Civ7 now includes Denuvo

[Kwami]

Do the Civ 7 competitors Ara: History Untold and Millennia have Denuvo or a similar program, too ?

​

Millennia does not use Denuvo. Most games don't. That's more evidence that Denuvo is entirely unnecessary and that it shouldn't be used.

 

[Leyrann]

Yeah, you may be right. I do think it adds up though. Many are wary about the civ switching. Some, like me, are wary about excessive monetization and how it may negatively impact game design. A decent number are wary about Denuvo. I think it would take a lot for Civ 7 not to be a financial success, given the sheer size of the fan base and the level of marketing. But I don't recall there being this much negative buzz before Civ 5 or 6.

Every next civ game has sold better than the last, as far as I'm aware, with Civ VI having what, 11 million sales if I remember the numbers thrown around on this forum correctly?

The vast majority of those don't ever consume anything related to the game outside of the game themselves. They see a nice game, or hear about it from a friend, go to Steam, press purchase, press install, play, and then move on to the next game. Maybe after ten hours, maybe after five hundred or more hours.

If you were to approach a random person who has played at least 10 hours of Civ VI and ask them "have you heard about Civ VII's potential excessive monetization/civ switching ruining the game/Denuvo being added?", I'd estimate 90% of them would straight up say "no", and another 9% would say "oh yeah I think I heard something about that" before shrugging and buying Civ VII. Only that last 1% would genuinely take it into consideration before deciding to buy or not.

Just remember - almost by definition, the people who talk about the game online are that same 1%.

My point is, if someone like me with 9800 happy (mostly!) hours of Civ VI is going to wait for Denuvo to be dropped from Civ VII,

Well, its not a good look, is it?

From a profit point of view, Firaxis has zero reason to care about the 0.1% that plays the game for thousands of hours, and can be found on forums and the like. They'll care a bit, mostly because we're the people they actually talk to when producing content (or even posting on the forums), but we are not and will never be the financially relevant audience. What Firaxis (or 2k) cares about is the bulk of players, who at most browse the Steam page for a bit before purchasing, but more likely purchase it just because a friend says "hey this game is fun". And that bulk of players doesn't even notice, let alone care, that the game has Denuvo.

What Firaxis would care about is if they did something that harmed the sales in that group. For example, if the game was incredibly complex (to please us hardcore fans) and a casual wouldn't understand a thing and have a completely unfun time, that would lead to people not recommending the game to friends, which would harm sales far more than a bunch of people protest not buying it because it has Denuvo.

By which I mostly mean to say, I really doubt Firaxis/2k cares about the look from you deciding not to buy the game, no matter what it means for you and people who personally interact with you.

 

[KayAU]

For ARA, from what I know, no.

Yeah, it has never come up as far as I'm aware, there is no mention of it on the Steam page, and the game is less than a week from release.

 

[GIO888]

Ara it is then!

 

[CivLuvah]

Ara it is then!

If Firaxis doesn't remove Denuvo in Civ7, there's going to be a Great Migration.

 

[Dale]

If Firaxis doesn't remove Denuvo in Civ7, there's going to be a Great Migration.

The thing is, there won't be. Or if there is, it'll be such a tiny blip on their numbers it'll go unrecognised. It will fit into the margin of error, of estimated sales.

Don't forget, we are the tiniest of tiny percentages of all sales. And the ones not buying because of Denuvo, are the tiniest of tiny percentages of us, the tiniest of tiny percentages.

 

[TreVor_ish]

If Firaxis doesn't remove Denuvo in Civ7, there's going to be a Great Migration.

Are comes out within a week. Civ VII will be released on February next year. I'm sure a lot of people will buy both.

 

[pokiehl]

I don’t know that Ara will scratch the Civ itch for folks who are trying to find an alternative or boycott. Ara is heavily about supply chain micromanagement; it seems like a hybrid of a 4x game and Anno or something.

I never got into Anno or factory games, so I am not really interested in managing a supply chain to produce plastic and then use that plastic with other supply chain products to produce “video game consoles” or other products for my cities. Stuff like that doesn’t interest me; not sure how other fans might feel.

 

[kaspergm]

I don’t know that Ara will scratch the Civ itch for folks who are trying to find an alternative or boycott. Ara is heavily about supply chain micromanagement; it seems like a hybrid of a 4x game and Anno or something.

I never got into Anno or factory games, so I am not really interested in managing a supply chain to produce plastic and then use that plastic with other supply chain products to produce “video game consoles” or other products for my cities. Stuff like that doesn’t interest me; not sure how other fans might feel.

Sounds pretty much like my kind of game, a mix between Civ and Cities:Skylines ... I'm not terribly sold on the graphics of Ara late game, the developed map looks really ugly from what I've seen.

 

[CivLuvah]

Sounds pretty much like my kind of game, a mix between Civ and Cities:Skylines ... I'm not terribly sold on the graphics of Ara late game, the developed map looks really ugly from what I've seen.

I mean, for me it looks nice. I’ve seen uglier.

Spoiler :

*ahem*Civ5*ahem*

 

[GeneralZift]

I will not be migrating. If Civ7 is bad, I just won't buy, play or watch it. There's many other games out there. Also, I haven't really delved deep into all the interesting things the past games have to offer.

 

[Fippy]

The thing is, there won't be. Or if there is, it'll be such a tiny blip on their numbers it'll go unrecognised. It will fit into the margin of error, of estimated sales.

Don't forget, we are the tiniest of tiny percentages of all sales. And the ones not buying because of Denuvo, are the tiniest of tiny percentages of us, the tiniest of tiny percentages.

