Denuvo plans to offer independent benchmarks to prove its DRM doesn't cause performance problems

[DukenukemX]

That was like 5-6 years ago games, could have changed quite a bit since.

I also posted a video where new games are still effected. Nothing has changed with Denuvo with time.

Most of those examples in the video are within the range that can be explained by the different variables at play. Doom 2016, in particular, included stability improvements and performance updates in addition to the removal of Denuvo. These comparisons are pointless since they are not apples to apples.

That's a nice hypothesis, but can you prove it?

They have data that shows DRM is protecting sales volume,

Still lots of games that get cracked within a week. Some games do take longer, but the problem here is that the cracked version is better due to DRM.

and publishers and developers have a right to protect their investment.

Consumers also have a right to protect their purchase, including removing the DRM.

The length of time it takes to crack DRM has been consistently going up, with some games not even getting cracked anymore.

When it takes longer, that's because some groups quit doing it. That's what's happening now as some cracking groups have left. New ones take time to get into it. The games that don't get cracked, weren't worth playing.

That isn't to say I agree with the companies utilizing DRM. Games like The Witcher 3 show it's possible to sell a high proportion of games on the PC platform when it is DRM-free across all storefronts, and the myth of the lost sale due to piracy is illogical. However, current DRM schemes are largely not affecting legitimate customers despite the constant haranguing by the loudest voices on the internet. Denuvo isn't actual malware like Starforce was back in the days of disc protection.

We've seen many situations where DRM has made the games worse for legitimate consumers. If it isn't performance then it's needing an online connection, or limiting how many computers you can install the game you bought. The only reason Denuvo exists now is to convince shareholders that something is being done to prevent piracy, but doesn't actually prevent it. Lowering prices of games helps prevent piracy, but shareholders don't want to hear that.

 

[LukeTbk]

I also posted a video where new games are still effected. Nothing has changed with Denuvo with time.

---

I think DRM should be illegal. Publishers should just sell games and be done with it. If they're afraid of piracy then they should just lower their prices found it


I am not sure how my company could exist without some anti-piracy affair, which is maybe should be the point, no company that just make a program and just sell it to people should exist, only build software business program where you can sell employee time to support it or something of the sort. Only games that can sells server access and able to make better server than the competition should exist or sells skins or so small endeavour that small donation is enough.

 

[DukenukemX]

I am not sure how my company could exist without some anti-piracy affair, which is maybe should be the point, no company that just make a program and just sell it to people should exist, only build software business program where you can sell employee time to support it or something of the sort. Only games that can sells server access and able to make better server than the competition should exist or sells skins or so small endeavour that small donation is enough.

Think about music and movie/TV piracy and explain to me how they exist considering how easy it is? Japan pirates Anime like crazy, but the industry is stronger than ever. The reason for this is merchandise, just like how Disney makes all their money from their media. Streaming services like Netflix depend on subscriptions, because it's easier to pay the $15 then it is to find a torrent that doesn't have a virus. Not saying that's the direction gaming should go, but if piracy is more convenient than legitimate ownership then it just makes sense to pirate.

To give you an idea how inconvenient playing games are, lets looks Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. First you need to own a Switch, which is around $300. Not a bad price for a console, but now you need $70 for the game. That game is nearly 1/4 the price of the Switch. On top of that, the game will have DLC and micro-transactions, which means you don't even have the whole game for $70. You also can't play the game on your Xbox Series S or Steam Deck, because the game is only available on the Switch. Unlike movies or music where you can pretty much play them on nearly any device. This $70 purchase seems more like a punishment than actual ownership. If you have a decent PC built in 2016, you can play a pirated copy of TOTK without any restrictions. You don't have to buy DLC, because you can pirate all the DLC. You can play the game on Windows, Mac, and Linux without needing to depend on the publisher or developer.

A rule I've made about piracy is that the harder you try to stop it, the easier it gets to pirate. The only way to combat it is with cheaper prices. This is what happened to the movie and music industry, when piracy couldn't be stopped. They had to offer a better deal, like how Netflix was easier and better than piracy. Netflix now is worse than piracy, because they will literally punish you for logging in with a different IP. Music is now steaming online, or bought and put into a collection for $1, or just be an Amazon Prime member and listen to all the music you want.

