Threatens the revenue of new games. Oh dear. What a line to start with.

It's ironic they highlight an example involving Nintendo (Switch emulation), when meanwhile Nintendo just shut down their Wii U and 3DS digital storefronts.

It would be most ironic, when Denuvo inevitably will become irrelevant and primary cause of problems with old games. Just like any "hard-to-crack" DRM were before.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2023-03-30, 21:48:

Threatens the revenue of new games. Oh dear. What a line to start with.

The best part about that rhetoric, if anyone is really that concerned about loss of revenue with "new games", then maybe they should stop producing bad games in the first place.

It's practically the same situation as the "Video Game Crash of 1983".

Denuvo is probably hurting for money and are desperate to get more clients interested in their "anti-tamper software".

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-03-31, 06:31:

It would be most ironic, when Denuvo inevitably will become irrelevant and primary cause of problems with old games. Just like any "hard-to-crack" DRM were before.

The most ironic part will be when Denuvo inevitably shuts down and publishers will be using cracks from pirates to make their games playable and avoid lawsuits.

Munx wrote on 2023-03-31, 07:33:

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-03-31, 06:31:

It would be most ironic, when Denuvo inevitably will become irrelevant and primary cause of problems with old games. Just like any "hard-to-crack" DRM were before.

The most ironic part will be when Denuvo inevitably shuts down and publishers will be using cracks from pirates to make their games playable and avoid lawsuits.

Like Ubi Soft has already done

So by that logic now that I don't a record player or convenient CD player I HAVE to purchase all my music again? Um no, I paid the upfront cost, I own a copy of that music and if I need to convert it to a format so I can play it then I will.
Same for movies, I DID go and re purchase a number of DVD's even though I already had a VHS copy because you got something for the money (better AV quality)

A good re-release of game sells well. Command and Conquer for example. Owned the original, The First Decade gave you nothing extra apart from WinXP support, not worth my money. The recent Remaster had Improved music, graphics, bonus content. well worth the extra money.

But if you want to be lazy and simply update the game to run on a modern OS but offer nothing new where is the incentive for someone to pay the extra money?

Irony is of course alot of those cross over dos-Win9x games on gog or whatever are now only available in dos mode as dosbox is easer solution then fixing the 9x code.

Of course none of these anti piracy type companies really care about the games industry, They just want to protect their revenue stream till it becomes obsolete.

Was able to find a copy. Attached to first post
Appears to be an advert for their shitty software for Nintendo Switch.

Ah, it would be hilarious when Nintendo would have to use Denuvo cracks on subsequent re-releases of games from Switch, because they've lost the source code.

I agree with them on something... emulation IS stealing... It's the industry stealing decades of unpaid work done by countless people developing and supporting emulation at a time when the industry didn't care about their old products. They basically just waited for emulation to get mature enough so they could sell their old products again and again (infested with DRM, btw), and have the nerve to treat this same community as criminals.

Something is REALLY wrong with the gaming industry... back them people were concerned over downloading cracked games because of malware, but now people download cracked games to GET RID of malware that comes with the legit product. I used to think that we should "support the industry" but now, the sooner the gaming industry collapses the better IMHO.

DracoNihil wrote on 2023-03-31, 07:01:

The best part about that rhetoric, if anyone is really that concerned about loss of revenue with "new games", then maybe they should stop producing bad games in the first place.

My understanding of the use of DRM like Denuvo insofar as new games releases is it's simply about delaying the availability of pirated copies of the title. That initial release window is when most revenues are realized. If the only available option is a commercial sale, more people will buy it than if they also had the choice of a pirated copy.

In this respect, publishers are the ones working with the most information. Implementing something like Denuvo costs them money. As they have the respective sales and costs data, they are making these assessments to use Denuvo on the basis of generating higher net profits than without.

Insofar as "bad games" goes, I think that's bit of a unfair assessment. I don't think any developer out there actively seeks to create and make bad games. In fact, insofar as major releases go, I think it's rare to find a genuinely bad game.

Only 33% of 251 have had Denuvo removed. The earliest that is still unremoved was released back in 2013. That's a long initial release.
Unfortunately the "cracked" copies still have Denuvo and likely will never have it officially removed. I think Capcom and Square Enix are the only ones consistently removing it after roughly a year or so.
Meanwhile The Last of Us was just released with only Steam DRM easily emulated with goldberg Steam emu. Of course the game needs lots of fixing so we'll see if that affects sales or not.