Hmm i dunno..the info got out there:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1295660/discussions/0/4760955347172063391/#c4760955347172105893
https://www.pcgamesn.com/civilization-vii/denuvo

 

[Leyrann]

Hmm i dunno..the info got out there:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1295660/discussions/0/4760955347172063391/#c4760955347172105893
https://www.pcgamesn.com/civilization-vii/denuvo

Ah yes.

I'm sure a Steam discussion and a gaming outlet reporting on it will meaningfully impact sales.

Not.

When I said that perhaps ten percent would've heard about this stuff, and only one percent would potentially reconsider buying at the very most, that nine percent is the people who see the headline of the article or browsed the Steam discussions once. And meanwhile the ninety percent won't even hear about it, let alone care.

Just like every other game publisher boycott ever, a boycott of Civ VII is going to have an extremely marginal impact on sales, most likely to the point of not being visible at all in the metrics.

 

[Fippy]

When I said that perhaps ten percent would've heard about this stuff, and only one percent would potentially reconsider buying at the very most, that nine percent is the people who see the headline of the article or browsed the Steam discussions once. And meanwhile the ninety percent won't even hear about it, let alone care.

Did i quote you?
Cannot remember that i did.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Nothing but Civ feels like Civ to me, and Civ is what I want so I no longer really bother checking out other 4x games.

 

[KayAU]

For me it was never a decision about getting Civ 7 versus getting Ara. I am definitely getting Ara because I've played it, and think it's really good. My original expectation was that I would get Civ 7 as well, when it was released 5 months later, or maybe a bit later. I have played every Civ game so far, and while I wasn't perfectly satisfied with how Civ 6 ended up, it would have been strange for me not to get Civ 7.

Then I saw the pricing, and the fact that they are already selling future DLC. I know that they did that with Civ 6 as well, but the prices are much higher this time around. Back then preordering the best edition would at least get you a little discount on that future DLC. This time, I think it is exorbitant. It's not that I couldn't afford it, but seeing 2K's greed makes me suspect that I will get a repeat of what I saw with Civ 6: a strong focus on selling more and more content, very little on refining and improving the core game. How long did we have to wait for basic UI improvements and common stuff like a production queue? My guess is that if you've already got the customer base locked in, it is just much more profitable to churn out new stuff you can sell.

And now we have Denuvo. Whatever the conclusion might be on how severe its consequences, as was pointed out, it certainly has no *benefits* for customers, and it's definitely something many dislike and are worried about. Overall it adds to a less customer friendly approach.

I don't have any delusion that my opinion greatly matters. But just like they have little concern for me, neither should I have any loyalty to them. I might buy their product if I like what they are offering.

I am very grateful for alternatives like Ara, though.

 

[Leyrann]

Did i quote you?
Cannot remember that i did.

Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know I was only allowed to talk to people if they had quoted me in their message.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Back to topic. Please do not discuss each other, it is trolling.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

For those of you that still consider Steam DRM as safe platform and an eventual Win 10 EOL a chimera....
Steam abandoned Win 7 starting from January this year...
Sometime you are forced to change hardware... or OS...
So this is already a problem, even before the Denuvo talk.

On my old Win 7 Pc I can still play Civ III and IV, and I wish I could V and Vi also, but I can't.
Someday my (our) Win 10 Pc might also stop working, bc Civ V and VI needs Steam runtime...
I don't feel safe. Denuvo or not. At all.

 

[thecrazyscot]

For those of you that still consider Steam DRM as safe platform and an eventual Win 10 EOL a chimera....
Steam abandoned Win 7 starting from January this year...
Sometime you are forced to change hardware... or OS...
So this is already a problem, even before the Denuvo talk.

On my old Win 7 Pc I can still play Civ III and IV, and I wish I could V and Vi also, but I can't.
Someday my (our) Win 10 Pc might also stop working, bc Civ V and VI needs Steam runtime...
I don't feel safe. Denuvo or not. At all.

Software becomes outdated. Steam cannot be expected to support unsupported operating systems that a tiny fraction of people use. I'm sorry if you fall into that tiny fraction, but it is not unrealistic or unreasonable for Steam to require you to upgrade your operating system every 5-10 years.

As of August 2024 only 0.37% of Steam users are stubbornly hanging on to Windows 7. There's no reason to support it.

If you want to utilize outdated and unsupported operating systems (and I acknowledge that there are legitimate use cases for that), then it is on you to figure out how to get things running on it. If you want to have an airgapped Windows XP or Windows 7 machine that you can play your disc-based games on, that's awesome. If I had games from that era that I could not play and really wanted to, I might try that myself.

But if you have computers that you use that are internet-connected, they shouldn't be on those operating systems - full stop.You've said earlier that you have to re-install Windows 10 over and over again - look - that sounds like you are either trying to shoehorn it into unsupported hardware, your PC is riddled with viruses, or your copy of Windows 10 needs to be activated. I could be totally off-base, and I apologize if I am, but that is what it sounds like from everything you've said. It's always possible that you've run into a shockingly rare issue, but honestly if you have as many PCs as you say you do it shouldn't be unreasonable to just get different hardware that will run Windows 10 in a stable fashion. I've built and purchased many PCs over the last decade, most of which got Windows 10, and never had any issues.

Windows XP was great. Windows 7 was great. Windows 10 is great.

Other good news is that with Proton you should be able to run thousands of Windows games on Linux, so Valve is actually doing you a solid in terms of providing long-term software support. Granted, it's self-serving in that the more games just work from Steam the more games they can sell, but hey, Steam is the DRM everyone seems to have collectively agreed is fine - or at least begrudgingly accepts - so if it's going to be everywhere at least it's trying to offer you options.