I feel the real concern with Denuvo and similar aggressive DRM implementations isn't the real-time performance impact but rather the long-term implications. Namely the fact the fact that you could...
I feel the real concern with Denuvo and similar aggressive DRM implementations isn't the real-time performance impact but rather the long-term implications.
Namely the fact the fact that you could one day find yourself locked out of your games permanently.
It's easy to say that in the event of a company going bust or servers shutting down a client-side update would surely be sent out to consumers but I'm not too convinced myself that a company going into bankruptcy would consider making patches for countless games that came out decades ago to be their priority.
At the end of the day keeping up servers costs money so, any game that requires some kind of online license verification is in a way sitting on a ticking time bomb.
Case in point would be Darkspore, a game previously playable in singleplayer now completely inaccessible after EA decided to shut down the servers.
Darkspore is also weird in that, at least according to Ross' video on it, it actually didn't even allow you to restart the game from the beginning, strangely enough.
Darkspore is also weird in that, at least according to Ross' video on it, it actually didn't even allow you to restart the game from the beginning, strangely enough.
First year of release, it makes sense. Otherwise cracked versions are widely available very soon after release... that wasn't the case for a while, but now is true, especially with recent Denuvo...
First year of release, it makes sense. Otherwise cracked versions are widely available very soon after release... that wasn't the case for a while, but now is true, especially with recent Denuvo crackers being arrested. Allows devs to earn money from people genuinely buying the game.
A year after release, you're guaranteed to have a crack, and there's no real point in keeping DRM. If it's dropped then, people won't have a problem with being locked out years later
I feel the real concern with Denuvo and similar aggressive DRM implementations isn't the real-time performance impact but rather the long-term implications.
Namely the fact the fact that you could one day find yourself locked out of your games permanently.
It's easy to say that in the event of a company going bust or servers shutting down a client-side update would surely be sent out to consumers but I'm not too convinced myself that a company going into bankruptcy would consider making patches for countless games that came out decades ago to be their priority.
At the end of the day keeping up servers costs money so, any game that requires some kind of online license verification is in a way sitting on a ticking time bomb.
Case in point would be Darkspore, a game previously playable in singleplayer now completely inaccessible after EA decided to shut down the servers.
Darkspore is also weird in that, at least according to Ross' video on it, it actually didn't even allow you to restart the game from the beginning, strangely enough.
The results are a bit varied, but overall the performance impact seems negligible.
as expected :P
First year of release, it makes sense. Otherwise cracked versions are widely available very soon after release... that wasn't the case for a while, but now is true, especially with recent Denuvo crackers being arrested. Allows devs to earn money from people genuinely buying the game.
A year after release, you're guaranteed to have a crack, and there's no real point in keeping DRM. If it's dropped then, people won't have a problem with being locked out years later