Thoughts on Denuvo / DRM in Visual Novels?

[WorldofAI]

I’ll admit it. I always run the game program with the DRM cover removed. I don’t like how the DRM uses additional computer resources in terms of space and processing power. It also triggers multiple virus alerts with my antivirus programming suspecting it’s some kind of malware.

On 4/30/2018 at 8:54 AM, tymmur said:

At one time Stardock was about to go bankrupt due to poor sales. To make matters worse, somebody took their newest title and placed it on a torrent site. This was easy to do due to no DRM at all. The torrent quickly ended up with a lot of downloads, but then something amazing happened. After having learned about this game from a questionable source, people started to buy the game they had never heard about from a company they had never heard about before. Sales exploded and the company was not only clear of risk of bankruptcy, they ended up doing good and now more than a decade later, they are still alive. They admitted at some point that DRM would have killed them had they not decided not to pay for it in the first place.

While this shows a promising example of not using DRM, most Japanese game studios won’t agree with this. They still insist on the old-fashioned method of selling hard copy DVDs with DRM protections. In fact, some VN makers won’t license titles to outside distributors unless they promise to put some sort of DRM on the final product. A good of number of VN makers also don’t offer the download option either.

Most of the JP VNs use Settec Alpha-ROM even though that DRM has been fully cracked several years ago. The reason I mention the idea of dongle is because I haven’t manage to witness a fast and easy solution to cracking that. Fast and easy as in anyone getting a DRM free game engine within hours of unboxing it or downloading it.

This is one of the reasons why some studios want to make their games only for consoles like the PS4. The PS4 hardware and OS provides some levels of security as opposed to the open platform of PCs.

Edited May 2, 2018 by WorldofAI

[tymmur]

5 minutes ago, WorldofAI said:

Most of the JP VNs use Settec Alpha-ROM even though that DRM has been fully cracked several years ago.

The copy protection on video DVDs was broken in 1999 and it's still the same system on DVDs you buy today (if you can find DVDs, that is). The reason is simple: if they upgrade the protection, it will not be backward compatible with existing players and losing existing customers is far worse than the loss from using something, which can be copied on any computer.

11 minutes ago, WorldofAI said:

While this shows a promising example of not using DRM, most Japanese game studios won’t agree with this. They still insist on the old-fashioned method of selling hard copy DVDs with DRM protections. In fact, some VN makers won’t license titles to outside distributors unless they promise to put some sort of DRM on the final product. A good of number of VN makers also don’t offer the download option either.

Yeah it seems that the VN producing companies are still in the world of pre-internet. If the production price of a unit is high, the theory is that you should maximize the profit for each unit. Using a low unit count also reduce the risk that you will end up with a huge unsellable stock, like Atari dumping 700k unsold games on a landfill. Selling 100 units with a $50 profit per unit is better than selling 200 units with a $30 profit according to this strategy, because it minimizes the risk. Having 50 players and 50 sold units is better than removing DRM and having 200 players and 100 sold units. Essentially this is the approach of overpriced limited edition boxes, but without the standard version.

 

The internet era comes with different economics. A few years ago a book author decided to sell all his books on Amazon as eBooks. Regardless of the book size, the price should be $2. Amazon would take care of payments, distribution and all that, meaning the author wouldn't have to do anything and he would get $0.35 for each sale. People in the publishing business made fun of him for being a fool and throw away money. However with the price of $2, many people bought the book without considering carefully and sales exploded. He became the most profitable author of the year in North America. Even better, the online distribution mean it will not sell out and it could be generating income for years without him doing anything. He earned significantly more than he would ever make with normally priced books. It turns out that he had realized that since he has no expense in producing more copies, he tried to maximize the number of sold units rather than trying to make the most out of each sold unit.

 

I really wish the VN business would wake up and realize it's living in the past. Possibly one of the stupidest things they can do is to make a disc only versions and let it go out of stock. If titles never goes out of stock or out of production, then people will be less motivated to figure out how to obtain titles by.... other means. The result will likely be that DRM and disc only titles end up encouraging what they are trying to avoid.

[Nandemonai]

6 hours ago, WorldofAI said:

The reason I mention the idea of dongle is because I haven’t manage to witness a fast and easy solution to cracking that.

That's because hardly anybody is using them.

If a dongle is applicable only to a specific game, then that game will have to charge a huge premium in price.  That's not happening.  So games don't do that.  Dongles for specific applications are for business applications that cost thousands of dollars (or more!) per license.

So that leaves generic dongles that support multiple titles.  But this only paints a large target on such devices, the same way Denuvo and SecuRom and CSS and all the other DRM schemes have large targets painted on them.  It becomes much more likely someone will decide that cracking the copy protection is worth the effort.

