Civ7 now includes Denuvo

[TreVor_ish]

Any examples of such a thing ever happening? What percentage of games ship without Denovu? 99.9%? 99.8%? What's different about Civ 7 compared to say Baldur's Gate 3, that Firaxis needs to use Denovu to protect sales, but Larian Studios didn't?

There might be another reason....

 

[Dale]

There might be another reason....

Showing Take2 shareholders they're serious about preventing piracy of GTA6 by establishing a history, and ensuring their EOY bonuses?

I'm only guessing here, because it SURELY isn't for reasons of supporting their customers.

 

[TreVor_ish]

Showing Take2 shareholders they're serious about preventing piracy of GTA6 by establishing a history, and ensuring their EOY bonuses?

I'm only guessing here, because it SURELY isn't for reasons of supporting their customers.

Oh, it's definitely to protect a money influx, but not because of piracy.
And Baldur's Gate 3 is critically acclaimed game.

 

[Quintillus]

Honest question: are the people that are careful with denuvo because of potential harms similarly carful with other potential harms, e.g., never connecting to free/hotel/airport wifi, not installing free games/apps on your phone, and not opening any documents (online or not) that contain macros?

Fun fact: It's generally not that risk to connect to free WiFi these days. That knowledge is handed down from the early 2000s, when it was risky. What changed? Encryption. It used to be that not even all banks and e-commerce sites used encryption, and things like e-mail and forums? Forget about it. But over the course of the 2010s, nearly all sites added encryption. The former risk - that someone else at the airport could snoop on your data and capture your credit card number, or your e-mail or CivFanatics login credentials - no longer exists.

But it is indeed about relative risk, which can vary by person. Having learned the difference from this thread, I'd consider Anti-Tamper to be less problematic than Anti-Cheat; everyone working in IT saw this summer how a buggy driver like CloudStrike can wreck havoc, and Anti-Cheat could also have unintended bugs. I once started having unusual crashes on one of my computers, which was running the never-very-popular XP x64, and eventually figured out that my newly-installed anti-virus software had drivers that had bugs when run on XP x64. Not a likely scenario, but bugs do happen with drivers, and they often manifest themselves in strange ways. Had another experience with buggy network drivers at work - so minimizing the risk of buggy drivers that could cause crashes while working on software projects at work makes some sense.

For anti-tamper, perhaps my main concern at this point is how that will be balanced with modding needs. How does my Civ3 scenario editor work? It loads up your modded files, but if you haven't overridden an art/text file, it reads the base game's files. If Anti-Tamper makes it difficult or impossible for software other than Civ itself to base game files, that could negatively impact modding. I've since found out that I do have one game with Denuvo, which was a free game on the Epic Game Store one week, so concerns about side effects with Anti-Tamper, beyond modding and performance, are now low for me personally. If my PC were likely to burst into flames due to Denuvo Anti-Tamper, it likely would have already.

 

[Gedemon]

SQL/XML/scripting modding won't be affected at all, and there is a lot that can be done with that official framework in civ6 (not enough for some, compared to civ4, but a real lot). I agree that it could be an issue for long term modding, and we know that each iteration of civ have stand the test of time, with modders fixing bugs or adding features that go (sometime far) beyond the scope of the initial modding capabilities.

But even then, for civ6 it's about the gameplay DLL, and this kind of implementation may be also possible with civ7 in the long term, as Denuvo will surely be linked to the exe, and as I understand there is no reason to have it implemented in the DLL side too. We'll know that quickly, as exploring the DLL is a way to replace modding documentation when it's missing, and I don't expect one at release.

My concern is still the risk of a bad implementation of Firaxis side causing performance issues, it has happened with others, and civ5/civ6 developments doesn't make me fully optimistic, we'll see at release, and the risk of the identification server going offline for a reason or another, just the WE I planned to have a marathon session for example, would be extremely bad luck, yes, but would also be extremely frustrating.

 

[Leyrann]

This is a hard pass for me. My gaming PC is very important to me, I will not allow companies to put malware on it.

Again: Denuvo Anti-Tamper, which Civ VII ships with, is not a separate program, malware or otherwise, unlike Denuvo Anti-Cheat, which is a separate program with a lot of permissions. Anti-Tamper simply makes it difficult to screw with the game's files in order to make your installation believe it's unique when it's in fact the copy of another installation.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

\Anti-Tamper simply makes it difficult to screw with the game's files in order to make your installation believe it's unique when it's in fact the copy of another installation.

