The Big PC Games Without Denuvo in 2016

List of AAA PC games without Denuvo in 2016

[DonkeyDoner]

its like

"here's the title for you to pirate it"

[voodoochild346]

And yet devs make tons of money on pc without drm. Go figure.

[LightofDarkness]

Anyone who uses an SSD as a game drive needs to know this. Denuvo is constantly thrashing the drive and can wear down the lifespan SSDs considerably. That's why people don't like it and games with no copy protection have sold extremely well (Witcher 3), so there's no practical need for something so potentially damaging. Simple Steam protection would've sufficed in all cases.

[wtopez]

The Denuvo killing SSDs nonsense was debunked long ago. There's plenty of arguments to be made for or against Denuvo without rehashing old rumors.

[rainslacker]

LOL. seriously? Thrashing? Is that another word for accessing? If it is accessing, then Windows must completely obliterate them.

I'm sure W3's success had more to do with the hype of the game, CDPR Free DLC, and not the lack of copy protection.

[hiredhelp]

Yup fact is denuvo may make slight improovement for sales for thoes who cant download really want such titles.
But overall the millions on PC steam uplay origin wont make a differnce to thoes who dont download.
But yet we have some that download to try before they buy this could hinder that...
As i see it soo far other than batman mad max fifa rest been Uplay titles.

[kevnb]

Metal gear solid 5 and others. Here's a list https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...

[Seafort]

Rise of the Tomb Raider and Just Cause 3 use Denuvo DRM on PC.

These are the 2 games that have given me the most performance problems over the last few years as well.

Coincidence? I think not.

Only Mad Max was really well optimised out of the Denuvo games to not cause any serious performance problems for me.

The rest gave me piss poor performance and shouldn't have really.

[rainslacker]

"make slight improvement for sales"

Yep, that's why it's there. It also keeps those who haven't payed from playing it, which is also the point. I feel ignoring the fact that publishers don't want people that didn't pay for the game to play it to be rather selective. Even if sales didn't increase, why would a publisher want to offer free games to whoever felt they deserved to play them?

Try before you buy could see a loss, but if they are really interested, they'll likely buy it since there are plenty of outlets to gauge how well it will play nowadays. A demo would be better...or timed trial which seems to be less of a thing now.

One thing that amuses me is the current W3 lack of DRM. People are praising it as pro-consumer. What they really fail to see is that CDPR has just conceded that DRM isn't really that effective, and tends to only piss off their actual customers. I can't imagine they're any happier with people playing their game for free than any other dev/pub. Basically, CDPR gave up on fighting piracy, because it didn't really net much in return. What's funny though, and what I find amusing, is that with this pro-consumer praise, no one really considers that piracy is very anti-developer...so the devs which seem to do right by their customers, also get screwed over the most in the end. Hooray for pirates I guess.

The day PC gamers, instead of the publishers, start fighting the pirates, and actually win with some measurable result, is the day that DRM won't be necessary anymore. This rather complacent acceptance of piracy among many PC gamers only reinforces the idea that it's not really a big deal....all while these same PC gamers complain endlessly about faulty DRM practices.

Let the disagrees role in. I'm always amazed at how many pirates are floating around on N4G.

[Seafort]

No DRM on Witcher 3 has nothing to do with GoG.com that CD Projekt owns as well, right?

Just because some publishers don't trust their customers to actually want buy their games doesn't mean they are all like that.

If a game is good people will buy it. DRM or no DRM.

Publishers and developers should get that into their thick skulls and stop treating us like criminals before we've even bought the games. Guilty until proven innocent is no way to run a successful development studio.

[rainslacker]

How much publisher support is there for GOG though? Is it ubiquitous?

"Just because some publishers don't trust their customers to actually want buy their games doesn't mean they are all like that."

Never meant to imply that all were like that. However, there is a very real and pervasive attitude that piracy is perfectly acceptable within the PC gaming market.

"If a game is good people will buy it. DRM or no DRM. "

Yep. A good game will always sell regardless. That's kind of my point. That the W3 sales weren't because it had no DRM, it was because it was a good game.

DRM however is there to try and prevent people who don't pay from playing. One could argue that it doesn't work, but apparently it does in some ways, which is why publishers are still using it.

I'm not cool with the DRM that negatively affects the legitimate customer. I am very much against it in fact. However, I see a lot of blame being placed on the publishers, with the pirates not even getting a slap on the wrist, and in fact getting a lot of support from the community as a whole. This support comes because these people seem to be upset about the DRM, yet they are supporting the wrong side, because the people they're supporting are the very ones that publishers are trying to get rid of.

"Publishers and developers should get that into their thick skulls and stop treating us like criminals before we've even bought the games. Guilty until proven innocent is no way to run a successful development studio."

I agree. However the publishers have years of data to back up their reasons for using DRM. Most of the counter arguments to this data is all anecdotal hyperbole laced with copious amounts of justification.

