Denuvo Justice: Ace Denuvo Trilogy

[kane_magus]

Hey cool Capcom is making an Apollo Justice bundle with the two 3DS games and it's infested with Denuvo.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Really, though, whenever Capcom decides to stop foolishly leaving money on the table and gets around to removing the malware infection in a year or three, I'll still probably get this, eventually, if I see it on a good enough sale. But until and unless the contamination is cleaned up, the game may as well not exist, as far as I'm concerned. (See also: Street Fighter 6, and Dragon's Dogma 2, since the previous two sentences can be applied to those games, too, without changing a word.)

Comments

[kane_magus]

It's less kindness so much as it's just that I do still want to play those games, at least in theory, but as long as Capcom (or any other company) insists on continuing to include this dumb asshattery that makes me not want to give them my money, then they can fuck off. If they ever stop being completely stupid assholes and remove the obviously terrible dogshit from their game, then maybe I'll start to consider possibly giving them the time of day again. In these particular cases, at the very least, it's more just that my urge to hold a grudge against them is less than my desire to play the games if they ever do eventually wise up.

But really, there are only a very rare few games, like the above-mentioned ones (particularly Dragon's Dogma 2), that I would consider still maybe buying later, once the malware is removed from them. If it's a game that I really didn't care all that much about in the first place, though (e.g. around 99% of all the other games that are polluted with Denuvo), then yeah, it's more of a "no forgiveness, get fucked forever" situation. Or maybe just a "yeah, you had your one chance, but now I just don't give a shit about your game anymore, Denuvo or no Denuvo" situation. For what it's worth, the only other game aside from the ones above that I can think of off hand that I still might want to play someday if the Denuvo ever gets removed from it is Hogwarts Legacy.

As for some of the Denuvo-tainted games on PC also being on consoles, though, that's still no guarantee that those games won't be infected with that shit on the consoles as well. The difference is that I've never once heard it disclosed if a console game is infested with this shit, compared to Steam. While even Steam isn't 100% reliable about disclosing it either (e.g. basically any Electronic Arts game on Steam), "sometimes" is still better than "not at all ever." Also, at least as far as I'm aware anyway, there's nothing for consoles similar to the Denvuo Games curator on Steam that tries to catch the cases that don't get officially disclosed, either. It's like the whole "Denuvo is on consoles too" thing is flying under the radar of most people (which is, of course, exactly how Denuvo and the console devs/pubs using Denuvo want it to be). And I'd surmise that this shit is almost certain to be even more prevalent on the future consoles like Switch 2 and PS6 as well. Oh, and X-box apparently uses the horseshit as well, according to Irdeto themselves. I'd only definitely heard about it being on Nintendo and Sony things, up to now, but I did a Google search for "denuvo consoles" just now, and Irdeto's own putrid Denuvo propaganda was the top result. Hell, as far as the Switch goes (and more likely the Switch 2 whenever that comes out), I've been hearing rumblings that they're toying with the idea of implementing the dogshit at more of a platform/console-level rather than just at a per-game level, in order to try to further stymie emulation and the like. Or maybe they've already done it, for all I know. *shrug* I haven't been keeping up with it, because it's too fucking irksome and infuriating and disheartening to even think about. And, again, it was admittedly mostly just rumor-mongering on places like Reddit or whatever. Not that I would put it past Irdeto to be trying to convince console-makers to put their shit on the consoles themselves, as well as the games, mind you.

Basically, we're pretty much fucked six ways to Sunday, on PC or on consoles, no matter what we do (aside from just completely abstaining altogether). It's at least part of the reasons why I'm in no great hurry to get any of the current consoles, let alone any future ones.

[owsf2000]

With regards to consoles I'm less concerned about the drm malware being added to it. I don't use my console for anything but the legally bought gamez for it, so if the malware makes the game run like shit, I'll kick up a fuss with the publisher and the console maker and essentially boycott them for the rest of eternity going foward. Fairly easy solution. Given that there's already heavy DRM on the consoles though, I suspect there's less incentive for publishers to add it to their console games even if it's becoming an option (on the Switch at least.) Also, any problems caused by the malware on consoles will be blamed on the game itself as the publisher won't be able to say "oh no it's just your computer that's underpowered!" since the specs of a console are known.

I'm far more against that shit being used on my general purpose computer. (or even a computer dedicated primarily to games, but also used for other things, like my steamdeck.) On a console, I already assume and pretty much accept I have zero control over it as far it running... well, anything on it. But the console maker had better keep in mind if the games run like shit on their hardware, I'm blaming THEM for it. They're suppose to be quality checking that shit (Even though we know they don't, and haven't even as far back as the 8-bits.)

[kane_magus]

There's still more than just performance issues that are a potential problem with Denuvo-infested games. To restate, any and every game that is infected with that shit (disclosed or not, legally bought or not, PC or console) runs the risk of becoming a worthless coaster at some point in the future, even if it's one of the rare few that runs "perfectly" right now. (And imagine the brouhaha from all the gamers who own a console on which that plague was potentially implemented at the console-level, ifwhen Denuvo/Irdeto eventually does die off for good [*fingers crossed for that happening sooner than later*].)

The only other thing I'll add to what I already said there is that on PC, even for games that never get an official Denuvo-enema, there is, at the very least, still the remote possibility of fan-made patches or cracks being created to flush out the badware contamination[1]. I'm not sure I've ever heard of fanpatches or fancracks being made for console games, though... outside of maybe romhacks on old cartridge games. Well... no... having just said that, I guess emulated ROMs of current games could be tinkered with in the same sort of way... though not if Nintendo or any other company that is interested in killing off "illegal" emulation is actually successful in doing so (perhaps via the use of Denuvo). Of course, I would expect that even that sort of colossal dumbshit would be fan-patched/cracked out of existence eventually, though. But, again, see [1] below.

But of course, clearly, there are far too many sewer pipe guzzlers out there who make it still "worthwhile" enough for the publisher/developers of modern video games to freely ignore anyone like us who refuses to touch this asinine dumbfuckery at all, so they're going to continue to do whatever they want, no matter how anti-consumer it is. Too many people "voting with their wallet" against their own best interests. (So... not unlike actual politics/voting, in that regard, I suppose.)

[1] - Though they're not anything that I am personally interested in using, even if it was for a game I'd already legit bought. Apparently the only person still making Denuvo cracks these days seems to be... um... kind of mentally unstable, to put it somewhat charitably. And that's assuming it literally is actually just the one person and not a team or whatever, which is not for certain, but the public persona is (intentionally or otherwise) portrayed as rather mentally unbalanced, regardless... Basically, what I'm saying here is that I trust the cracker(s) even less than I trust Irdeto/Denuvo, so I'd pretty much prefer to do without, altogether. (Or, you know, I'd prefer to have Irdeto/Denuvo be a thing that doesn't exist at all except as an easily forgotten bad memory, were it an ideal world. Alas.)