But part of the way it does that is through regular online checking. I do 90% of my gaming offline, much of that in places where I don't have access to internet, even if I wanted it. I know there are workarounds, but honestly, I'm not down for the hassle of pre-planning how I'm going to make Denovu-ware work for the next 2 weeks. Having bought their software, I'm not going to jump through hoops to try and continually prove to Firaxis that, yes I actually bought your software. If they're that distrusting, that's their issue, not mine. I'll continue to send my money to companies who don't create barriers for me to enjoy their product.

 

[pokiehl]

I keep hearing people say they’re concerned about “always online” checks but I have many games with Denuvo Anti-Tamper, play offline frequently, and have literally never had this happen. The only sources you can find googling this are basically forum posts saying it “might” happen.

 

[Riconatic]

I keep hearing people say they’re concerned about “always online” checks but I have many games with Denuvo Anti-Tamper, play offline frequently, and have literally never had this happen. The only sources you can find googling this are basically forum posts saying it “might” happen.

This kind of features (when online needed) would need to be documented very well.

It is very difficult for above poster (90% offline gaming) to try to estimate if and when the online requirement hits. There is no clear official documentation. Or I have not seen it.

This is the use case what denuvo anti-tamper handles worst.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I keep hearing people say they’re concerned about “always online” checks but I have many games with Denuvo Anti-Tamper, play offline frequently, and have literally never had this happen. The only sources you can find googling this are basically forum posts saying it “might” happen.

Is there any way of knowing how often it has to phone home?

 

[pokiehl]

Is there any way of knowing how often it has to phone home?

The only fact that can be definitively stated is that Denuvo does not require always-online. That’s stated on their product page.

Everything else is speculation and innuendo. You’ll see a lot of forum posts claiming that it does in fact require online always, or that the developers can set a period, or other random suggestions.

There’s nothing backing any of those claims up and it runs completely against my experience. I’ve literally never had that happen to me in all my time playing games offline.

This thread itself, which is full of the same debunked info over and over again, should be proof that basically nothing you read in forums about Denuvo is accurate.

 

[Dale]

Just noticed a couple new articles on Denuvo anti-tamper. Note: I'm not commenting on these articles, nor advocating one way or the other (my position is made clear above in previous posts), but they may be relevant for other people here to help them make up their minds about Denuvo. Both articles are from September this year.

What Is Denuvo and Why Do Gamers Have Mixed Feelings About It?

What is Denuvo? Denuvo is a Digital Rights Management (DRM) software designed to prevent the unauthorized copying and distribution of video games aka pirating.

blog.acer.com

ScoreDetect Blog | Intellectual Property & Copyright Protection

View the latest IP and copyright protection news and updates at ScoreDetect blog.

www.scoredetect.com

 

[pokiehl]

Just noticed a couple new articles on Denuvo anti-tamper. Note: I'm not commenting on these articles, nor advocating one way or the other (my position is made clear above in previous posts), but they may be relevant for other people here to help them make up their minds about Denuvo. Both articles are from September this year.

What Is Denuvo and Why Do Gamers Have Mixed Feelings About It?

What is Denuvo? Denuvo is a Digital Rights Management (DRM) software designed to prevent the unauthorized copying and distribution of video games aka pirating.

blog.acer.com

ScoreDetect Blog | Intellectual Property & Copyright Protection

View the latest IP and copyright protection news and updates at ScoreDetect blog.

www.scoredetect.com

Calling these "articles" is misleading I think - they're blog posts from websites. Article implies written by a journalist doing independent research, which is not what these are .

. There's nothing really authoritative about them. Here are some inaccuracies:

1. The first one mentions the case of Hogwarts Legacy being improved without Denuvo, which is incorrect (Denuvo was bypassed, not removed; and the person who cracked it included mods that improve performance. There's actually no difference in performance between legitimate and cracked Hogwarts Legacy).
2. The second article conflates Denuvo Anti-Tamper and Denuvo Anti-Cheat, which are entirely different products.
3. They both refer to the notion that games with Denuvo routinely get cracked, which actually hasn't been the case for nearly 2 years now.

And so on

These "articles" just restate all the general claims about Denuvo that are found on forums. There's no real research or sources, and there are numerous inaccuracies.

 

[Dale]

Calling these "articles" is misleading I think - they're blog posts from websites. Article implies written by a journalist doing independent research, which is not what these are .