 

[LukeTbk]

Think about music and movie/TV piracy and explain to me how they exist considering how easy it is? Japan pirates Anime like crazy, but the industry is stronger than ever. The reason for this is merchandise, just like how Disney makes all their money from their media. Streaming services like Netflix depend on subscriptions, because it's easier to pay the $15 then it is to find a torrent that doesn't have a virus. Not saying that's the direction gaming should go, but if piracy is more convenient than legitimate ownership then it just makes sense to pirate.

There was quite the destruction in revenues in music and you have Concert-theatrical experience you can sell, but I am not sure at all stronger than ever that would have been either pre television for movies 20s-30s-40s or dvd bubble:

Trying to make an offer so good and so cheap that is better for rich people to do than go piracy ways is quite deflationist, I think world streaming music is just back to western 90s CD without adjusting for inflation level.

Programs I work on are sold $6-$11k USD depending on the option, we could make it hard to use instead and sales training or on location or artificially try to make them work on a specific hardware we sell with them, maybe there would be a way but without a licensing system that make it hard for piracy to occur and illegal to take any action to prevent it, either people would just get it or buy a single seat and run 20 ingenior at the same time on copied version, special when almost 100% of your clients are in different country with not much social shaming mechanism feedback possible.

Games are much more commitments hours wise so much more worthy for someone to pirate (and in a non DRM world it would be really easy, you could buy them just much cheaper on a well made piracy site with a steam like program and library, s steam copy that sales games 20 cent on the dollar).

People will not take time to pirate short podcasts but will for audiobook, they will not for some series but do for Games of Thrones, will pay for games if it is conveniant to have the upgrade work without having to download them manually and reinstall a new pirated version of the games, but if it would work really well, without any anti-piracy measure possible to put in place including on console, anyone can copy HDD data and copy the game to an other console.... it could need to have a complete destruction of value like we saw on TV, music for it to work and maybe more as people will put more effort to pirate a 20-80 hours on a game than a 30 minutes tv show.

 

[DukenukemX]

There was quite the destruction in revenues in music and you have Concert-theatrical experience you can sell, but I am not sure at all stronger than ever that would have been either pre television for movies 20s-30s-40s or dvd bubble:

View attachment 582831

Decline not destruction. They wouldn't be still in business if their industry was destroyed. They still profit, and they still make movies. Going back to United States v. Paramount Pictures they lost profits but they still made money.

Trying to make an offer so good and so cheap that is better for rich people to do than go piracy ways is quite deflationist, I think world streaming music is just back to western 90s CD without adjusting for inflation level.

Amazon Prime for example isn't just streaming music. Most of any song you wish to find can be found on YouTube. Spotify is $10 a month but I doubt many people actually pay for this service.

People will not take time to pirate short podcasts but will for audiobook, they will not for some series but do for Games of Thrones,

Quality of games matter. Just because a game was made and is bug free, doesn't mean people care for it. Witcher 3 for example sold really well, and didn't have any DRM. The reason for this was that people liked the game so much they bought it. This is like the difference between Ghostbusters from 1985 vs Ghostbusters 2016. There is a clear and obvious quality difference, despite that the 2016 movie had nothing wrong with it. Mediocrity doesn't get rewarded.

will pay for games if it is conveniant to have the upgrade work without having to download them manually and reinstall a new pirated version of the games, but if it would work really well, without any anti-piracy measure possible to put in place including on console, anyone can copy HDD data and copy the game to an other console.... it could need to have a complete destruction of value like we saw on TV, music for it to work and maybe more as people will put more effort to pirate a 20-80 hours on a game than a 30 minutes tv show.

