comes in. Ultimately though, none of that matters. Paying customers don't care. They want a product that works as expected with no surprises when they put their money down on it. In many DRM cases , this has not happened. It's caused multitudes of problems.

Considering how many companies are pretty much step on anyone at anytime to make a profit and have become anti-consumer, I do not put anything past any stock based company to lie and/or do fancy accounting to make themselves look better by any means necessary. That is what THEY are paid to do. Marketing. That's all marketing is, fancy wording.

The real truth though is gaming is bigger than ever today, and piracy has ALWAYS been a part of it, yet companies continue to grow and they continue to make games. There is very little threat to them going under solely because of piracy. They go under due to their own business practices. Companies bleed money. If piracy was such a problem, it would have killed gaming decades ago. It is an imagined issue. It has been shown time and again record breaking sales of games and they are pirated just just like others. Could they maybe sell a bit more if piracy didn't exist? Sure, but very rarely if at all would it be the billions they like to claim (which turns us to the 3 entertainment industry discussion and how money goes between them because there is only so much disposable cash to spend).

TL/DR - well, then you have nothing to talk about in this thread.

 

[Carfax83]

Simple question then Carfax:

What percentage of people who pirate a game, will purchase that game (instead of pirate a different game), if DRM is implemented that is uncrackable?

Thats an unanswerable question. Nobody knows.

But I'll say it's naive to think that sales wouldn't increase for popular games like DAI or the GTA V if the DRM was uncrackable.

Contrary to popular opinion, not all pirates are poor natives from developing countries. There are plenty of them out there that can afford to buy games, but instead choose to pirate them..

I used to be one of them when I was younger and didn't have as much money. I could still afford to buy games, but I made a conscious decision to pirate them anyway. I stopped doing that years ago, once I realized how I could be damaging PC gaming as a hobby..

Now I only buy the games I really want to play, which works out for me because although I earn a lot more income now, I don't have half as much time for gaming as I once did.

 

[bystander36]

I'm going to assume you are saying a 'collective' you. The overall arc here isn't about if piracy is right or wrong. Pretty sure we've established that years ago and there's always a handful of people that come in championing how wrong piracy is and how there is absolutely no reason to do it. (I won't even bother with why you are completely wrong), but the point is that's not the topic of this thread.

Well, the topic has never been stated as such. If that is the topic you want, you have to state it in your post. And how am I completely wrong about how it is illegal, or should not done?

The point has always been does piracy hurt as much as companies claim, and does DRM help them at all to make it worth both the cost and the damage done to paying customers. That is the simple argument. No one cares for someone to tell them why piracy is right or wrong. It doesn't matter, they are going to do it if they want to.

I've never actually seen a report from a company stating how much lost revenue they had due to piracy. I've only seen them state that XXX pirated copies were downloaded. I've seen them occasionally state they had XXX "potential lost sales". The problem is, those who seem to be on the pirates side, misread the statement as saying they lost a specific amount of money.

My stance has overwhelmingly been that companies inflate piracy numbers and losses to pad a game that doesn't sell 'as well as they feel it should'. They were making 'estimates' about piracy long before there was ANY way to track it. Where were they getting those numbers? That's right, thin air based off numbers they THOUGHT they should have sold.

I think you may be misreading those quotes. Next time you see them state how many copies were pirated, or potential lost sales. Read it twice without assuming anything. All they can state is how many copies are pirated, so that is the only numbers they can give. They can't speculate on how many were actual lost sales, or how many of those copies might have been by the same person. All they can do is right down the number they have. The rest is up to your imagination, and their.

Today with torrents, they actually try to track those numbers. The problem is, it is not as simple as counting connections. Therein lies the problem and part of what many have stated. Just because you see 100 people sharing a file, does not mean that those 100 people are 1.) using your item, 2.) would have bought your item even if they couldn't pirate it, 3.) Didn't already / won't buy your item

No one knows, and this is where the divide comes in. Ultimately though, none of that matters. Paying customers don't care. They want a product that works as expected with no surprises when they put their money down on it. In many DRM cases , this has not happened. It's caused multitudes of problems.

Considering how many companies are pretty much step on anyone at anytime to make a profit, I do not put anything past any stock based company to lie and/or do fancy accounting to make themselves look better by any means necessary. That is what THEY are paid to do.

TL/DR - well, then you have nothing to talk about in this thread.

Again, you are acting like the companies should know how these pirated copies are being used, or how many would have purchased a copy. They can't know this. The only number they can give are facts, and that is the numbers downloaded. They know, and we know, that those numbers aren't how many lost sales there were, but that is the numbers we have.

What do you want them to right in place of the facts?