The dumb thing is that they count all downloads of pirated software as lost sales.. when in reality, the majority of those downloads would have never resulted in a sales if it wasn't available for download.

The publishers should be very aware that this is the case but if they admitted it then they would no longer be able to cry wolf.

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-03-31, 18:08:

The dumb thing is that they count all downloads of pirated software as lost sales..

Do they really do that though? I feel like these sorts of things are a bit apocryphal at this point.

I would expect that for internal purposes, they probably just look at cost of DRM and an estimated % of additional sales required to break even vs not using DRM. It's a pretty basic cost-benefit equation.

I think we need to assume that publishers are at least as smart as their audience and are also working with more information than we have regarding their own sales and costs. In that regard, I sincerely doubt any publishers truly believe that every download is a lost sale. A potential sale maybe.

I'm betting they try to push the numbers just the same as record companies do. Every single pirated copy is counted as a lost sale.

I bet that they also count patient people, that buy only at significant discount, like 50% or more, as a lost sale.

If they want to make a point on how much they are being harmed by piracy then it's very likely they count every pirated download to inflate the actual numbers. This is common practice in any industry, why would it be different now?

I like how he is concerned about revenues from old games, as if games from the 80's and 90's were still selling enough to raise substantial revenue for the copyright holders. I'm not talking about just PC and Mac games, either. I'm including Atari, Texas Instruments, Apple II, etc games from back when everyone had their own proprietary system, battling for dominance, before Commodore released the C64, and basically drove everyone else out, with their aggressive price cutting. I doubt many games for those systems are still selling legitimate new copies.

sliderider wrote on 2023-04-01, 12:29:

I like how he is concerned about revenues from old games, as if games from the 80's and 90's were still selling enough to raise substantial revenue for the copyright holders. I'm not talking about just PC and Mac games, either. I'm including Atari, Texas Instruments, Apple II, etc games from back when everyone had their own proprietary system, battling for dominance, before Commodore released the C64, and basically drove everyone else out, with their aggressive price cutting. I doubt many games for those systems are still selling legitimate new copies.

I doubt if the concern is genuine. I suspect those copyright-wankers are actually worried that we won't buy new games anymore if we're busy playing old games using emulators. It seems to me gaming industry executives don't want competition from old games.

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-03-31, 18:08:

The dumb thing is that they count all downloads of pirated software as lost sales.. when in reality, the majority of those downloads would have never resulted in a sales if it wasn't available for download.

The publishers should be very aware that this is the case but if they admitted it then they would no longer be able to cry wolf.

Indeed. Excuses to push DRM, DMCA, and to erode fair use always sound like made-up nonsense to me.

chinny22 wrote on 2023-03-31, 10:01:

So by that logic now that I don't a record player or convenient CD player I HAVE to purchase all my music again? Um no, I paid the upfront cost, I own a copy of that music and if I need to convert it to a format so I can play it then I will.

And this is what I always suspect to be the true reason behind DRM; to coerce us to pay multiple times for the same contents. Gaming industry, film industry, music industry, they're all the same. I remember reading an article somewhere in 2006 or 2007, about an RIAA executive trying to criminalize making personal backups of your own CD audio.

Another reason is probably pure malice, something like "if the company goes down, then let's make sure our consumers can never play the games they've bought anymore." What do those game industry executives gain from it? Nothing, except the satisfaction of seeing their consumers suffer. Is it rational? No. But corporations are still run by people, and people are not wired to be rational. In fact, people in charge of large corporations tend to be sadistic sociopaths, and sadists just love to inflict suffering on others despite the lack of material rewards for doing so.

Remember the case of Windows 8 Start Menu. When users started using hack to bring the Classic Start Menu back, Microsoft decided to purge it altogether. Rationally, a business should give its consumers what they want, to make the consumers happy, and ultimately to increase revenue and profits. And yet Microsoft decision makers decided to give their consumers the middle finger instead. And they can afford to do it, since Microsoft practically monopolizes the desktop market. Perhaps the same is happening in gaming industry, where gaming industry executives prefer to shit on their consumers instead of making them happy.

It seems to me, when a corporation has reached the point when they can afford to screw their consumers, they will screw their consumers. No exception.