Right now if someone wanted to pirate a game they won't have any trouble installing it. There is no resistance that you think exists with DRM like Denuvo. The crackers are dealing with that resistance, not the people who download it and pirate. Take for example Hi-Fi Rush, a game that has Denuvo and hasn't been cracked. Can't be pirated right? What people have found out is the game is on GamePass and the first month is only $1. So people just made a new account and pay $1 to play Hi-Fi Rush. It isn't piracy, but again people do find ways and eventually the game will get cracked. RDR2 took nearly a year, but it was cracked. People don't have a problem waiting, especially when people are going back to older games because new games can't deliver without DLC and "time-saving micro-transactions". World of Warcraft for example is seeing success with Classic WoW, because a lot of people didn't like the direction of Retail WoW. A lot of remakes and remasters are showing that people don't care too much for modern gaming. So they have even less incentive to buy a game on day one release and pay the maximum asking price of $70.

 

[LukeTbk]

Right now if someone wanted to pirate a game they won't have any trouble installing it.

On an Xbox-X I am not so sure to take your Witcher 3 example on launch at high price the games on console outsold the PC version more than 2:1, I doubt it was really more popular on console, just less pirated.

And I imagine they would still have trouble updating the game easily, installing some mods.

They still profit,

Maybe once the expense take into account how much of the revenues are disapearing and the machine get fully restarted around toys-park and other secondary market that movies feed that COVID-low movies output does not move, but the giant 200+ billions pay TV market transition to a smaller streaming one as been uncertain from the start.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...wood-stocks-take-big-hits-in-2022-1235285948/


The Walt Disney Co., for example, marked its biggest stock drop in decades after it struggled with the likes of bigger-than-expected streaming losses — $1.47 billion in Q4
Discovery also lowered its full-year financial forecast, citing a $2 billion hit from decisions made during Warner’s ownership by AT&T.
Elsewhere, a challenging streaming space with peak Peacock losses — $614 million in its latest quarter, up from $520 million in the comparable period a year before

 

[M76]

They have data that shows DRM is protecting sales volume

I don't know how can you have data for something like that? You can't release the same game both with DRM and without it to measure sales volume. And comparing sales of different games is meaningless.
They hope it is protecting sales volume, but they can't know. And I think more and more publishers started to question whether the sales they gain by DRM outweigh the sales lost to bad PR attached to DRM. Hence why denuvo is coming out with this scheme now. I think they are loosing business.

 

[M76]

Trying to make an offer so good and so cheap that is better for rich people to do than go piracy ways is quite deflationist, I think world streaming music is just back to western 90s CD without adjusting for inflation level.

It's not about the price, not even just rich people but most of the middle class can afford to pay for streaming or games. It is a service issue, if it is easier and more convenient to pirate then they'll pirate it.

Programs I work on are sold $6-$11k USD depending on the option, we could make it hard to use instead and sales training or on location or artificially try to make them work on a specific hardware we sell with them, maybe there would be a way but without a licensing system that make it hard for piracy to occur and illegal to take any action to prevent it, either people would just get it or buy a single seat and run 20 ingenior at the same time on copied version, special when almost 100% of your clients are in different country with not much social shaming mechanism feedback possible.

That's not a fair comparison. Commercial software is entirely another realm where they use HW dongles. And most such software is so niche that it doesn't even cross the desks of cracking groups. But as opposed to home users commercial ones are more likely to resort to piracy due to the price. Here I think it could actually work to lower prices to fight piracy.

Games are much more commitments hours wise so much more worthy for someone to pirate (and in a non DRM world it would be really easy, you could buy them just much cheaper on a well made piracy site with a steam like program and library, s steam copy that sales games 20 cent on the dollar).

I think it is the exact opposite, much more worthy for someone to buy and not deal with cracks and activation servers. I mean pay $2000 for a commercial software to perform a task that takes 10 minutes, or pay $50-70 for a game that you get a hundred hours of entertainment out of?

And removing DRM does not mean we should make piracy legal. Just because there is no DRM in games doesn't mean we allow a pirate steam to exist. The law still applies, but instead of punishing legit buyers with DRM you might spend that money to fight actual brazen pirate groups. And not those who pirate, because they are the ones you want to convert to customers.

People will not take time to pirate short podcasts but will for audiobook, they will not for some series but do for Games of Thrones, will pay for games if it is conveniant to have the upgrade work without having to download them manually and reinstall a new pirated version of the games, but if it would work really well, without any anti-piracy measure possible to put in place including on console, anyone can copy HDD data and copy the game to an other console.... it could need to have a complete destruction of value like we saw on TV, music for it to work and maybe more as people will put more effort to pirate a 20-80 hours on a game than a 30 minutes tv show.