 

[ImpulsE69]

I'm not acting that way. I'm explaining why there is even a discussion. And yes, there are plenty of reports out there of how much companies claim they've lost due to piracy over the years. It's all guestimation, and is spun to make it sound worse than it is.

 

[bystander36]

I'm not acting that way. I'm explaining why there is even a discussion. And yes, there are plenty of reports out there of how much companies claim they've lost due to piracy over the years. It's all guestimation, and is spun to make it sound worse than it is.

If it is a guestimation, then neither of you know how bad it is, but I bet if you reread those report, you will see words like "potential sales", or "if we assume X% would be sales, then". I've seen things like that, but they are estimates, and guesses, or even them fantasizing about what could happen if these people paid. And how do you know how bad it is anyway?

 

[tential]

If it is a guestimation, then neither of you know how bad it is, but I bet if you reread those report, you will see words like "potential sales", or "if we assume X% would be sales, then". I've seen things like that, but they are estimates, and guesses, or even them fantasizing about what could happen if these people paid. And how do you know how bad it is anyway?

Again, I pose you the same question I posed Carfax. What percentage of people who pirate games, would purchase the game if it was unpiratable? Would they purchase the game or simply pirate a different game?

Also, what statistics do you have of a sales increase when DRM is implemented?

 

[Cerb]

Basically you are saying that stealing is a moral issue, and should be ignored, because of moral diversity?

No. For some of the most extreme examples, look at Prohibition, and The War on Drugs.

I'm saying looking at it as a black and white moral issue is wrong, if you want to do anything about it. It denies reality. You're not going to get everyone to agree with you that it's wrong. But, even in that set that do (which I imagine, or at least hope, accounts for a majority), there will be those that do it anyway. You need to accept that, along as pirating cannot be truly prevented, that will be the reality of it. "Oh, we're going to stop them this time," just wastes time and energy, and provides false hope. So far, not one game has sold exceptionally well with DRM that took a long time to crack.

That changes the dynamic greatly, compared to either the false hope of beating piracy, or the false economy of predictable amounts of lost sales due to known piracy rates. I'm sure it is considered by many in the industry, just behind closed doors. For example, let's say you could cut down on piracy due to lack of money (IE, not those with $1.5k gaming PCs, but students and 3rd-world folk) by 80% if you were to price it at $5. OK, great. But, you need to be sure there is enough of a market that you will sell 12 copies for every one that you might have sold if you started it at $60, and 4 for every mark-down to $20. Those people that would have been willing to pay $60 will only be paying $5, after all. Now, just among those that would buy it if it were cheap enough (which are still not lost sales at higher prices), is that worth it? In many cases, if not most cases, probably not.

 

[Cerb]

The problem I have is you are trying to justify, or make pirating about a moral issue, when it is a legal one. One that anyone can see is also immoral.

The only problem is, those dev's who follow the rules you claim to want, still get just as much pirating.

It is a legal issue due to having a legal framework. That legal framework does not exist in a vacuum, but it is based on what groups supporting legislatures consider is right and wrong. The legal argument/debate about it is basically equivalent to the moral one, just with an ability to add citations. Your second statement's truth is precisely why both are not useful ways to look at it, since it happens anyway, even not being moral or legal.

Since it happens anyway, why does it happen (multiple reasons, likely varying most by region, culture, and economic status)? What can be done to reduce the rate at which certain identified groups pirate (technical means are merely stop-gaps; and legal hurdles don't seem to have a large effect; it needs to be a business decision)? What is the likelihood that, if that action succeeds, the net result will be positive for the game and the company?

 

[bystander36]

Again, I pose you the same question I posed Carfax. What percentage of people who pirate games, would purchase the game if it was unpiratable? Would they purchase the game or simply pirate a different game?

Also, what statistics do you have of a sales increase when DRM is implemented?

No one knows. How can anyone know? All we know is people pirate. They know how many copies were illegally downloaded a lot of the time, by looking at the popular pirating sites.

No one knows how many of those people would purchase the game, but that doesn't mean they should stop trying prevent them from pirating their game. How many thieves would purchase what they stole if they couldn't steal it? No one can say. It doesn't mean they should stop attempting to prevent thievery.

I can tell you that it is not likely 0%, and not likely 100%.

 

[bystander36]

It is a legal issue due to having a legal framework. That legal framework does not exist in a vacuum, but it is based on what groups supporting legislatures consider is right and wrong. The legal argument/debate about it is basically equivalent to the moral one, just with an ability to add citations. Your second statement's truth is precisely why both are not useful ways to look at it, since it happens anyway, even not being moral or legal.

