Civ7 now includes Denuvo

[Zoeff]

because Civ6 was widely pirated yet still received many DLs, expansion packs and a sequel.

I didn't realize 6 was pirated much at all. But that does explain Firaxis going with stronger piracy protection this time around. With Civ 6 being out for 8 years they probably lost quite a bit of PC sales or at the very least wouldn't have to discount the game so much.

When trying to look at it in a positive light this might be what allowed Firaxis to expand the dev team so much thus having a ton more artists that create unique building/unit models even down to the individual soldiers. Having said that I do worry that we might get the more bad examples of previous Denuvo games. What if there's terrible frame stuttering and we only find out about Denuvo causing it when somebody cracks the game. Or what if the devs overlooked something and causes 1% of players to be unable to play on release day because Denuvo can't unlock the game for them. That would make me not recommend the game to others even if the game launched for me.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

Well, until that piece of <CENSORED> gets removed, Civ7 is a hard pass.

(from what I'm seeing about what they're doing with the game, it was looking like a pass anyway, this just nails it shut)

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

I didn't realize 6 was pirated much at all. But that does explain Firaxis going with stronger piracy protection this time around. With Civ 6 being out for 8 years they probably lost quite a bit of PC sales or at the very least wouldn't have to discount the game so much.

When trying to look at it in a positive light this might be what allowed Firaxis to expand the dev team so much thus having a ton more artists that create unique building/unit models even down to the individual soldiers. Having said that I do worry that we might get the more bad examples of previous Denuvo games. What if there's terrible frame stuttering and we only find out about Denuvo causing it when somebody cracks the game. Or what if the devs overlooked something and causes 1% of players to be unable to play on release day because Denuvo can't unlock the game for them. That would make me not recommend the game to others even if the game launched for me.

I fear a good lot of CIV 6 player got the pirate version near launch, and waited for the big sales for at last buying the game (because they want multiplayer, after having a certain mastery of the solo plays)... Therefore Firaxis lost quite a bit of money there...

 

[Atlas627]

They can also just take the game away for no reason at all. They could, at any time, simply remove it from Steam and render it legally unplayable. They could also turn off their authentication servers and achieve the same result. Then what?

I wrote a lot about why Steam was a bad idea all those years ago, but I lost the argument and now here we are. I just hope that it doesn't get worse. Denuvo is definitely worse.

Removing a game on Steam doesn't stop you from playing/downloading it if you already own it. The only way for them to stop you from playing it is to make the game require the internet somehow (or use the internet to patch the game to trigger some sort of bricking).

 

[Leyrann]

I fear a good lot of CIV 6 player got the pirate version near launch, and waited for the big sales for at last buying the game (because they want multiplayer, after having a certain mastery of the solo plays)... Therefore Firaxis lost quite a bit of money there...

While people pirating at first and then buying later is probably common, I feel the need to point out that many people don't care at all about multiplayer.

 

[Kwami]

Removing a game on Steam doesn't stop you from playing/downloading it if you already own it. The only way for them to stop you from playing it is to make the game require the internet somehow (or use the internet to patch the game to trigger some sort of bricking).

Steam can delist and withdraw a game whenever it wants to. Steam can also stop existing at some future date.

 

[Atlas627]

Steam can delist and withdraw a game whenever it wants to. Steam can also stop existing at some future date.

And delisting doesn't stop you from playing/downloading it if you already own it. Steam could do that if they really wanted to, because it's an online DRM and it has the capability, but it's not a thing they do at present. I have never heard of a developer able to block use of their game via Steam, aside from the developer taking down their own servers which the game needed to interact with.

 

[Kwami]

And delisting doesn't stop you from playing/downloading it if you already own it. Steam could do that if they really wanted to, because it's an online DRM and it has the capability, but it's not a thing they do at present. I have never heard of a developer able to block use of their game via Steam, aside from the developer taking down their own servers which the game needed to interact with.

You're really missing the point here.

According to the agreement that you signed when you bought the game on Steam, Valve can, at any time, remove a game from its service and prevent you from downloading or playing it. They can also take a game from your account specifically. There's basically nothing that you can do about it if that happens.

Don't think it will? Well, maybe not. But it's already happened with books on Amazon Kindle (including, ironically, 1984).

 

[pokiehl]

Don't think it will? Well, maybe not. But it's already happened with books on Amazon Kindle (including, ironically, 1984).

This isn't really a fair comparison. 1984 was being sold by someone who didn't have the rights to do so.

Amazon didn't just decide to delete the book from peoples' libraries and leave the consumer SOL. Amazon were legally compelled to do that. And everyone got a refund. That was also the only time it's ever happened as far as I can tell (or maybe it happened another time but with the exact same issue--a rights dispute), and it happened a long time ago.

 

[Leyrann]

Don't think it will? Well, maybe not. But it's already happened with books on Amazon Kindle (including, ironically, 1984).