I don't think it has anything to do with value. But how much effort it takes, if the paid service becomes more convenient then pirates who are not pathological will switch to paying for the service. That's all there is to it. You will never convert pathological pirates into paying customers.

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

I would rather Denuvo attempt to explain the benefits it offers gamers.
Why should I want Denuvo in my games? Performance hit or not it still causes issues with activations.

"It helps publishers make money" is also not a valid excuse since it has nothing to do with us. Their profits come at the expense of an objectively inferior product.

Piracy has existed for decades and the gaming industry has been fine. Make better products, get more sales. Denuvo can eat shit.

 

[DukenukemX]

On an Xbox-X I am not so sure to take your Witcher 3 example on launch at high price the games on console outsold the PC version more than 2:1, I doubt it was really more popular on console, just less pirated.

At launch the PS4 copy of Witcher 3 outsold the PC version, but by 2019 the PC version smashed sales. Half of all Witcher 3 sales is on PC despite piracy.
https://www.spieltimes.com/news/the...-than-all-console-platforms-combined-in-2019/

Maybe once the expense take into account how much of the revenues are disapearing and the machine get fully restarted around toys-park and other secondary market that movies feed that COVID-low movies output does not move, but the giant 200+ billions pay TV market transition to a smaller streaming one as been uncertain from the start.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...wood-stocks-take-big-hits-in-2022-1235285948/

What's going on right now is that streaming is more profitable than movie theaters. This is why Netflix is no longer alone as a film streaming service.

The Walt Disney Co., for example, marked its biggest stock drop in decades after it struggled with the likes of bigger-than-expected streaming losses — $1.47 billion in Q4
Discovery also lowered its full-year financial forecast, citing a $2 billion hit from decisions made during Warner’s ownership by AT&T.
Elsewhere, a challenging streaming space with peak Peacock losses — $614 million in its latest quarter, up from $520 million in the comparable period a year before

I do not care for their stock value and neither should you. Do they make money? Do they make profits? If the answer is yes then they did their job. Shareholders want infinite growth, which is just a ridiculous impossibility. They're losing customers and growth because COVID is over and people aren't stuck home all day. It also doesn't help that they produce woke media. People hated She-Hulk Attorney at Law, they hated Netflix's Cleopatra, and the Witcher TV show is now dead because of this. This is the same problem with video games in that just because you produced something and it's not entirely trash, doesn't mean it had value.

Look at YouTube and Netflix as an example, as both these companies no longer have growth so they are now trying to get blood from a stone. Netflix is now punishing people for sharing accounts, which is actually having the opposite effect of pushing more people to pay the subscription. Either because people are going to pirate Netflix media, or it's content is of lower quality. YouTube is now fighting back the adblockers, even going as far as testing a 3 strike rule. Meaning if you're caught with adblocker 3 times they will ban your account. YouTube not realizing they don't own any of the media uploaded to their site can and will be pirated over to other sites. It's the same problem with gaming, when growth peaks the companies will try to extract blood from a stone with micro-transactions and DLC. As good of anti-piracy measures they may have, people will find a way.

 

[Armenius]

I don't know how can you have data for something like that? You can't release the same game both with DRM and without it to measure sales volume. And comparing sales of different games is meaningless.
They hope it is protecting sales volume, but they can't know. And I think more and more publishers started to question whether the sales they gain by DRM outweigh the sales lost to bad PR attached to DRM. Hence why denuvo is coming out with this scheme now. I think they are loosing business.

I don't know, either, just pointing it out. I always found their arguments dubious, at best, which is why I said that I don't agree with them.

 

[Cyberbeing]

My main issue with Denuvo is hard crashes and compatibility with older CPUs such as my i5-3570K without AVX2/FMA3, which I run into every once in awhile when devs integrate a Denuvo virtualization implementation which only targets modern CPUs.

