Why is Denuvo bad?

 Denuvo Causes Games To Expire

  This exposes the reality of online game libraries. You only ever owned a temporary game LICENSE, not a copy:
 

^ EXAMPLE OF EXPIRING GAME LICENSE DUE TO ALWAYS ONLINE DRM ^

This happens due to how Denuvo is as it has to clumsily embed itself into games and their DRM through a complicated manually done process that few developers & publishers are willing to invest the money, time and effort into removing once their game fades into obscurity.


 Denuvo Negatively Affects Game Performance

During the release of Devil May Cry 5, users found that they could access a QA testing branch of DMC5 that had an unprotected .exe without Denuvo that could be used with the released version.

The result? A 20+ FPS boost across the board. Other examples include:

Death Stranding, Monster Hunter World, Resident Evil 2

Resident Evil Villager

Hitman, Abzu, Sherlock Holmes, Mad Max, Agents of Mayhem, Sniper Ghost Warrior 3

Hogwarts Legacy

Assassin's Creed Origins, Arkham Knight

Loading Time Comparisons

More Loading Time Comparisons

Besides extensive user testing, there are also multiple video game companies admitting to Denuvo butchering performance:


Humankind Devs Drops Denuvo Due To Performance Crash

Tekken 7 Denuvo Fiasco

 Results can vary from user to user depending on system configurations and what version of Denuvo is currently being used but the claim on their website that: 

Is a complete and utter lie.


Denuvo Is A Scam

 Their sales pitch of "ooga booga protect games" is completely unfounded. There has not been a single credible study done that have been able to reliably show the effects that online piracy has on video games which is why Denuvo does not provide you with any on their website. Being a digital medium, there is absolutely nothing being lost besides the goodwill of customers and game performance.

95% of products with Denuvo on them also ironically go on the least DRM'ed platform on PC, Steam, whose CEO has this to say in regards to piracy.
 
People pirate for a reason. To test games before buying due to the abandonment of demos. To aquire them where they are otherwise unavailable for purchase or made far too expensive. To get a superior copy that isn't butchered with DRM and always-online checks.. To not financially support developers and producers soiling their games with a scam DRM. 
 
None of these are a lost sale.

Denuvo Is Illegal

In a recently posted article, Denuvo outlined the addition of a new "feature" that can create invisible watermarks that are explicitly intended to identify individuals. Unfortunately for Denuvo, this is in direct violation of Europe's General Data Protection Regulation that classifies such identifiers as personal data. (Article 4, Section 1)
 
There are no checks, balances or regulations on this new function being used world-wide on all products with Denuvo.
 

Denuvo Forces Games Online

Denuvo essentially turns all games into "Always Online" titles, requiring computers needing an active internet connection multiple times during and after installation with some crackers observing certain versions of Denuvo doing 10-30 checks every second.

It can also be observed by the outages during Denuvo server issues preventing games from being played.


 Denuvo Steals Funds From Game Budgets

Purchasing Denuvo to be used in a game costs a LOT of money.

Precious effort & time from the game developers is also required in order to implement Denuvo into any given game (and more later if they remove it) which further increases the costs associated with using the DRM. Further costs can be accumulated through visits from Denuvo employees, all of which is money, time and effort that could have been spent on the game itself.


Denuvo Has Hardware Incompatibility

Denuvo is incompatible with certain hardware configurations, such as Phenom Processors. The games themselves may be fully compatible but customers with such hardware configurations are completely shut out from being able to play games with Denuvo.

This also remains true for newer technology as Intel's latest hybrid CPU's have 50+ games affected.


 Denuvo Has Operating System Incompatibility

Denuvo prevents games from functioning on other operating systems outside of Windows, such as MAC and Linux. Even if a game is compatible, they will simply not work as long as they are infected with Denuvo.
 
It also prevents customers from using Virtual Machines to play Windows games on MAC/Linux.
 

Denuvo Bloats File Sizes

Denuvo massively increases the file sizes of games with executables in particular sometimes being 1000%+ larger.
 

Denuvo Challenges Pirates

Smaller developers deciding to use Denuvo for their games often have their actions get interpreted as public challenges for piracy groups, causing their games & DRM to become cracked/pirated faster than they would normally be in the pace of public demand. 
 

Denuvo Adds Additional Game Development Complexity

Denuvo makes game development for any given title more complicated and time consuming. Depending on when and how it was implemented, it can become an escalating headache for developers by causing waves of bugs, instability, crashes, incompatibilities and more.
 

Denuvo Is Bloatware

Denuvo is by definition Bloatware due to it having files be left behind on a system after being uninstalled on the software it was originally downloaded & associated with, as admitted on their own website:
 


Denuvo Blocks Common Modding

Denuvo makes modding certain games impossible by making any sort of tampering with the .exe file and the content that runs through it extremely difficult which can completely shut down any and all attempts to create community mods for certain games. Denuvo is also known for extending it's protection to certain .dll files.


Denuvo Are Pirates

Denuvo is a second layer DRM derived from a PIRATED VERSION of something called VMProtect. Calling them hypocrites or the situation itself ironic is an understatement. 
 
The lawsuit was settled out of court and current games using Denuvo often also use VMProtect.
 

Denuvo Prevents Backups

Denuvo prevents you from backing up your legally owned games or making reserved playable copies.
 



 Denuvo Anti-Cheat

Denuvo Anti-Cheat causes a wide range of serious technical issues for many users. Being a disastrously bad Kernel-Level application, it got flagged by almost every anti-virus application on the market before contacting them, purchasing expensive digital signature licenses and begging them to be whitelisted. 
 
Just like it's DRM counterpart, it wrecks performance.
 

 
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