 

[r0xm2n]

DRM can just die (for the most part at least).

Sharing is human nature. Information (and culture) exists to be free.

No one will tell me otherwise....

 

Yeah, not the most objective post from me. But that's how I feel.

[Dreamysyu]

I personally don't care about DRM as long as it doesn't negatively affect my personal gaming experience in any major way.  If it does, well, it can rot in hell.

[phantomJS]

1 hour ago, Dreamysyu said:

I personally don't care about DRM as long as it doesn't negatively affect my personal gaming experience in any major way.  If it does, well, it can rot in hell.

What is your definition of this?

Denuvo requires you to be online at the point of time. If you are trying to pplay your Denuvo games on a different PC or has a different IP than what was recorded in their activation servers, you need to reactive it. If you have no internet connectivity, you can't play your games. It also has frequent problems such as this.

I don't know about you, but I define this as negatively affect my personal gaming experience in a major way, especially when I paid for the game(s)

[Dreamysyu]

1 minute ago, phantomJS said:

What is your definition of this?

Basically, what I said. Ideally I shouldn't notice that DRM even exists. I don't really care if I have to stay online, since I'm pretty much always online when I'm reading VNs. Ideally, you shouldn't be able to deal with problems like that. I'm basically just saying that it wouldn't matter for me personally, I'm not saying that this is how things should be.

As for all other things you've mentioned... really, this is just stupid, and why do they even bother if somebody will still crack the game?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But well, I also should note that there's always another way to view things. Even when you buy the game, there are always conditions that you have to follow. Obviously, you shouldn't just upload the game to torrents, even if you gave money for it. Ideally, you should be aware of all these conditions before you give money for it, and if there's something you don't like, you simply don't buy the game, you go play something else. I mean, it's obviously not so simple, but the companies also need to maximize their profits in some way, this is how busyness works. Again, crackers exist, and it's actually possible that the best way to maximize profits is not to have any DRM at all, like many people above noted.

[phantomJS]

41 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

But well, I also should note that there's always another way to view things. Even when you buy the game, there are always conditions that you have to follow. Obviously, you shouldn't just upload the game to torrents, even if you gave money for it. Ideally, you should be aware of all these conditions before you give money for it, and if there's something you don't like, you simply don't buy the game, you go play something else.

Looking at this in the context of DRM, game companies does not publicise that their games, where applicable, has DRM. I find it ridiculous that a potential customer has to research whether DRM is included or not just to make an informed purchase.

I do agree with your next point. For me, I voted very loudly with my voice and wallet and hope that enough similar people will persuade game companies to ditch crap like Denuvo.

 

41 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

 I mean, it's obviously not so simple, but the companies also need to maximize their profits in some way, this is how busyness works. Again, crackers exist, and it's actually possible that the best way to maximize profits is not to have any DRM at all, like many people above noted.

There are no convincing data to proof DRM (can) increase sales and plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise:

https://www.geek.com/tech/cd-projekt-proves-that-games-drm-is-a-complete-waste-of-time-1662434/

http://bigthink.com/david-ryan-polgar/video-game-piracy-may-actually-result-in-more-sales

Hope the industry wakes up soon......

Edited May 5, 2018 by phantomJS

[WorldofAI]

2 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

Basically, what I said. Ideally I shouldn't notice that DRM even exists. I don't really care if I have to stay online, since I'm pretty much always online when I'm reading VNs. Ideally, you shouldn't be able to deal with problems like that. I'm basically just saying that it wouldn't matter for me personally, I'm not saying that this is how things should be.

For me, no matter how compact or lightweight the DRM is, I can always notice it. The starting up of the game is already a big giveaway given that a DRM-protected game needs to go through additional steps to connect, authenticate, and decrypt all necessary files to be able to run. For DRMs that require you to be online in order to continuously authenticate, you will notice that the constant authentication will eat up network bandwidth along with CPU power and memory... wasting resources that could be better used on the game itself. It doesn't have a noticeable effect with slow 2D or 2.5D games like most VNs, but it will for games that demand intense graphical and computation power. 

[Yuuko]

Getting back the to the topic of VNs, DRM kinda makes sense there.
If you think how big the used games market for VNs is, then online DRM actually works and prevents people from still playing their game after selling it forward... (yes this is a thing in Japan that people buy the game only to install it and then sell the game forward the next day)

[Templarseeker]

I never really like the idea of DRM protected games in first place. Most companies claimed they adapt such practices in an effort to prevent their games from being pirated and the like.

Pirates and Privateers of the high seas of the internet will ALWAYS find a way to crack their games and make it available to the masses on website wherein they could download it for free...   

If there's a will to succeed, there's always a way and means to make it happen. Human beings are stubborn creatures that capable of achieving almost anything if they believe they can attain it and deserve it...  

