To be fair, there are so many games in my backlog I still have to even touch that I'm not in any danger of running out of things to play. Same goes for books, music or movies, really; we produce too much content (and maybe even too much good content).

Right?

Unsupported games and Denuvo infested ones really saving my wallet 🤷‍♂️

And Stranger Than Heaven to the ignore list

Denuvo Fatigue is setting in

The Denuvo Watch Curator is now 30th on Steam in popularity. 🎉

(the game itself looks cool though, a bit like those Themed Pinball machines that cropped up over time, terminator, star trek tng, etc ;)

having a denuvo or similar on monopoly = great way to kill a multiplayer game and prevent more players from getting a game that benefits from more players :)

On an Monopoly game.... SERIOUS LEE

Indeed. It seems the free to play weekend saturated Denuvo's activation servers and blocked players.
We couldn't dream of a more perfect showcase of that DRM's downsides for the consumer.

It had Denuvo since it was announced.

Looks like Sonic Racing Crossworlds now has Denuvo, saw a post on twitter where they were advertising a free play weekend but Denuvo is blocking players from even playing the game. Sega is historically known for their genius executive decisions, after all.

@lukaself

Hey, hey, but it doesn't have VMProtect, so it's a positive progression, right ?

@Emu The game removed Denuvo when they bought themselves back from SEGA. Despite that, the game still has an online check though.

Typical Ubisoft
Thanks for keeping an eye out!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3936610/Monopoly_Star_Wars_Heroes_vs_Villains/

Listed on the store page.

Company of Heroes 3 (app id 1677280) has “No longer using Denuvo.” informational review by curator, but on steam page it still says Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: Denuvo Anti-tamper, and also has standard denuvo related stuff mentioned in their eula that's listed on steam page. Is the denuvo on steam page outdated info and just never removed, or have they added it again?

They also added special visual effects, shockwaves when swords are clashing, flashing visual cues for counters... all feeling out of place.

Not that it'd have changed anything were it a good remake - I'm not buying anything from a company claiming we should get comfortable with not owning games.

Gonna point out that I took a look at the differences between Resynced and the original. I'm not a massive graphics guy, but they stripped away a lot of the charm of the original. The weathered looks, the ruggedness of Edward... it's... smoothed out.

It's about the only thing I hear about Resynced. So there is a good chance that a lot of ACIV fans just... don't show up, myself included

It's Ubisoft. A company that's more paranoid about things, way more son than the other 'Axis Of Gaming Evil' peers.

And the game aswell. lol i cannot wait that the game is failed when its released.

Thanks for putting AC Black Flag Resynced that contains Denuvo one. I really hope Ubisoft can go broke!

It was about their financial situation. Rebellion is private so it's hard to evaluate.

@Lordecalibre you forget Rebellion on the list here.

I'm aware it got removed from that one, I will be posting an announcement later today and update the review. Thank you for keeping an eye though.

Just a mention since its stil on "not recommneded list"

By the way, Super Robot Wars Y has denuvo removed. It would be funny if Echoes of Aincrad, Code Vein II and Digimon Time Stranger also removes denuvo DRM in future here.
Denuvo never benefits there.

Sega, EA, and Ubisoft are in the situation they deserve, and they deserve even worse. It's been about 5 or 7 years since I bought a Ubisoft game.

Yeah, got my monarchies crossed. Thanks for the correction

Just a small correction - EA was bought by consortium lead by Saudis not Emirates.

It's normal to be prudent - corporations trained us well to expect disappointment - but there's no point in preemptively brooding. The situation is leagues better than it was years ago. The industry is now fully conscious there's an issue, which is the first step required to start fixing it.

@Amaterasu
It's an understandable reaction given the industry's track record but I don't share your fatalism. What publishers are doing is already a hard sell as it is and look now:
EA has been sold to the Emirates for money they don't have and used as collateral in that debt, Ubisoft has been quartered and SEGA is in deep financial issues after not producing a single hit in years...
All companies once though too big too fail, and yet they did. If there's a danger of something worse being just around the corner, it won't come from these, at least.