 

[LukeTbk]

At launch the PS4 copy of Witcher 3 outsold the PC version, but by 2019 the PC version smashed sales. Half of all Witcher 3 sales is on PC despite piracy.

I mean how much sales we are talking about 4 years in release and at what price point (it is in unit not dollar).

What's going on right now is that streaming is more profitable than movie theaters. This is why Netflix is no longer alone as a film streaming service.

Outside Netflix streaming has been relative rough it seem, and streaming is mostly TV which will obviously be bigger specially that the movie theater windows tends to be a giant ads for the rest and taking most of the hit for the marketing expense for the whole movie life.

I do not care for their stock value and neither should you. Do they make money? Do they make profits? If the answer is yes then they did their job.

Well as a direct and indirect stock holder (like you are I would be certain) a little bit, but you are quoting an article that speak about loss, i.e., no not making profit from their streaming division.

. Netflix is now punishing people for sharing accounts, which is actually having the opposite effect of pushing more people to pay the subscription

That really not what the number seem to show, Netflix tend to experiment of large sample (say 100,000) but small relative to the whole world customer before implementing wide, to test them to be quite sure they work. Netflix tested it in small country before large one, what the source that more people will stop their subscription that people that got it via friend-family will get one instead (or people that will upgrade to a bit more expensive plan that allow you to share it with more people ?)

 

[LukeTbk]

It's not about the price, not even just rich people but most of the middle class can afford to pay for streaming or games. It is a service issue, if it is easier and more convenient to pirate then they'll pirate it.

Western middle class (specially like American for how much they spend for entertainment) as the rich people worldwide that you can get, reducing price enough to get third world not to pirate would be going too cheap, you want cheap enough to attract rich people.

That's not a fair comparison. Commercial software is entirely another realm where they use HW dongles. And most such software is so niche that it doesn't even cross the desks of cracking groups. But as opposed to home users commercial ones are more likely to resort to piracy due to the price. Here I think it could actually work to lower prices to fight piracy.

Lot of licensing is software only and you are right that when it is niche enough it is likely to at least work very well, but being crackable seem a weak reason to make it illegal to try to prevent it. I was talking about making any form of licensing-drm type illegal for software proposition that was suggested, it seem it would push all software company to offer cloud service (I imagine that what we would do, only sell monthly by the hours use the application via streaming on our server type). Maybe the poster thought DRM are only illegal on below $100 software or something of the sort.

 

[TheBuzzer]

More code will always cause more performance problems. Of course the cpus nowadays are a lot more powerful so the impact will be really minor.

 

[DukenukemX]

I mean how much sales we are talking about 4 years in release and at what price point (it is in unit not dollar).

It's really hard to get sales data, let alone how much profit was made per platform. Whatever amount people paid for Witcher 3 on PC is more than $0 with piracy.

Outside Netflix streaming has been relative rough it seem, and streaming is mostly TV which will obviously be bigger specially that the movie theater windows tends to be a giant ads for the rest and taking most of the hit for the marketing expense for the whole movie life.

It's so rough that streaming services are popping up left and right. Hulu brought back Futurama just to try and be a contender. Streaming services are having a hard time because they're becoming more like CableTV where you pay a lot and there's nothing to watch.

Well as a direct and indirect stock holder (like you are I would be certain) a little bit, but you are quoting an article that speak about loss, i.e., no not making profit from their streaming division.

I would never buy stock in a video game company just knowing how volatile of a business it is. You can't manufacture games without the same consequences like ET from 1983.

That really not what the number seem to show, Netflix tend to experiment of large sample (say 100,000) but small relative to the whole world customer before implementing wide, to test them to be quite sure they work. Netflix tested it in small country before large one, what the source that more people will stop their subscription that people that got it via friend-family will get one instead (or people that will upgrade to a bit more expensive plan that allow you to share it with more people ?)

For a while Netflix lost subscribers when they experimented. Now subscribers are going up again by a lot, but that maybe due to rotation as some people subscribe and watch for 1-3 months and then cancel. Again, just like you can play Hi-Fi Rush on Game Pass for $1 and finish the game long before that month is over. Once the tools get better, people will account share again. The tools are already there, just takes some tech know how to use them.

