Castle Magus

So they're making a new Nier game, huh?[1] Well, that's cool I guess and it has Denuvo.

Nah, I'm just playing around. I knew it was going to have Denuvo before I even scrolled down to confirm that it will have Denuvo. After all, the previous game has Denuvo (EDIT) now removed, thank goodness (/EDIT), and pretty much every other new-ish game Square-Enix publishes has Denuvo, so why the fuck wouldn't this game have Denuvo, too? In any case, Denuvo is why I removed Automata and whatever other Squeenix games from my Steam wishlist, so I'm not going to be expending much future thought on this game here after pressing the "post" button on this, either, much less contaminate my wishlist with it.

As always, to hell with the modern video game industry.

[1] - Well, actually, it's just the original Nier, but "remastered," and the story changed (or reverted?) so that Nier is Yonah's brother instead of her father.

...or, rather, has already happened.

Looks like I've already bought a game that contains Denuvo, without realizing it until now. *weary fucking sigh*

Found out via randomly browsing this curator on Steam (which I now follow), and then when I checked the Life is Strange 2 Steam page itself, sure enough, it is flagged as containing that fucking malware.[1]

Bought it back in May (which means it's far too late to refund now or I would do so) when it was on sale, but before I'd really started more consistently paying attention to this shit. God fucking damn it. Well, I guess I'll just be marking it as a new category of "CONTAINS DENUVO DO NOT INSTALL" in the Steam client itself, as well as hiding it. Fucking hell.

Oh well, I never got much past the first episode of the original Life is Strange anyway, so it would have been a while, if ever, before I got to Life is Strange 2 (not that that really matters, since apparently the second game has little to do with the first one). And now, I'll never be getting to Life is Strange 2, at least not while it contains the Denuvo malware. Hell, this even makes me not want to ever try to replay the first game or its follow-up (which I also own on Steam but haven't played yet, due to not having finished the original) now, either, even though those don't contain the malware Denuvo. (EDIT 2) No, wait, Before the Storm apparently used to have Denuvo in it, so I can't really trust it either, now. Jesus Christ. (/EDIT 2)

(EDIT) And, fucking goddamn it, even Captain Spirit contains Denvuo, even though that was a fucking free game intended as a promo for Life is Strange 2. Glad I never got around to playing it, either. Seriously... malware DRM in a fucking free game. Fucking why?! (/EDIT)

(EDIT 3) Looks like Yakuza 0 is "no longer using Denuvo," as well, and I'd played the hell out of that a year ago or so. I have to wonder now if it had the malware in it when I was playing it, though I'm pretty sure it had already been (ostensibly) removed by that point, but still... I really wish I'd been paying more attention to this kind of shit back then. (/EDIT 3)

(EDIT 4) No, wait, found another fucking one that I'd already bought a while back (but fortunately haven't tried to play yet). What a fuckload of shit. So that's another one for the new "CONTAINS DENUVO DO NOT INSTALL" category. (/EDIT 4)

To fucking hell forever with the modern video game industry.

[1] - And I don't give a fuck how many times it's claimed that Denuvo isn't malware by reputation management drones or trolls or game developers or other such asshats, it's fucking malware. Just because it is supposedly a "sanctioned" malware, i.e. "signed drivers" or what the fuck ever, doesn't mean it's not still fucking malware. All that means is that Denuvo has enough sway in the industry to become "sanctioned," because developers love it (at the expense of the actual user/purchaser of the developers' product, but then, anti-consumer bullshit has become part and parcel of the modern video game industry, so fucking *SHRUG* I guess).

So I'm looking at my Discovery Queue today, and I see a game, and I'm like why is it showing me this, and I scroll down and Steam tells me:

"Includes tags you've filtered out:
Massively Multiplayer"

Um, okay, so if I've filtered out the "Massively Multiplayer" tag, then... why the fuck are you showing me games that have that tag? Fucking hell, this isn't rocket science, or at least it shouldn't be.

(EDIT) And after that, yet another hentai game from another developer/publisher that I already previously Ignored as well. What's the point of even having Ignore filters, if Steam itself is going to ignore the Ignore filters? (/EDIT)

It is utterly asinine, especially if your first fucking screenshot is just going to be literally "REEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

The creators of this game and games like it are garbage humans. That is all.

I've combed through my Steam Wishlist and deleted every game that Steam claims contains Denuvo.

Here is the list of games that I have removed from my Steam Wishlist (in the order they had been on the list [EDIT 3] Also reformatted into a proper unordered list now. [/EDIT 3]):

• Dragon Quest XI
• Rise of the Tomb Raider (EDIT 3) Not sure about this one or the one below, because supposedly the Denuvo has been removed [to be replaced with the just as terrible "Epic Online Services" or whatever the fuck], but the Steam store page still shows the Denuvo warning for both, so I'm still not going to strikethrough these yet. (/EDIT 3)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (EDIT 3) See line above. (/EDIT 3)
• Nier Automata
• Tales of Berseria
• Far Cry Primal
• Far Cry 5
• Monster Hunter World (Not sure why this one was still on there, since I knew it had Denuvo long ago. [EDIT 2] Oh, and hey, they finally took the malware out of it. [/EDIT 2])
• Star Ocean - The Last Hope
• Injustice 2
• Mortal Kombat 11
• Final Fantasy XV
• Jurassic World Evolution (EDIT 3) See also the sequel. (/EDIT 3)
• Valkyria Chronicles 4 (Not sure why this one was still on there, since I knew it had Denuvo long ago.)
• Borderlands 3
• Resident Evil 3
• Marvel's Avengers
• Death Stranding (EDIT 3) Though I've since had other problems with this game, even if they did wise up and remove the malware. Just to note, this is the first game on this list that I've bought since the strikethrough was added, even though I still can't play it, for the above-mentioned reasons. (/EDIT 3)
• Drone Swarm

(EDIT) I will go back occasionally and put a strikethrough on the games on this list that I've noticed have removed the malware. That said, it's still not very likely that I'll ever buy any of these games, regardless. At most, I may re-add them to my wishlist and maybe buy them if I ever see them on some ridiculous <$10 sale, possibly. (/EDIT)

Most of those are like, meh, whatever... but a few of those were games I had been really looking forward to, so it stung a bit to have to remove them.