DRM only brings real harm to the people who actually buys their respective games due to constant necessity being "ALWAYS ONLINE" to authenticate, validate, or other bullshits their game client is doing!? In addition there is the tendency of these DRM Protected games and their game client of "Spying" into your personal computer checking what's inside your hard Drive whether you have pirated games or who God knows what! Which is another issue of privacy, Looking at you Window 10

Instead I prefer and support companies that publishes DRM Free games such as GOG.COM and JAST USA on a limited note... 

It is my sincerest believe that we deserve the feeling of "ownership" from the games that we bought just like books or DVDs, we shouldn't be locked away from our games just because we're offline temporarily due to crappy Internet providers.... We should get our money's worth!!! 

Customers like us shouldn't be treated as livestock who solely exist to fill the endless pockets of these corporate bastards! We deserve to be treated with dignity and honor, not the other way around.... DRM isn't helping it 

[Huang Ling Yin]

     Why Is Denuvo Anti-consumer?

 

• If you have a problem with your payment method on a later game purchase, your account will be disabled blocking all your Denuvo games from working. Steam support is notoriously slow to respond so your account may be disabled for weeks or months. Supporting the ability of platforms to disable your entire game library is anti-consumer.
• Denuvo stops games from supporting Linux or OS X. Not only do the publishers not release ports, but using Denuvo means third parties like the Wine project can't support them either. Games like Inside, the sequel to Limbo, are an example of Denuvo stopping Linux support. Limbo supported Linux and OS X, and Inside is built using Unity engine which can easily make Linux builds. But because they are using Denuvo, it can't be played on any other operating system. Another example is Doom 2016. The beta version worked great on Linux when used with Wine project. But the final release came encumbered with Denuvo, effectively stopping Wine from supporting the game on Linux and OS X. Preventing games from working on other operating systems is anti-consumer.
• Denuvo games require reactivation if you haven't played them in a while or if you change any of your computer's hardware, and you must authenticate with Denuvo servers every time you receive an update (Simply allowing Steam to update is not enough. You must also open the game once while connected to the internet after each update). They don't require always online, but they do require sometimes online. Some people don't believe this, so here's proof:
  
  This is from a user that left it in offline mode for a week or so and didn't play it. This wasn't their first launch.
• Denuvo makes it difficult or impossible to play games without some form of internet connection. Sure lots of people have internet connections, but not everyone does. Requiring an internet connection for offline single-player games is anti-consumer.
• If your internet drops without preparing for offline beforehand you can't play your Denuvo crapware.
• If at some point in the future any part of their DRM service chain is shut down due to internet outage or a company going bankrupt, games will be inaccessible. Some people reply "but surely these companies will provide a method access if they are shutting down servers!" If a company is in bankruptcy and there's an outcry to get patches out for 15 year old games, I doubt they're going to make it a priority to devote resources and development time to creating patches. It wouldn't be the first time a library of DRM-encumbered crapware went poof. Remember the single-player game Darkspore? It is impossible for anyone to play it anymore. Neither pirates nor customers can play it. They didn't release a patch to make it work offline. Here's what it shows up as on Origin:
  
  Supporting an ecosystem which could disappear your games is anti-consumer.
• In many cases after an online game has their servers shut down, modders can get the online portion working again by modifying the executable to work with a new master server list. With Denuvo, when EA says the online fun is over that's the end of it because modders won't be able to fix the game. That's anti-consumer.
• Having Denuvo on your games means that if a game comes out that's Oculus Rift only and has strong anti-tamper protections, you'll have no way to ever get it working on other VR platforms. Anti-consumer vendor lock-in.
• Denuvo locks you into your purchase platform for now to eternity. If you purchase a Denuvo game on Steam, you must use Steam forever or abandon your purchases to the wind. If your Steam account gets hacked or locked, your games are gone, because they were never really yours, and you never really even had a copy of them.
• You can't make playable back-ups of your games. This isn't helping the consumer.
• A large point of Denuvo is to enable vendors and publishers to lock down the functionality of their games and provide them with a simplified means of doing all the bad anti-consumer things they've always wanted to do. While Denuvo copy protection may not in and of itself do the something bad ("see Denuvo does nothing wrong!") it enables the publishers to do it.

 

 

         Source: Why Is Denuvo Bad? by Lexarie

[Ranzo]

I don't really personally care about drm or anything like that but it does sound pretty stupid to use it in a Visual Novel of all things.

I think this is a good video about the subject.

 

[Darklord Rooke]

As long as the DRM isn't intrusive I'm fine with it. Requiring the disc to be in the drive is an example of DRM but most people don't know this, CD keys is another example and most people don't mind the 7 seconds it takes to input the code.

Always-Online or rootkit bullshit can go to hell, though.