CDPR has made a lot of happy customers by pandering to this idea that they are pro-consumer...and I feel they are pro consumer and do treat their legitimate customers well. However, if the entire industry took such attitudes, I have no doubt that more people would take advantage of it than reward the pro-consumer approach. In the past, whenever one justification for piracy became moot, other justifications became more prevalent, or some other justification was made up in it's place.

[cleft5]

Remember when other anti-pirating programs, like secure rom, where considered the end all be all to stop pirating. Well what happened to those programs being so great? They got popular and developers decided to flock to them to "secure" their games against the evil pirates. The end result was that enough popular games used those DRM protection methods that hackers turned their full attention to those DRM protection methods and completely hacked them.

Denuvo is so hard to hack because no truly major games are using them. Just Cause 3 was an okay game sure, but it is no Fallout 4. Mad Max is a movie title that was good, but again no Fallout 4. Rise of the Tomb Raider was pretty and all, but again its no Fallout 4. Plus you can pick the game up for less than $10 on some of these deals they have had.

When the titles that people really want to play starts using Denuvo, thats when the hackers will turn their full attention to it and Denuvo will be nothing more than another relic overcome.

Developers should make a game that people want to buy, instead relying on Denuvo to give them some mythical protection. Fallout 4 and Witcher 3 has sold millions of copies without relying on Denuvo. This certainly isn't true of Rise of the Tomb Raider and Just Cause 3. Developers should focus on why that isn't true and not on thinking that pirates are stopping their sells. Because clearly piracy isn't stopping the sales of big name PC games like Fallout 4 and Witcher 3.

[rainslacker]

Blame the publisher? Is that what you're saying?

As far as I can tell, DRM wouldn't be necessary if not for the piracy.

Denuvo will eventually be cracked, and something else will come along.

"Developers should make a game that people want to buy,"

I agree. However, the most pirated games are those that are also the ones that sell the most. The problem is that there are people that want to play them, but don't want to buy them, and there is a huge air of complacency among PC gamers which seem to not fight the pirates, and instead turn their angst against the publisher to the point where people actually use DRM as an excuse to pirate. PC gamers are apologetic towards the pirates, yet the pirates are the ones that are the reason for them having to deal with DRM.

Denuvo is going to become pretty big soon though. It's proven to prevent piracy on the titles it is released on. It has it's flaws, and hopefully they iron those out, but ironing them out will likely result in it being more easily hacked, since hacks tend to use exploits to circumvent protection measures.

FO4 and W3 high sales were high all around. It's not about getting the sales directly, it's about preventing the rampant copyright infringement that is pervasive in the PC gaming market. People praise CDPR, yet don't even see that they've just conceded that nothing they can do will really prevent piracy, so have given up. They get praise, while they watch their game get pirated in the millions. I have no doubt, when the numbers come in, more people will have pirated W3 than have brought it....exactly like it was with W2. Is that really fair to the dev since they have made a game that people apparently want to play?

[Seafort]

Denuvo may prevent piracy for now but does it increase sales massively like the publishers think it will?

I don't think it has. There's a lot of people not buying the games with denuvo on now.

They are losing sales from people trying the games out and also the people who hate draconian DRM.

I think they'll lose more sales than gain with Denuvo DRM.

It's their choice to waste more money on DRM but if they do get lower than expected sales they can't blame piracy anymore.

[rainslacker]

I think it's too early to tell. Bigger question is, is that number of people not buying Denuvo games more than those who are now buying the games because they can't pirate them.

Without a frame of reference and more data, it's hard to tell what effects it will have, which is why I laughed at that cracking group saying they were taking the year off to gauge it's effect because I doubt they lack the sophistication to derive the appropriate statistical models.

I'd say right now, even publishers will not be able to come to a conclusive determination, because such things take lots of data to form a solid conclusion. However, at the moment, it does seem to be effective at stopping pirated versions from being distributed, so the publishers are at least getting the first step they need to derive accurate results not based on the hyperbole of the pirate side which seems to assume piracy has no ill effects at all.

I can't argue or disagree with those last three paragraphs, because they are sound reasons and opinions. I have no data to back up my point of view, and I even agree they may lose some sales from it. But at the same time, the question more is, will they gain more sales in the long run if it's effective?

"It's their choice to waste more money on DRM but if they do get lower than expected sales they can't blame piracy anymore."

True, and that would be progress to me. It would allow them to analyze why the games aren't getting more sales, and if it's DRM, then DRM may be less prevalent in the future. If the DRM wasn't the factor, then they'll have to look at the quality of their releases and the current market as a whole.

However, if the sales go up as a whole, then it's only going to reinforce their position that piracy harms software sales, and take away about half of the current justifications people use....so it's the kind of thing that may not help those complicit with piracy. A lot of people never seem to consider that side of it, and instead just assume that sales are going to go down.

This is a long game for the publishers. They want these answers so they can go forward with a better understanding of how things affect others. I feel to date, even with all the data they have, there's still a healthy dose of speculation involved on their part.