Since it happens anyway, why does it happen (multiple reasons, likely varying most by region, culture, and economic status)? What can be done to reduce the rate at which certain identified groups pirate (technical means are merely stop-gaps; and legal hurdles don't seem to have a large effect; it needs to be a business decision)? What is the likelihood that, if that action succeeds, the net result will be positive for the game and the company?

I can tell you that removing DRM's is never going to stop most pirates, and it is likely the only way they could succeed. The only problem is there hasn't been many successes with it.

Whether they change all gaming to online only, or use ones like the one on DA:I, those are about the only options they have. Or maybe not. Perhaps they just put advertising throughout the games, and just make all gaming free, and sell advertising space. I'm not sure I'd like that, seeing how that plays with Android gaming.

 

[bystander36]

No. For some of the most extreme examples, look at Prohibition, and The War on Drugs.

I'm saying looking at it as a black and white moral issue is wrong, if you want to do anything about it. It denies reality. You're not going to get everyone to agree with you that it's wrong. But, even in that set that do (which I imagine, or at least hope, accounts for a majority), there will be those that do it anyway. You need to accept that, along as pirating cannot be truly prevented, that will be the reality of it. "Oh, we're going to stop them this time," just wastes time and energy, and provides false hope. So far, not one game has sold exceptionally well with DRM that took a long time to crack.

That changes the dynamic greatly, compared to either the false hope of beating piracy, or the false economy of predictable amounts of lost sales due to known piracy rates. I'm sure it is considered by many in the industry, just behind closed doors. For example, let's say you could cut down on piracy due to lack of money (IE, not those with $1.5k gaming PCs, but students and 3rd-world folk) by 80% if you were to price it at $5. OK, great. But, you need to be sure there is enough of a market that you will sell 12 copies for every one that you might have sold if you started it at $60, and 4 for every mark-down to $20. Those people that would have been willing to pay $60 will only be paying $5, after all. Now, just among those that would buy it if it were cheap enough (which are still not lost sales at higher prices), is that worth it? In many cases, if not most cases, probably not.

Frankly, I think you are naive to think that if you do nothing to stop pirating, that things would be better. And I can't see how you can consider pirating morally good on any foundation. Those who do it, don't do it because they morally think it is ok. They just do it because they can.

If we just gave up trying to slow or stop damaging activities, and just said have at it, we'd head towards anarchy, and really, that is not something we want.

 

[Cerb]

Frankly, I think you are naive to think that if you do nothing to stop pirating, that things would be better. And I can't see how you can consider pirating morally good on any foundation. Those who do it, don't do it because they morally think it is ok. They just do it because they can.

If we just gave up trying to slow or stop damaging activities, and just said have at it, we'd head towards anarchy, and really, that is not something we want.

And I think you are unable to understand what I am typing. You are reading things that aren't there, and missing what is. It is not being naive to see people in the world acting as they do and will, rather than expecting them all to act as they should, else be considered unreasonable sociopaths (I leave that to religious leaders and politicians).

Piracy being morally good: if they do it, "because they can," are they crying themselves to sleep at night for not having paid the makers and publishers? No. Why? Because they do not feel it is wrong, or even feel it is justified, which you can see in threads here on this forum. Whether it is in your mind or not, it is in their theirs, and they behave that way.

Thinking that doing nothing to stop piracy makes things better: no, not at all. That's from your head, not mine. However, screwing paying customers to do it is going too far. You're trying to merge concepts that need to be taken as overlapping, but not necessarily dependent. It wasn't pirating that screwed up the Sim City launch, for example, or screw over users that have unstable internet connections, on games with always-on DRM. DRM has more to it than piracy, and reducing piracy is not just about applying DRM. For example, while I will pay more if a game is on GoG than Steam (it's usually the same or higher on GoG), I don't bitch about Steam, for games using just Steam. I find Steam to strike a good balance, and offer its own added useful features. I have read enough to wish they had more and better recourse for users that are unfairly kicked/banned (leave them banned, but refund a substantial % of their purchases, FI), but that seems to be a teeny tiny minority.

 

[Rakehellion]

The problem I have is you are trying to justify, or make pirating about a moral issue, when it is a legal one. One that anyone can see is also immoral.

You place law above morality? D:

 

[Rakehellion]

It is black and white.

Nothing is black and white. If that's your stance, then we have nothing to discuss.

Laws change all the time. Laws are added and removed because we've decided as a community they don't serve society.

 

[Rakehellion]

Don't be ridiculous. Pirates are nothing but leeches who think they are entitled to enjoy the fruits of other peoples' labors without compensating them.

Someone who tries to demonize an entire group of people based on flimsy evidence is not what I'd call a paragon of decency.

