More potential Denuvo skullduggery

[kane_magus]

(EDIT) Yep, it has Denuvo. The warning showed up on the page, but only after it was released. (/EDIT)

So, I saw Jurassic World Evolution 2 showing up in my Steam recommendations and shit. Apparently, it is going to release tomorrow. Since the first game had (and still has) Denuvo, I went to the store page to see if the second one is also infected with that malware. The store page currently does not show the Denuvo malware warning. I was skeptical, even so, because this is not the first time Steam and/or the developers of a game had hidden the Denuvo status on a pre-release game (or even on games that were released long ago, for that matter). When I went into the forums and saw that threads that mention Denuvo are being locked (whether they talk about piracy or not), that pretty much sealed it for me. I wouldn't have been buying this game regardless, because I don't trust the developers/publishers of this game to not have tainted their game with that shit, given that they have apparently done so with most of the other games they've released, so it's neither here nor there for me, but this is still some especially hinky shit.

In any case, though, just for my own morbid curiosity, I'll be keeping an eye on this game to see if a Denuvo warning shows up on the store page after it is officially released. If it turns out that this game, against all odds, really isn't infested with the badware, then great. If it does turn out to have it, though... (EDIT) ...and, sure enough, as Mord said, the Denuvo malware warning appeared on the Steam page for the game on release, so yeah, fuck Frontier Developments in the anus with an old, spiky corn cob drenched in necrotizing fasciitis. (/EDIT)

Comments

[owsf2000]

Speaking of Denuvo, it's drm servers shit out over the weekend for a couple hours apparently.

Personally I wasn't affected by it since I have zero games with denuvo - even if the devs later removed it. Once it's on ignore, it don't come off.

*edit* And looking at that game's store page now shows denuvo anti-play is included.

[kane_magus]

Yeah, it's showing the Denuvo malware warning on the game's page for me now, as well. So, indeed, as I expected would be the case, this is just yet another example of Steam and/or the devs/pubs of a game being shifty (and shitty) and hiding the fact that their game was infested with this shit prior to releasing it and also prior to opening it up for pre-purchase, of course. As such, I guess "Frontier Developments" will be added to my growing list of "never buy" developers/publishers, as well as this whole situation further reinforcing my default stance on buying games (or not buying games, in this case).

Also, dumbshit asshats like this are why the modern video game industry is in such a piss-poor state now. Even if a lot of people are justifiably and rightly cautious and negative against all the bullshit being excreted by the game industry these days, the developers and publishers know full well that they don't actually have to ever worry about those people, because they can always count on there being more than enough gullible, disingenuous, willfully ignorant buffoons like the above who have their lips surgically attached to the sewer pipe to make up for it.

And then, yet again, a mod came in and locked the thread, after making the utterly asinine claim of "This thread clearly started with good intentions but as with any Denuvo themed thread they always devolve into chaos." I.e. the OP made a post dicksucking the game and the decision of the dev/pub (one and the same in this case, apparently) to infect it with malware and shittalking anyone who would dare to not dicksuck the game in a similar manner ("good intentions"), lots of other people showed up to join in said dicksucking and shittalking (more "good intentions," I guess), and all of that was apparently just fine and dandy with the mod, but then a couple of more actually level-headed people came in and tried to argue against the OP's patently absurd suggestion that everyone should just be complacent and accepting of all the dumbfuckery that the modern video game industry churns out on a regular basis these days, which is when the thread started to "devolve into chaos" and required a "nip in the bud," I guess, because lawdy we can't have actual facts and levelheadedness being inserted into and interrupting a good circlejerk, now can we.

On a more broadly related issue, in addition to the whole "Denuvo servers fucked off for a few hours, rendering games infected with their dogshit unplayable during that time" thing that you noted, there's the whole Alder Lake thing, too. In short, a new CPU came out and Denuvo was incompatible with it, making those games unplayable for people who bought that CPU. So this case of some CPUs being too new for Denuvo, combined with the fact that there also were (still are?) cases where people had CPUs that were too old to support Denuvo, perhaps should suggest that maybe, just maybe, it's Denvuo that is the problem here. Denuvo is the common element in all of those situations.

Seriously, Denuvo needs to fucking die forever, and anything like Denuvo that might come into existence in the future needs to be smothered in the cradle (or perhaps "nipped in the bud"). And everyone who foolishly, blithely supports this horseshit needs to be afflicted with constant, chronic, explosive diarrhea until they come to their senses and stop supporting such badware.

[owsf2000]

Regarding Denuvo showing up on the webpage after release, I've essentially shitlisted Sega on steam going forward as a precaution right now. In the article I linked, and several others, one of the games listed as being affected over the weeekend was Football Manager 2022 - but it doesn't list Denuvo on it's store page (The previous game in the series -does- have denuvo officially though.)

I find it difficult to believe that people would be accidentally typoing the game name repeatedly on every website so going to assume Sega is one of the shitty companies hiding Denuvo status on their game releases. If Sega actually ends up releasing a game I want to play, I'll get it on PS4 or something which is what I would normally do anyway even without shitlisting them on Steam.

So in effect this is more symbolic than anything else, but it still stands. It's just a pain for doing this for Sega in particular because it seems Sega decided NOT to have a publisher page on Steam despite being such a large company. Trying to bring up that page for them just gives you a generic publisher search for them. You'd almost think they realized they could avoid having their games mass-ignored if they didn't have such a page - and you'd have to wonder why they might have gone through the effort to consider that, as if they were having problems with people having a reason to mass ignore their library.

[kane_magus]

Sega does have a publisher page on Steam (or, at least, it's showing as such for me). That said, it probably wouldn't matter if you did put them on Ignore, because it's not like Steam even honors that shit, as I've complained about multiple times in the past.

The only Sega games I've been buying on Steam lately have been the Yakuza games. (Only Yakuza 0, Kiwami, and Kiwami 2 so far, though, and of those I've only played maybe halfway through 0. Haven't gotten the last four yet, and I won't until/unless I see them on a good sale.) These either don't have the Denuvo malware infesting them, or else Sega isn't being forthright on their Steam pages about it, if they do. I'm pretty sure that Yakuza 0 used to be contaminated with it, but they removed it a year or so before I ever bought it (and I wasn't aware of it at the time).

Well, aside from the newest one, Like a Dragon, which definitely is infected with Denuvo and shows it on the Steam page. And, as such, I have less than zero interest in buying or playing it. I don't want that poison on my computer if I can at all avoid it.