Because the name of the game is a single word, because the pull quotes are italicized (which is how I usually identify game titles in my post, by italics), and because the first letter of the game title is one which can be confused with another lower case letter, the title in the pull quote is SUPER easy to miss, which it was kind of dumb for me not to realize I only included the name of the game in the pull quote, which, having not included it in the title was kind of dumbģ. I didn’t include the name of the dev or game in the title post, which was kind of dumbĢ. It’s usually not as much an issue in posts like this, except for three things that conspired to make this a bigger problem in this post:ġ. Pretty crappy of Tim to run a story about the game, but only include mention of which game he’s talking about in a quote from the “real” article.”Īctually, I completely agree with you. “I had to go to the Kotaku article, find the name and search for it. The only think we know for sure if that people are still buying the game through GoG, which by itself proves that the “can’t compete with free” excuse for DRM existing is a lie. It’s most likely too early to tell, and even then the data can be massaged either way.
The best comparison you could probably make is between Inside and their previous game Limbo, but IIRC Limbo was a slow burn that slowly ramped up sales due to word of moth and ports to more platforms.
The simple facts are these – DRM never stops piracy completely, and piracy makes a handy scapegoat if sales are too low for whatever other reason. Sales fine, or even impressive with DRM – well, the game was still pirated so they could have been even higher, load up more DRM since customers don’t seem to mind it! But, there’s a good angle for any game that failed due to the publishers’ actions (as is usually the case) – it’s fault of the pirates who still managed to get a copy, we need more DRM! Or, it could be bad marketing, overpricing, compatibility issues or bugs, a bad game, lack of or bad achievements, too much DLC, etc. Whatever figures you get to, they can be explained to prop up whichever narrative you prefer. The problem is – you can never really tell, and there’s numerous ways to argue away results either way. “I wonder if we can get some comparative sales and piracy numbers and see if Denuvo had any effect on sales.” Some are even actively promoting the game to friends and family, or buying other titles by the studio, all as a result for removing an annoyance to legitimate customers. Meanwhile, fans of the game are celebrating Playdead’s decision. That this is starting to become the calculation for what was supposed to be the DRM unicorn is a positive development, though one wonders just how much money Playdead wasted including it in the first place.
If developers see GOG as a good platform for selling their games, even with the site’s virulent anti-DRM stance, then it stands to reason that DRM generally isn’t worth including in their games. Like a popular candidate on the extreme end of the political spectrum, the success and popularity of GOG serves to yank what might otherwise be a near-uniform desire to use DRM by game developers back to a more reasonable position. Which is one of the ways that GOG is most useful. Playdead did not give a reason for the removal of Denuvo in the short patch-notes, though it’s worth noting that the game was also recently released on GOG-which is marketed as a digital storefront that does not believe in DRM.
REMOVE DENUVO UPDATE
That’s what makes the latest update to side-scrolling puzzle game Inside so unusual: the developers have chosen to do away with Denuvo. Nowadays, most talk of DRM revolves around titles that add the “anti-tamper” tech known as Denuvo, thus preventing piracy of those games.
REMOVE DENUVO PATCH
Many have taken this to be an indication of Denuvo’s strength and usefulness, even if it isn’t 100% effective.īut now we do indeed have a story about a game developer that had initially included Denuvo in its game, only to yank it via a patch at a later date. While we’ve begun to see an uptick in stories of game developers actively limiting or excluding the use of DRM in their games, those stories tend not to be about Denuvo DRM. Wed, Nov 30th 2016 04:30pm - Timothy Geignerĭenuvo, as you will recall, is the name of a modern version of anti-piracy DRM, foretold to be the end of video game piracy, when the reality is that its legend exceeded its capability.