This isn't really a fair comparison. 1984 was being sold by someone who didn't have the rights to do so.

Amazon didn't just decide to delete the book from peoples' libraries and leave the consumer SOL. Amazon were legally compelled to do that. And everyone got a refund. That was also the only time it's ever happened as far as I can tell (or maybe it happened another time but with the exact same issue--a rights dispute), and it happened a long time ago.

Amazon's literature market (in particular audiobook) is also extremely malicious towards it's partners though, even by Amazon standards. See this post by Brandon Sanderson (minor header "AUDIOBOOKS for NON-BACKERS") for more information. In fact, I'm pretty sure he made a special post on it that I just can't find (this is from his yearly update), because I remember something about authors having to pay back money for refunded books, leading to authors potentially having to operate at a loss (due to additional scumminess being involved), but nothing about that is in this particular link.

 

[danjuno]

Digital copies of media being withdrawn and no longer available even to people who own them is something that already happens. Fortunately most of the games I have on Steam from back in the day are either stuff I already had on disc or are have sufficiently lost my interest that I wouldn't miss them. Fortunately there's stuff like GOG and Itch.io.

 

[Kwami]

At least with Steam the consumer gets advantages. It's easier and quicker to buy games, especially niche games, than going to a physical store. Often much cheaper too with regular deep discounts. The integration of modding within Steam Workshop makes modding more vibrant (especially for smaller games that don't have an external community hub like CFC). Steam reviews allows mass opinion to be judged, and some of the individual reviews are more informative than what professional journalists produce. The ability to refund easily is nice.

Whether this is enough to counter act the reduction in consumers effective right's is a different question: but no matter where you stand on that question, you have to admit that Steam gives some added value to the consumer in exchange.

Sure, but GOG has shown us that we don't need to use DRM to get these benefits. Galaxy isn't as good as Steam, but it certainly could be. And with GOG, it's quick and easy to buy games, they're often on sale (or even free!), and they're easy to refund. Galaxy doesn't have something like Workshop, but there's no reason that it couldn't.

So, what value is Steam really adding that makes the DRM worth it?

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I didn't realize 6 was pirated much at all. But that does explain Firaxis going with stronger piracy protection this time around. With Civ 6 being out for 8 years they probably lost quite a bit of PC sales or at the very least wouldn't have to discount the game so much.

I fear a good lot of CIV 6 player got the pirate version near launch, and waited for the big sales for at last buying the game (because they want multiplayer, after having a certain mastery of the solo plays)... Therefore Firaxis lost quite a bit of money there...

This may be true, but we don't actually know what the impact on sales has been. Lots of people will consume a product if it's free, but not if they have to pay for it. My guess (and it's just a guess) is that the vast majority of people who would seek out a pirated version of Civ 6 wouldn't have paid full price for it anyway, and may not even have cared enough to buy it at any price.

This is partially based on my impression that finding a pirated copy of Civ 6 that won't load my computer with malware involves venturing into a part of the internet that most consumers wouldn't tread. And those that do tread it comfortably aren't the sorts to pay for things, anyway. There's also an aspect that the effort to find a pirated copy would cost me far more than the effort of buying a legitimate copy off Steam, and those willing to make the effort to find a pirated copy likely don't have the money to buy it legitimately.

Anyway, I don't own any games with Denovu in them. Civ 7 won't be the first. If I need to pass on this iteration of the series, that's fine. Or if I need to wait for Denovu to be removed (if it ever is), I can wait. There are lots of other good games out there to play that aren't as consumer unfriendly as this form of DRM.

 

[Professor Phobo]

I don't know if re-litigating a decades old argument over Steam, the popular digital distribution platform, is going to change any minds. People are on the ecosystem. It's a reality of the current market. In the long run we are all dead, in the long run, Steam may die. Until then, it's where I get my games.

 

[Atlas627]

You're really missing the point here.

According to the agreement that you signed when you bought the game on Steam, Valve can, at any time, remove a game from its service and prevent you from downloading or playing it. They can also take a game from your account specifically. There's basically nothing that you can do about it if that happens.

Don't think it will? Well, maybe not. But it's already happened with books on Amazon Kindle (including, ironically, 1984).

The electrical utility can stop providing you with the electricity to play your games (perhaps not legally, depending on the exact nature of your electrical utility company, but good luck getting any compensation). The government can choose to invalidate your currency and make you unable to purchase electricity. Are either of those things likely? Is it even worth prepping for them if they were? What would you be able to do about them?

If I've missed your point, it is because I was trying to respond to the actual relevant concern of whether or not Steam would do these things, and so I was pointing out that they do not. The closest thing they do is delist something, which just stops people from buying it. Your doomsaying is irrelevant, regardless of whether you are correct or not.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

This isn't really a fair comparison. 1984 was being sold by someone who didn't have the rights to do so.