 

[LukeTbk]

I would never buy stock in a video game company just knowing how volatile of a business it is. You can't manufacture games without the same consequences like ET from 1983.

Disney,At&t, Netflix are not significantly game companies and it is usual for people to be indirect stock holder of them (via their insurance, state-employer retirement fund or theit own retirement fund that they do not know by heart whats in it)

but that maybe due to rotation

Or that the strategy worked like it did in the small market that they tried before the big one and all their data shown to them

 

[DukenukemX]

Disney,At&t, Netflix are not significantly game companies and it is usual for people to be indirect stock holder of them (via their insurance, state-employer retirement fund or theit own retirement fund that they do not know by heart whats in it)

That's really too bad for employees who retire and get screwed. Hence why you don't want your retire funds tied to a stock.

Or that the strategy worked like it did in the small market that they tried before the big one and all their data shown to them

I really doubt it'll work out for Netflix. I'm sure it'll work out for the short term, but people will work around it as they've always done.

 

[LukeTbk]

I really doubt it'll work out for Netflix. I'm sure it'll work out for the short term, but people will work around it as they've always done.

Well loosing non paying customer will not be a big deal, they just need to win a small amount of them.

That's really too bad for employees who retire and get screwed. Hence why you don't want your retire funds tied to a stock.

Bulding a retirement strategy that do not involve stock (from you, your insurances company, your states, your employer) will be rarer, never a stock, but indexes will have a non insignificant part of them invested in big S&P 500 companies, I am almost certain you do.

 

[Flogger23m]

The law still applies, but instead of punishing legit buyers with DRM you might spend that money to fight actual brazen pirate groups. And not those who pirate, because they are the ones you want to convert to customers.

And that reminds me, for a while Intel's latest CPUs would not work with a number of Denuvo games. So if you bought a copy of the game and tried to load it up, you were screwed if you used certain hardware. It was fixed eventually but I recall it took some weeks to get sorted which is not acceptable.

List of games that didn't work.

And it wasn't just a few either:

Games affected on 12th-gen Intel processors with Windows 11 (expected November fix in bold):

• Anthem
• Bravely Default 2
• Fishing Sim World
• Football Manager 2019
• Football Manager Touch 2019
• Football Manager 2020
• Football Manager Touch 2020
• Legend of Mana
• Mortal Kombat 11
• Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1 and 2
• Warhammer I
• Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
• Far Cry Primal
• Fernbus Simulator
• For Honor
• Lost in Random
• Madden 22
• Maneater
• Need for Speed – Hot Pursuit Remastered
• Sea of Solitude
• Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order
• Tourist Bus Simulator
• Maneater

Games affected on 12th-gen Intel processors with Windows 10:

• Ace Combat 7
• Assassins Creed Odyssey
• Assassins Creed Origins
• Code Vein
• eFootball 2021
• F1 2019
• Far Cry New Dawn
• FIFA 19
• FIFA 20
• Football Manager 2021
• Football Manager Touch 2021
• Ghost Recon Breakpoint
• Ghost Recon Wildlands
• Immortals Fenyx Rising
• Just Cause 4
• Life is Strange 2
• Madden 21
• Monopoly Plus
• Need For Speed Heat
• Scott Pilgrim vs The World
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Shinobi Striker
• Soulcalibur VI
• Starlink
• Team Sonic Racing
• Total War Saga – Three Kingdoms
• Train Sim World
• Train Sim World 2
• Wolfenstein Youngblood

It happened when Intel's 12th gen just came out but I wish gamers made a bigger deal about it. For all the stupid things gamers often complain about, not being able to play your game because a crappy DRM scheme was broken should have been top of the list.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Kinda like a hooker spreading her legs to prove how not slutty she is

 

[Axman]

Translation: "We figured out a way to hide an emulated version of Denuvo that runs in a hidden process that slows down the game just as good!"

 

[rgMekanic]

best piracy countermeasure (in my opinion) is make a good game, then release a demo for it.

 

[MavericK]

This is a good question. Why now, and not before?

Finally starting to hurt their bottom line, perhaps?

best piracy countermeasure (in my opinion) is make a good game, then release a demo for it.