This list does not include games that I had already previously removed or had never added in the first place (or, rather, had added only very briefly before immediately removing again).

This also doesn't (yet) include any potential games that contain/will contain Denuvo but for which the developer/publisher are hoping to hide that fact by not listing it on the Steam page.

(EDIT 3, Jan 23, 2023) It looks like all of those asinine 2GenPro games have been removed from Steam. And nothing of value was lost. (/EDIT 3)

So, apparently because I've played Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 4, Steam (wrongly) assumed that I would be interested in this piece of shit, via the Discovery Queue.

No, Steam. Just no.

I've also gone ahead and marked as Ignore every other shitty "game" made by this "developer/publisher."

I don't know why, maybe I'm just in exactly the right (or, perhaps more accurately, wrong) mood at this particular moment, but the existence of this dumbfuckery is actively pissing me off right now, rather than just the "meh" I usually feel when I see garbage like that show up in my Discovery Queue. Hell, I'd rather see one of the blatantly pornographic/hentai visual novels/RPGMaker games show up in my queue (like they typically do at least once per queue, even though I mark every single one of those as Ignore when they show up as well [EDIT] one of which, of fucking course, obviously, was the very next thing I saw when I pressed "Next in Queue," recommended, apparently, because I've played Yakuza 0 and South Park: The Fractured But Whole... *weary sigh* [/EDIT]) than trash like the above. (EDIT 2) And Jesus fucking Christ, the next thing, after the hentai game, was yet another piece of shit, this time recommended as being "similar to" Stardew Valley and Slime Rancher. Fucking what. God fucking damn it, Steam, are you smoking crack today or something? (/EDIT 2)

That, and I'm also sick and tired to the point of rage at seeing that asinine goddamned "Karen" meme everywhere, too. (Thought I'd posted about this before, but I'm not seeing it now if I did.)

"Epic Games has sued Apple after Fortnite was removed from the app store. What is going on?!"

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Pat and Ian seem to be siding more with Epic against Apple (and also Google now, apparently), and I can see their angle on it, but I still don't care. If this somehow ended up with Apple and Epic mutually dead, as unlikely as that is, I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep.

Speaking of Leisure Suit Larry, I happened upon this Medium article just now, and it's pretty great.

Honestly, because of playing through WDDD and reading the above, I think I kind of want to put all my other gaming to the side for a time and just replay all the Larry games over the next week or two or however long. (Well, except for Magna Cum Laude and Box Office Bust. I can safely give those a pass. Well... actually... I don't know... I might even give MCL another playthrough, who knows. But I definitely won't touch Box Office Bust with a ten foot pole.)

(EDIT) Meh... for some reason, I thought I had already (re)bought all the old Larry games on Steam and/or GOG years ago, but apparently I only (re)bought the King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, and Quest for Glory collections on Steam. Not sure why I didn't buy the Larry collection at the same time, but in order to play them now, I'd either have to buy them again now or else go on an archaeological expedition to find the shipping box from WA containing my original CD copies of the Larry games collection (and LSL7, which wasn't part of the collection), and since I'm probably not going to do either of those right now, I guess that whole idea is out. (/EDIT)

Middle-earth: Shadow of War on Steam for $9.99 (or $11.99 for the actual full game)? That's pretty good.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War still has Denuvo? Eh, nope, continue to fuck off forever.

The first game was pretty cool, but I don't care about it enough that I'm going to buy the sequel with Denuvo.

"Do you think video games are a waste of time? Who would win in the Octagon: Joe Rogan or Ninja?!"

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"Is Joe Rogan wrong about video games?"

Before watching the video: Of course, Joe Rogan is full of shit, just like he almost always is.

After watching the video: Of course, Joe Rogan is full of shit, just like he almost always is. From most everything I have seen and heard from and about Joe Rogan, he essentially seems to be the epitome of the assholeishness that I see as being almost inextricably intertwined in the natures of people who self-describe as "libertarian" or "free-thinking," or who at least seem to have those tendencies. Also, I don't give a flying fuck about whoever that "Ninja" guy is, either, since he's apparently just some (fak)e-sports "athlete" or whatever horseshit, who has gotten way too big for his britches (not unlike Rogan himself).

Basically, Ian's words are pretty much my own on this one, as is the case roughly 80% of the time in these CUPodcast snippets, and Ian checked out of the conversation at almost exactly the same point that I did.

Pat was once again being too weirdly charitable/diplomatic, as he often tends to be, especially concerning Rogan. On the one hand, I will give Rogan credit for, as Pat noted, apparently "DESTROYING" Ben Shapiro (or "cucking for Kaepernick" as alt-right asshats claimed it to be, and when you're being called a "cuck" by alt-right shitstains on the underwear of humanity, you're most likely doing something right, at least in that particular instance). On the other hand, I will take that credit away again, due to the fact that Joe Rogan has assholes like Ben Shapiro on his show in the first place, mainly due to Rogan seeming to be really into that Intellectual Dark Web dumbfuckery. As Ian said: "He engages with shitty people in good faith. I have no fucking time for that. None."

Of course, there were the several times Pat repeated what should be blatantly obvious common sense: play video games for leisure, don't play them with the sole expectation that you're going to somehow make money from them, because those who can successfully turn playing video games into making money are few and far between.