Amazon didn't just decide to delete the book from peoples' libraries and leave the consumer SOL. Amazon were legally compelled to do that. And everyone got a refund. That was also the only time it's ever happened as far as I can tell (or maybe it happened another time but with the exact same issue--a rights dispute), and it happened a long time ago.

Something similar happened long, long ago, with paper books. In 1965 Ace Books brought out a paperback edition of the Lord of the Rings in the USA, claiming that US copyright law did not protect the books because the US hardcover publisher, Houghton Mifflin, had not copyrighted the work in the US. Ace published its edition without Tolkien's authorization and without paying any royalties to him.

Tolkien notified his fans, partly by putting an 'author's note' on the authorized Ballentine (paperback) Edition which stated, as nearly as I remember:

"People who believe in courtesy to living authors, at least, will buy this version and no other."

The Ace Edition sales dropped like the proverbial Rock almost immediately and it was withdrawn.

I remember all this because I received the Ace Edition as a gift just before I got on a troopship to Europe in 1965, and in 8 days in the North Atlantic in November, read the entire trilogy twice! And then loaned it to someone and never saw it again. For all I know it circulated through the US Army in Europe for months . . .

 

[Kwami]

The electrical utility can stop providing you with the electricity to play your games (perhaps not legally, depending on the exact nature of your electrical utility company, but good luck getting any compensation).

No, they can't. Not legally.

The government can choose to invalidate your currency and make you unable to purchase electricity. Are either of those things likely? Is it even worth prepping for them if they were? What would you be able to do about them?

Not without putting the entire world into chaos, they can't. And they probably can't do that legally, either.

Look, we're way off topic here and you're just being ridiculous. Let's focus on Denuvo, which is the real problem today.

 

[Dale]

I fear a good lot of CIV 6 player got the pirate version near launch, and waited for the big sales for at last buying the game (because they want multiplayer, after having a certain mastery of the solo plays)... Therefore Firaxis lost quite a bit of money there...

No, Firaxis didn't lose money. 2K loses money in this situation, not the studio. They still get paid their contracted amount.

 

[Atlas627]

I've had copies of ebooks that I bought on amazon and later lost access to. I tried to re-read one years later (on a new kindle) and went to my amazon account to re-download it. Wasn't able to, as it was delisted. Turns out that when the author released the next book in the series he moved a few chapters at the end of the prior book into the new one and, in doing so, replaced the listed edition on amazon from the old version to the new. But that didn't transfer across to ebook ownership.

I eventually got it sorted out with amazon customer service who essentially gave me the listed edition of the old book for free, but it took a while and was annoying. I don't know if the same process would have deleted the book out of my kindle. Either way, I know keep my kindle offline, download everything onto my PC harddrive, and manually copy stuff via USB. Not updating my kindle also means it's easier to read stuff on it that I buy from other vendors.

None of this was the end of the world, but it shows that worries about digital rights are not unfounded. And that's not even going into game preservation. This isn't fear mongering: it's a real (if still fairly minor in the grand scheme of things) issue.

So Amazon did a horsehockey job of ensuring backwards compatibility for its listings, then an individual seller accidentally caused a problem via that, and this proves that...you can lose access to things when you're connected to the internet? Sure, but Amazon also fixed the problem for you because otherwise they would be building up damages toward an eventual class-action lawsuit (and, of course, horsehockey reviews). Even if you agreed to some awful predatory EULA, the Consumer Protection Bureau (or whatever the name is) can and will fight to fix this problem.

If Denuvo has been known to cause damage to your device outside of the game it comes with, and we knew Civ7 was including that version of Denuvo, then we'd have something to talk about.

No, they can't. Not legally.


Not without putting the entire world into chaos, they can't. And they probably can't do that legally, either.

Look, we're way off topic here and you're just being ridiculous. Let's focus on Denuvo, which is the real problem today.

Good luck fighting through the legal system when the electricity utility has problems, then.

Governments replace their currency quite often, just not the US government. And yes, that's exactly my point. They wouldn't do this because it would cause utter chaos. Identifying whether or not Steam would take away your games is completely relevant.

I'm being ridiculous to point out how ridiculous you're being.

 

[Dale]

You're really missing the point here.

According to the agreement that you signed when you bought the game on Steam, Valve can, at any time, remove a game from its service and prevent you from downloading or playing it. They can also take a game from your account specifically. There's basically nothing that you can do about it if that happens.

Don't think it will? Well, maybe not. But it's already happened with books on Amazon Kindle (including, ironically, 1984).

And in Australia, our laws mean that the publisher has to give you access to the game some other method because you bought the license from them. Steam is just a store front.

It's similar to how if you buy a Ford from your local dealer, and they go out of business, Ford still must uphold their side through other means.