And don't include Denuvo.

 

[OutOfPhase]

Games affected on 12th-gen Intel processors with Windows 11 (expected November fix in bold):

• Anthem

Huh. I actually thought they shut down the servers for Anthem far before 12-th gen.

Now I want to play it.

 

[DukenukemX]

Well loosing non paying customer will not be a big deal, they just need to win a small amount of them.

It's not that simple. What Netflix is doing is pushing their customers or in this case non paying customers to look elsewhere. This can spread very easily, even to the paying customers. Do you know how many pirate websites that exist that just let you watch whatever you want for free? No need to torrent, no need to log in, you just click and watch. This is how Napster destroyed the music industry, because it was so damn easy and common knowledge. YouTube is about to do the same thing which is push people to look to other platforms where they can get ad free media, and it's a lot easier than dealing with the ads YouTube has. If you want to pirate a game it's as easy and download it and install it then play the game.

Bulding a retirement strategy that do not involve stock (from you, your insurances company, your states, your employer) will be rarer, never a stock, but indexes will have a non insignificant part of them invested in big S&P 500 companies, I am almost certain you do.

Funny how they roped you into the stock market by holding your retirement fund hostage. Take a note from NJ and just don't do it. Because NJ through Private Equity has lost so much during COVID by investing pension funds into the stock market. The stock market is volatile, and whoever is playing around with your money and makes a mistake, means you lose your pension. Above all we're all consumers first, which means we should care about value and ownership first, because apparently we don't own the things we buy, and this is especially true with games including Denuvo. All it takes is for a CEO to ignore that there's a Cosby room where people go and drink breast milk and then gets sued by the state of California which tanks the companies stock, and the only way to save your stupid ass is to have Microsoft buy you up. Stock market and gaming do not belong, because at some point there's going to be an inflection point where you have another ET moment and the industry crashes because you just gotta monetize one more horse to sell on the market place. If you think that the stock market hasn't nearly killed the gaming industry before, then think again. Look at Valve who isn't a publicly traded company and has never used Denuvo in their games. CDPR hasn't used DRM until they became publicly traded in 2019. Denuvo doesn't work to prevent piracy, but it does work to make investors happy. If it takes a year to crack it, they will crack it, and people will wait.

 

[LukeTbk]

Funny how they roped you into the stock market by holding your retirement fund hostage. Take a note from NJ and just don't do it. Because NJ through Private Equity has lost so much during COVID by investing pension funds into the stock market. The stock market is volatile,

Like the last few years show even long term US treasury can be quite volatile, and "lost" money vs lost evaluation can be quite different (it can jump back, like commercial paper in 2007-2008 people that could hold them did make most of their money back over time)

And like you just pointing out private equity is not safer than the stock market (often higher reward-higher risk)

 

[Armenius]

Huh. I actually thought they shut down the servers for Anthem far before 12-th gen.

Now I want to play it.

Nope, still going and there is even a small but dedicated community still playing it, much like Mass Effect 3.

 

[sfsuphysics]

and not those who pirate, because they are the ones you want to convert to customers.

Remember back in the good ol days, I want to say Kazaa/Napster days. When they simply request the customer address from an ISP then send a scary legal sounding letter to the person saying pay us thousands of dollars or we will sue you. I mean I guess technically they were also dealing with the distributors but they also set up honey pots to trap people too... that had to be a great income source for them, wonder why they dont do that anymore

 

[Ebernanut]

Remember back in the good ol days, I want to say Kazaa/Napster days. When they simply request the customer address from an ISP then send a scary legal sounding letter to the person saying pay us thousands of dollars or we will sue you. I mean I guess technically they were also dealing with the distributors but they also set up honey pots to trap people too... that had to be a great income source for them, wonder why they dont do that anymore

I think the the whole Prenda Law thing along with a couple of other cases exposed the questionable and illegal tactics used in those shakedowns. I believe a federal judge even ruled in one of those cases that the honey pot thing that all of these cases used was either entrapment or that by uploading it with the publishers permission they were waiving some of their rights, it's been awhile but I'm pretty sure there was some sort of precedent set along those lines.