Being a PC gamer is a great thing to be. The sector continues to grow and is a great source of revenue for developers able to tap into the market. There are also far more games to tap into on PC than console. On Steam alone, over 8,000 titles were released in 2019. Not to mention that, slowly but surely, console games are making their way to the PC. However, when it comes to these ports, we tend to see them mishandled at times. Currently, Death Stranding is looking to be one of those games and we have to ask ourselves if PC Gamers should boycott Death Stranding over its use of Denuvo DRM.
PC gamers were excited that Hideo Kojima’s new game would be coming to the PC platform since it is a PlayStation exclusive. However, the excitement was quickly soured when it was pointed out on Reddit that the game would come with the Denuvo DRM. PC users were further angered when it said that the game would have a “1 machine activation limit” on the game’s Steam store page. But that was quickly removed according to 505 Games that explained it was “a store listing error.”
However, 505 Games has not clarified whether or not there is a limit to how many machines Death Stranding can be installed on. This brings up the main problem with Denuvo because, if you upgrade something on your PC, that means it is now a new machine. It limits how many times a game can be installed before the owner loses access to that game. In other words, any game with this DRM is not owned by the consumer who purchases it.
Now there seems to be confusion as to how the limitation works. General consensus states that you can only install a game on up to five machines per day and that attempting to install it on a sixth machine would result in a 24-hour ban. If this is true, then the limitation would really just affect people who benchmark games and not the average consumer. But the fact that the Steam page for Death Stranding originally had “1 machine activation limit” would mean that there are potentially other games out there with this limit. Also, let’s not forget that the people behind Denuvo are the same ones who created SecuROM which was just as atrocious. SecuROM was a major reason for why Spore failed since it only allowed the game to be installed three times on three different computers.
You could also take a look at Ubisoft’s End User License Agreement (EULA) because their games come with Denuvo DRM. In the EULA, it states in Section 3.1 part ii that ,”The DRM software may limit the number of installations of the product.” Problem is, there is no number provided of what that limit may be.
Whatever the case may be, the inclusion of Denuvo in Death Stranding is an anti-consumer move on the part of Kojima Productions and 505 Games. What happens if Valve suddenly allowed Steam users to resell their used copies (a move that could be happening in France)? What would be the ramifications of such DRM that puts such restrictions on games?
But if limited installations weren’t enough, Denuvo also cripples a PC’s performance. This is according to Extremetech which ran benchmarks for games like Dishonored 2, Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, and Lords of the Fallen with and without the DRM. In all the tests, when Denuvo was being run, there was significantly slower load times and decreased frame rates.
Of course the company, Denuvo Software Solutions, denied the allegations that its DRM affects PC performance. But there has been additional proof from Ars Technica and Overlord Gaming to show that the company is lying about its software and the impact it has on performance.
Despite the evidence, developers and publishers still utilize Denuvo to the detriment and irritation of PC gamers. So if the PC community wants this kind of practice to stop, they need to boycott Death Stranding. No matter how much I respect Hideo Kojima, I can not and will not spend my hard-earned money on a product that I do not own and that will not be running at optimal levels because it is crippled by this atrocious DRM.
To be fair, Death Stranding is just the latest in a line of games that makes use of Denuvo. But it could be utilized as an example and a warning to developers and publishers who decide to continue using this egregious DRM on the PC platform. Because this kind of DRM practice needs to stop. We paid for a product and that product is ours to own. Not to be loaned to us on a temporary basis that is determined by how many times you change PC components.
Yet let’s face it, it is rather hard to keep track of all the games that are released with Denuvo. A shame that there aren’t any industry watchdogs like Reclaim Your Game that can inform gamers of whether or not new games being released or ported contain this kind of DRM. A video games industry watchdog could also verify whether or not Denuvo has a limited installation feature baked in as well.
Until such an entity can step forward, it is up to the PC community to inform each other whenever they spot a game with this kind of DRM. But informing is not good enough. PC gamers also need to start boycotting these games, otherwise things will continue to get worse. If not, well…just remember what happened to games such as Diablo 3 and SimCity (2013) when they utilized always-on DRM.
So if PC gamers want to stem this practice, boycotting Death Stranding would be a good place to start.
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