Ubisoft just added Denuvo to Assassins Creed Mirage via a day-1 patch a few minutes ago. AFTER all the major reviews went online.

DRM ONLY ever affects paying customers, ergo DRM is always unethical malware.

Also, let’s never forget how Ghostwire Tokyo had Denuvo patched IN over a year after release.

I'm thinking this too... like what's even the point of using denuvo if it's not applied day one? The whole point is to delay piracy so they sell more copies during launch week (in theory), so waiting until after day one completely ruins that since you can just pirate the easily cracked launch version.

That's the thing: paying consumers always pay the price for DRM by having to jump through any hoops.

Sounds like they added it after the review embargo ended but before the game releases to the public.

Reviewers get games prior to release day. So it may not be so likely that you can get a working game without the day 1 patch.

Yeah, but pirates won't be able to get the newer updates/bugfixes

Where is the false advertising?

Everyone knows Denuvo's statement isn't true. There are hundreds of games with Denuvo that have improved performance after being cracked, compared to the legitimately owned version. This conversation pops up all the time. It's quite funny when pirated games have a better experience. At least until Denuvo is removed to cut cost (it's a subscription).

the error is buying a game from a series with 11 games in development

https://en.as.com/meristation/news/ubisoft-has-11-assassins-creed-games-in-the-works-n/

they are going to run out of words in the dictionary to name these fucking games, they will start using words in a different language for the codenames.

To fuck over their customers. As usual.

Before and on release date, most sales are to a minority of highly engaged gamers that then create reviews and hype. Ubisoft needs that hype as they know the majority of the profit they will make is from sales after the release when the general public reads those reviews and then decide to spend their dollar on the game because the reviews were good. Also the majority of the general public won't pirate anyway...

I don't know how the launch went but these days the release version of games is usually a buggy mess with half the content stripped out of it so they can sell it later as DLC or a season pass

But... it's not cracked?

Reviewers take bribes.

True, but will also prevent you from getting any other updates or bug fixes. This is such a scummy action for Ubi to do, I wouldn't it put it past em to pair this with some sort of game bricking.... "glitch" that needs a patch.

That's the thing though - they deliberately made the product crappier after people already bought it.

Think this applies if Denuvo is included from the beginning, but it wasn't here

Half the people don't know what denuvo is.

Denuvo is a very complex anti piracy system for games that is pretty controversial. There's a lot of evidence that it affects performance and it forces games that wouldn't otherwise need Internet to be activated online regularly.

It's the kind of thing that a reviewer would mention and that some people would use in their buying decisions. Sneaking it in after launch is going to make some people pretty mad and I'd feel used as a reviewer.

Denuvo is like having to call your helicopter mom every other minute to make sure you still have the right to play.
If the call fails, or she doesn't pickup, or if you can't call for any reason (maybe your in the woods and have no service) you're instantly teleported into a dark room and all your toys are gone because everyone assumes you're a criminal now.

Denuvo is always online DRM software, that usually results in performance issues (reduced frame rate, increased latency, stuttering, etc.).

In this case it appears Ubisoft avoided tried to skirt the potential bad press from performance issues by delaying the inclusion of denuvo until after people had bought the game/early reviews came out.

I guess they did it since Denuvo is generally known to cause performance issues in games.

So, reviewers gave scores on the denuvo-less game, which would have better performance, thus better scores, then they patched denuvo into it, so that they will get their drm and any performance drops will not play a role in any low scores.

But I can't understand why reviewers can't update their review... maybe it's expensive for major reviewers?

Denuvo bad.

In the (vain) quest to make people stop pirating, it goes so far (admittedly also comes the closest to "working") that it starts causing significant side effects. It's also apparently always online, which is a historical pet peeve for a lot of people: it doesn't add any value to the game, but it does add a buttload of possible extra ways for the game to crash or become unavailable. With no benefit to you, the player, and not much you can do about it, other than playing the games of someone who's not quite as much of a dick.

I think Valve has the power to end this nonsense...

Ah shit... Removed it from my wishlist. At least I didn't already buy it.

Nah, they don't need to stop this at all. This basically lets people pirate games all they want so long as the devs don't intentionally throw in a game breaking bug on the review version.

Never understood the hurry of the crack groups.

You serious?

Obviously the sooner they crack it the sooner they can sell to impatient pirates. The market is only going to decrease over time, and if you're beaten to the punch you lose out on loads of customers.

Last I checked, you had to download and launch from Uplay even if you buy game from other stores. I haven't buyed any of their games after they pull a stunt on Brotherhood anyway.

That ahould be a DLC.

EA, Konami and Blizzard give good competition, I wouldn’t be so sure.

Denuvo doesn't prevent games working on Steam Deck, but depending on how it's implemented it can cause other problems like preventing a game from launching if it hasn't been able to connect online in a while, or weird performance issues. It varies from game to game.

Denuvo works perfectly fine on the Steam Deck/Linux. IDK why people keep repeating this.

This misconception with DRM making it unplayable on steam deck I think stems from 3rd party anti-cheat software flagging Linux players. Denuvo "works" fine on steam deck and Linux as a whole, same goes for anti-cheats. Developers always have the option to tune the anti-cheats to allow Linux players, but only some of them do.

I'm not following closely and haven't gamed on PC in a while but:

Denovo is a technology that is supposed to prevent copying games (DRM). Not sure what it's current state is or might be mixing it up with other DRM, but DRM is known for causing headaches for paying customers. Using excessive system resources, refusal to launch for legitimate paying customers, spyware/excessive data collected and sent to a corporation, etc. In some games, volunteers will patch bugs out of a game, and this will cause the game to think it's cracked and refuse to launch.

Some DRM is "phone home" and can't be played offline, so people in remote areas can't play. And sometimes the company doesn't want to keep servers online when the game has been out for 10 years, so people that purchased the game can no longer play.

In this case, the company let reviewers rate the game and got the initial scores and sales, then pushed the unpopular DRM update. It's scummy. If you're using it, then use it. Don't bait and switch.

Which, the older, the modern, or the far ones?