 

[RussianSensation]

"Expect cracks for all Denuvo games to start flooding the internet. In fact, there’re cracks for Lords of the Fallen already doing the rounds, and according to anecdotal evidence, cracking the game actually increases performance."
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=194413

As I said before Denuvo style DRM doesn't work on the PC. The way to combat piracy on the PC is to make games affordable specific to the geographical region based on their income levels/purchasing power. You don't ask someone in Russia, China, Brazil, Egypt, or India, etc. to pay $10,000-20,000 for cancer treatment pills or Hepatitis, but it's common for Big Pharma to charge that in the U.S. based on income levels and how medical insurance works. That's why drugs cost 20-100X less in the developing world. It doesn't matter at all that it costs billions in R&D and an experienced worker at Big Pharma firms making 6-figures. This is common sense for anyone who went to business school and understands how economics and capitalism work:

http://m.naturalnews.com/news/044463_Big_Pharma_profiteering_Sovaldi_overpriced_drugs.html

Similarly, it makes absolutely no sense to charge $50-60 + $20-30 DLC for PC games in countries where income is $300-700 a month. Until publishers get this point, their games will get pirated to no end on the PC in the developing countries.

Also, releasing bug ridden, glitchy and poor performing PC games and charging $50-60 launch prices, while spending the next 6-12 months patching them, isn't helping:

http://www.techspot.com/news/59106-op-ed-new-video-games-shouldnt-broken.html

If you don't like it that Crysis 3 costs $3.10 in Russia/Central Asia on Origin right now, then go ahead and move to those countries. It's no secret that Steam and Origin charge completely different prices in countries like Brazil and Russia but many traditional publishers are too stubborn to get this and instead of making $3-10, they make $0 because a gamer just chooses to pirate the game.

Seriously it is the same with Windows OS. Once Apple started releasing free updates to OSX and charge small $30-40 fee for a standalone, people no longer want to pay $100-200 for MS OS. It is no wonder MS was so aggressive with $40 W7 upgrade pricing to lure in XP users.

Imo buggy and glitchy games are also an additional factor as to why piracy is so high in the developing world. In North America, $60 for a game for a professional is nothing. If the game sucks / broken mess, he can just buy another game. Someone making $500 a month can't just do that and expects a $60 game to work like a $60 game from day 1. Most PC games are not worth $60 on release given the current state they ship in. U.S. gamers often just accept it as the norm that a game has bugs, glitches and crap performance that will be ironed out in 6 months. They don't punish the developer by NOT preordering the sequel and waiting for the developer/publisher to prove that the sequel has addressed the concerns of the past. The culture of 1st world of "I must have it immediately" and much higher income levels on avg. feed into the support for the $60 game pricing too.

 

[davie jambo]

Someone who tries to demonize an entire group of people based on flimsy evidence is not what I'd call a paragon of decency.

He is 100% correct though

They are leeches

 

[RussianSensation]

It is black and white. Pirating is illegal. There is no dispute. That means it should not be supported. You can argue until you are blue in the face that it doesn't hurt anyone, but it is still illegal. Period. Black and white. Illegal.

You say it doesn't hurt anyone, but it does, we just don't know how much. It might be small, it might be big, but it does effect someone to some degree.

At one point there was no law against drinking and driving. In fact, in some countries you can drink and drive a reasonable amount while in others you can't drive for 24 hours after even 1 drink. Laws change all the time:

https://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-music-will-stay-legal-111202/

Sometimes piracy is good. For example, hearing an artist on YouTube or downloading a couple songs and then you actually go to a concert and pay $60-200 to see them and then later pay $ for FLAC files of their songs. Free exposure can be good for musicians long-term. It's like a game demo or taking a car for a test drive before you buy it. Imagine if you were asked to pay $ to demo a game or test drive a car? Most game companies stopped free game demos because they know most of their games are boring, rehashed sequels and glitchy. It's better for them to market the game with pre-order bonuses to hide how avg or even poor the game is.

I know lots of people who download free electronica music but then go to a lot of concerts of the same artists. The artists make far more off the concerts than off music CD sales. I am not trying to promote piracy but people who say in all cases piracy is 100% worse don't know the facts. There are plenty of gamers who try out a pirated game and then buy the full version or buy the full version and get the no CD pirated crack without DRM.

 

[StrangerGuy]

The funny thing about our beloved anti-piracy crusaders on moral high horses is they don't actually have any proven idea to make devs earn more profit which is the ENTIRE POINT of running a business instead they keep rambling in circles around morality red herrings, while Steam has done infinitely a whole lot more on that with enormously successful pricing and ecosystem strategies.