Even if we take cold hard facts, practices have shifted and consumer habits have been changed by the constant awareness campaigns. Online DRM has been slowly declining over the years. SecuROM had been used in 700 games in a time when only 50-100 games released every year. Denuvo barely reaches 272 games with it currently in spite of now 20k games releasing every year on Steam, 400-500 games if we only count AA and AAA.

I do agree with you to some degree, Amaterasu, but it doesn't mean it's pointless to stop resisting. This process of enshittification, as described by Cory Doctorow, isn't limited to video games, but is happening all accross economy, and isn't even limited to digital goods and services. But the fact companies have decided to extract as much value as possible from consumers by degrading quality doesn't mean there aren't small victories to be had, or that it can't help slow the progress of said predatory practices. This declining cycle will probably only resolve when the process becomes entirely unsustainable, which will lead to a form of collapse. In the meantime, taking what can be gotten is a good idea. And as William Gibson said, "The street finds its own uses for things."

To reiterate, I am not saying to stop fighting for it. It's a fight that needs to be won. I am saying that it will not be the savior of gaming and in fact will cause the publishers to become worse.

This has been a consistent pattern since 2005.

I feel like I need to be a voice that gives a differing opinion. I do not understand why people are so excited about SKG when the industry itself 100% has a history of being a monkey's paw.

I've been fighting every practice that turned predatory was consumer-hostile from the start since 2005. I can tell you this right here and right now everything we lost on had gotten worse and everything we won on had something worse take its place.

I'm not saying don't keep fighting for SKG, what I am saying however is brace yourself because this monkey's paw doesn't run out of fingers and I can guarantee you... one of them is going to curl if SKG wins. It always does.

I'll post an announcement about this on Sunday to get better visibility, I need to announce a few other things anyway.

In related news, their representatives reported that the hearing for Stop Killing Games at the EU parliament went very well. Multiple factions expressed support for legislation.
Keep pushing!

I just had a discussion with the admins for the new SKG Discord. They'd be delighted to have us onboard so feel free to join it but considering we have now about 7k members, a little discipline is in order. It's likely all of us joining all at once would crash their server.

Users with a nickname starting from A to K can join now, but their admins would be grateful if users with nicknames starting with the letters L to Z could consider waiting at least a day before they join.

Thank you all for your understanding!

https://discord.com/invite/TCE6uXwsBe

Further proof, if any were needed, that DENUVO consumes system resources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a776U3gqIXg

Follow-up on this: GOG removed the DRM for accessing the bonus content on Doom Eternal.

Hitman was removed for trying to sneak an online DRM onto the store - which you will agree is unacceptable.
Requiring the launcher for cosmetic DLC is unfortunately not uncommon on GOG and even Cyberpunk 2077 has some content like that so they tolerate it in other publishers as well.
Problem is, Doom apparently also locked a bonus classic level behind that requirement which prompted our members to contact GOG and why the company is investigating for a better technical solution in this case, I suppose.

Didn't know about that,pretty strange.I wonder if the need for the launcher for DLC isn't fixed,will the game be taken off the store ? I think another AAA game (can't remember which one) got removed for a similar reason no ?

Yeah, we're currently trying to see where it stands exactly in terms of DRM-free, as according to our members on the Discord, a few DLC seem to require the Galaxy Launcher.
GOG said they would try to improve the situation but we'll have to wait until next week to have actual details.

DOOM Eternal is now available on GOG 🥳

Kind reminder that discussion related to piracy or cracks is off limits on Steam. Feel free to move the discussion to the Discord where we can have more control on what's allowed or not.

Just a heads up that while Monster Hunter Rise doesn't use Denuvo any longer it still uses Capcom's Enigma DRM. Might want to note that in your comments on the page. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1446780/MONSTER_HUNTER_RISE/

@GypsyGoopRaider I get where you're coming from but I unfortunately had to delete your comment for mentioning the name of piracy groups. This isn't allowed on the Steam forums and we have to follow the house rules.
If you're interested in talking about this topic more freely, the Discord server for the group is the place to do so.

Fair enough.

Wouldn't know. Piracy isn't our domain of expertise - rather consumer rights and preservation.

So, has hypervisor effectively killed Denuvo?