. There's nothing really authoritative about them. Here are some inaccuracies:

1. The first one mentions the case of Hogwarts Legacy being improved without Denuvo, which is incorrect (Denuvo was bypassed, not removed; and the person who cracked it included mods that improve performance. There's actually no difference in performance between legitimate and cracked Hogwarts Legacy).
2. The second article conflates Denuvo Anti-Tamper and Denuvo Anti-Cheat, which are entirely different products.
3. They both refer to the notion that games with Denuvo routinely get cracked, which actually hasn't been the case for nearly 2 years now.

And so on

These "articles" just restate all the general claims about Denuvo that are found on forums. There's no real research or sources, and there are numerous inaccuracies.

The Acer article was written by someone who is 8 years in tech journalism.
Sure, the second article is more dubious, but hey, whatever. It's one of the few that does give comparisons between Denuvo-publisher-player claims. And at least to me, it shows everything is no benefit to customers.

Moderator Action: Baseless accusation removed. Please stop this. leif

 

[Dale]

Also noticed Overlord Gaming has returned to testing games before and after Denuvo (note: both AT and AC):

Let others make up their own minds.

Moderator Action: If you wish to provide information for others to consider that is great. Please leave out the editorial comments trolling others though. leif

 

[pokiehl]

why not just let everyone else come to their own conclusions.

Exactly, which is why I added that context. More information and context helps folks come to their own conclusions.

That video is pretty positive for Denuvo with results across the board that are within a small margin of error. It’d be even better if that person stated their methodology clearly, repeated tests multiple times, and provided other info to make their research reproducible like other gaming/tech channels do. It’s not good to just take anyone at their word, of course.

 

[Gedemon]

The only fact that can be definitively stated is that Denuvo does not require always-online. That’s stated on their product page.

Everything else is speculation and innuendo. You’ll see a lot of forum posts claiming that it does in fact require online always, or that the developers can set a period, or other random suggestions.

There’s nothing backing any of those claims up and it runs completely against my experience. I’ve literally never had that happen to me in all my time playing games offline.

This thread itself, which is full of the same debunked info over and over again, should be proof that basically nothing you read in forums about Denuvo is accurate.

that's not always online, far from it, but that's not random either:

That part needs clarification I think

Denuvo - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

www.pcgamingwiki.com

A consequence of its use of unique hardware-based code paths, Denuvo Anti-Tamper requires an online connection periodically as the system environment of the operating system changes with new hardware and/or Windows updates. While everything that might invalidate the token stored on the storage drive is not fully known, this happens frequently enough for the anti-tamper protection to be described as requiring a periodic online connection every fortnight or so. This is generally not an issue or hindrance for those with an always present online connection, but can be an annoyance for people primarily using roaming data. Players gaming offline for a long period of time can also suffer if proper preparations are not made in advance to ensure the validity of the offline token. The lack of transparency on storefronts regarding this process from Denuvo Anti-Tamper is a hindrance for potential purchasers, as it means people might not be aware of its presence and periodic online requirement before purchasing a game that, after purchase, the purchaser may find unplayable when an online connection is unavailable.

The exact requirement not being known is an issue in itself.

 

[pokiehl]

Snip

The statement is totally unsourced though. Ultimately with regards to Denuvo there is simply far too much speculation being portrayed as fact.

 

[Sherlock]

But part of the way it does that is through regular online checking. I do 90% of my gaming offline, much of that in places where I don't have access to internet, even if I wanted it. I know there are workarounds, but honestly, I'm not down for the hassle of pre-planning how I'm going to make Denovu-ware work for the next 2 weeks. Having bought their software, I'm not going to jump through hoops to try and continually prove to Firaxis that, yes I actually bought your software. If they're that distrusting, that's their issue, not mine. I'll continue to send my money to companies who don't create barriers for me to enjoy their product.

This is one of the best posts I have read, ever, about anything. Thank you.

 

[Dale]

It’s not good to just take anyone at their word, of course.

All you have done through this entire thread, is take Denuvo and their parent company at their word.

Funny how it works one way but not the other.

Ultimately though, I'm pretty sure a corporation is going to double down and completely deny the existence of issues, if it will hit their profit line. At the end of the day, I have a little more trust in a large group of gamers reporting "speculative" issues, which are all the same, coming from products with the same DRM solution, than a single corporate entity who relies on those issues not existing for it's profit margin.

Denuvo last year claimed it was getting its products fully tested, but never published the results. Where are those results? If those result actually exist, and they showed without doubt Denuvo does not cause issues, you would assume that any profit making company would publish those results in every corner of the internet, ensuring everyone heard about them.

The continued "speculative" issues reported by gamers, and the complete lack of test results from Denuvo, says a LOT about this whole situation.