Small talk & Chit chat

[Dicehunter]

Originally Posted by NeverBackDown

Still had Steam DRM.

Witcher 3 is an edge case. By using it as a marketing tool and announcing no paid DLC, only paid expansions, they were directly marketing at hot topics to get attention.

Luckily they had one of the best games ever created to back them up

I'm the biggest Witcher fan. However I don't think this is a good example. They were being smart from a business standpoint. They also have GOG as an income. 99% of Studios don't have that income and therefore need every dollar they can save. Most games sales are made from pre-orders and first couple days. If you can make it more likely to get sales within that time period they are still saving money.

Developers reserve the right to make money. Game Developers don't make much money outside of the big publishers(as in employee compensation). If the data says they make more revenue with DRM. Then I support them fully so the Devs can get paid.


Funny thing is if a game perfoms well yet has DRM. Nobody cares or complains. It's only when performance is meh and it has DRM people come out in masses to whine. Witcher 3 ironically performed meh with no DRM. It was just so damn good it didn't matter.

If a game has DRM and has no performance impact at all then great, Go for it, But if it measurably impacts loading times and frame pacing to a point that is visually noticeable, AC Origins for example, Then they need to find an alternate method.

[NeverBackDown]

If you could provide that alternative method then by all means tell them. There isn't one. Otherwise they would have moved on.

DRM itself doesn't cause the performance issues. It could be a number of other things. Games have hundred thousand and sometimes million or more lines of code. To blame it solely on DRM is just wrong. Development is far more complicated than you could imagine. Other games use it and don't have performance issues. It's again game by game basis.

[tgrech]

Denuvo usually isn't expected or intended to still be protecting from cracks after the first month of a AAA games release, this is what they guarantee to developers for the price of the DRM I believe, and some devs remove it after. Protecting beyond that point has such large diminishing returns it isn't worth it to most publishers, the vast majority of revenue comes in the first few weeks. If it's been cracked but it's still there, then that is just annoying publisher policies(In many countries piracy isn't illegal but breaking/bypassing DRM is, and in some jurisdictions media without DRM isn't really considered actively protected which could make later legal cases more challenging) or sometimes lazy devs, Ubisoft are known for leaving it in though, presumably because the lawyers asked them to.

[Dicehunter]

Originally Posted by NeverBackDown

If you could provide that alternative method then by all means tell them. There isn't one. Otherwise they would have moved on.

DRM itself doesn't cause the performance issues. It could be a number of other things. Games have hundred thousand and sometimes million or more lines of code. To blame it solely on DRM is just wrong. Development is far more complicated than you could imagine. Other games use it and don't have performance issues. It's again game by game basis.

Well the DRM free version of AC Origins has zero stuttering and vastly improved load times so I'd say in this case DRM does directly impact the game negatively.

The problem with a lot of DRM implementations is that they are constantly phoning home and doing other various things which takes up a lot of CPU usage, 40% in the case of ACO, Quite over the top, Now if they ran at the launch of the game, Checked to make sure everything is legit and then turned off, That would be a much better implementation.

[NeverBackDown]

Originally Posted by Dicehunter

Well the DRM free version of AC Origins has zero stuttering and vastly improved load times so I'd say in this case DRM does directly impact the game negatively.

The problem with a lot of DRM implementations is that they are constantly phoning home and doing other various things which takes up a lot of CPU usage, 40% in the case of ACO, Quite over the top, Now if they ran at the launch of the game, Checked to make sure everything is legit and then turned off, That would be a much better implementation.

That is what you are assuming. You have no context as I said earlier. It is a game by game basis.

Your solution still doesn't solve the problem though. You could still inject code after the initial launch.

[Dicehunter]

Originally Posted by NeverBackDown

That is what you are assuming. You have no context as I said earlier. It is a game by game basis.

Your solution still doesn't solve the problem though. You could still inject code after the initial launch.

Well the proof of AC:Origins performance shooting up is not an assumption, There's solid proof now, The other parts, Yeah ok you are right but how difficult would it be to not have DRM running all the time ?

On a side note I asked about this on the Ubisoft forums if a dev could weigh in and possibly give more detail as to why such a heavy handed approach to DRM is taken especially as there is now proof that it negatively impacts game load times and frame pacing, for that question I got a lifetime ban from the Ubisoft forums with no chance of appeal, Even my IP address is now blacked, For simply asking a question, Talk about totalitarian-like behaviour.

[Dark NighT]

Originally Posted by Dicehunter

Well the proof of AC:Origins performance shooting up is not an assumption, There's solid proof now, The other parts, Yeah ok but how difficult would it be to not have DRM running all the time ?

On a side note I asked about this on the Ubisoft forums if a dev could weigh in and possibly give more detail as to why such a heavy handed approach to DRM is taken especially as there is now proof that it negatively impacts game load times and frame pacing, for that question I got a lifetime ban from the Ubisoft forums with no chance of appeal, Even my IP address is now blacked, For simply asking a question, Talk about totalitarian-like behaviour.

That, is disgusting!

Also Drm should only serve to protect the income of a game/product in the first few months, after it's been cracked or is no longer a big revenue, it should be removed, to me it doesn't matter if people don't notice the difference with fps or simply don't care, once it served its purpose it should be gone.

[Dicehunter]

Originally Posted by Dark NighT

That, is disgusting!

Also Drm should only serve to protect the income of a game/product in the first few months, after it's been cracked or is no longer a big revenue, it should be removed, to me it doesn't matter if people don't notice the difference with fps or simply don't care, once it served its purpose it should be gone.

I agree but Ubisofts forum admins are little over zealous with the ban hammer, I still find it extremely over the top, Banned for asking 1 question, Not multiple posts, 1 single post with 1 question, It's like something from Orwells 1984

[tgrech]

Not too surprised, Ubisoft have been the EA of the mid/late 2010's really

[Dicehunter]

Originally Posted by tgrech

Not too surprised, Ubisoft have been the EA of the mid/late 2010's really

I just hope my actual Uplay account isn't affected considering my forum account is my Uplay account.