'It even breaks my heart a bit': Denuvo pushes back on its haters, says Steam forums are a 'very toxic, very hostile environment'

A lock and keys.
(Image credit: Alengo via Getty Images)

Not everyone thinks Denuvo DRM is a crime against PC gaming, but you'd probably struggle to find a PC gamer who says they like the anti-piracy software. And why should they? If it works properly, the only people who should notice the existence of Denuvo DRM are the software pirates trying to crack it. Everyone else is free to hate it—because they think it hurts performance, or just because they don't like DRM—or have no feelings about it at all.

That's been the status quo for a long time, but Denuvo is finally pushing back on gamers who characterize it as the Lex Luthor of PC gaming, and says that not only should we not hate it, we should appreciate Denuvo DRM for the good it does for game developers.

"It even breaks my heart a bit to see how our solutions, especially the anti-piracy solution, are picked up by the community," Denuvo product manager Andreas Ullmann told me earlier this year at the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco. "Because I think it's not fully understood the benefits that our solution can bring, because preventing piracy, you earn more through your game, which is then reinvested into making greater games. I don't have any proof for it, but probably, if our solution does not exist, maybe there are some great games that never get developed."

I had been talking to Ullmann about a new security measure Denuvo is offering for pre-release game builds—interesting, but not very relevant to the typical PC gamer—and sorted the comment away in my mental file of interesting threads to follow up on. As it turns out, that comment foreshadowed a new effort by Denuvo to bring PC gamers over to its side, which kicked off with a Discord server last week (it didn't go well) and an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun this week, in which Ullmann expanded on his personal quest to improve Denuvo's rep.

In the RPS interview, Ullmann describes the Steam forums as a "very toxic, very hostile environment" and says that Denuvo no longer wants to let the crowd make claims about its software unchecked. The company has been adamant that its DRM does not hurt game performance, except in rare cases such as Tekken 7, where the problem was due to an error. (Our results have lost relevance because of their age, but when Durante tested Final Fantasy 15 performance for us with and without Denuvo DRM in 2018, we found no difference.)

On why Denuvo has such a negative reputation if it doesn't hurt performance, Ullmann told RPS that it's in part because it "simply works" and would-be pirates are trying to make it unattractive to game publishers by disparaging it.

"Pirates cannot play games which are using our solution over quite long time periods, usually until the publisher decides to patch out our solution," he said. "So there is a huge community, a lot of people on this planet who are not able to play their favorite videogames, because they are not willing to pay for them, and therefore they have a lot of time to spend in communities and share their view and try to blame Denuvo for a lot of things—trying to make the gaming publishers to not use our solutions so they can start playing pirate copies of games for free again."

The other reason, Ullmann thinks, is that there just isn't a clear reason for gamers to like Denuvo: All they know is that it's a tool big publishers use to combat piracy so they can make more money. But he argues that with today's giant budgets, a 20% loss of launch revenue—which is what a recent study claims Denuvo DRM protects—is a significant setback.

In the RPS interview, Ullmann also discusses why Denuvo hasn't debunked performance claims with its own testing—the short answer is that it would need permission from its clients, no one would believe it anyway, and there has been some independent testing already (he pointed to our own Final Fantasy 15 test as one example).

As for why he wants to change the perception of Denuvo now, Ullmann reiterated what he told me back in March: Aside from the obvious goal of attracting more business, it's personal.

"I'm with the company for such a long time," said Ullmann. "The guys here are like my family, because a lot of the others here are also here for ages. It just hurts to see what's posted out there about us, even though it has been claimed wrong for hundreds of times."

Today, publishers who use Denuvo often employ it during the critical launch period, and then remove it later with a patch. The upcoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard will somewhat surprisingly not use Denuvo at all, although EA says that it won't offer preloading as a result.

Tyler Wilde
Editor-in-Chief, US

Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.

Read more
Final Fantasy 16
Final Fantasy 16 is the latest game to be freed from the shackles of Denuvo, though its 7-year-old predecessor still remains in DRM jail
Geralt thumbs up
2024 was the year gamers really started pushing back on the erosion of game ownership
A screenshot from the PC version of Avowed, from Xbox Games Studios
Unreal Engine often gets flak for games running poorly or stuttering, but as Avowed demonstrates, it's really about how devs use it and the pressures of time
Mark Darrah
BioWare veteran calls out the 'cruelty' of fans celebrating layoffs: 'You are crossing a line, and you're probably attacking the wrong person anyway'
sniper elite 5 cover
Sniper Elite CEO reckons Swen Vincke is right to snarl at short-sighted publishers: 'You could argue that their business at senior level isn't making games… their business is managing their shareholders' perceptions'
Aloy
Sony gets people scratching their heads after region-locking purchases of Horizon Forbidden West, 10 entire months after its initial release
Latest in Gaming Headsets
The Corsair HS65, a wired gaming headset in white and grey, floats in a teal void.
Corsair's HS65 gaming headset is the successor to my fav budget set of cans, and for just $50 it may well convince me to upgrade
The Razer Barracuda X Chroma wireless gaming headset with a colorful finish on a chair.
Razer Barracuda X Chroma review
Audeze Maxwell gaming headset on a blue background
The Audeze Maxwell wireless gaming headset has hit its lowest-ever price and we can't recommend it highly enough
SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 red gaming headset on a blue background
I use this SteelSeries wireless gaming headset for work every day and it has just hit its lowest-ever price at $70 off
The OXS Storm G2 gaming headset on a black table
OXS Storm G2 review
The XPG Precog wired gaming headset on a neutral carpeted background.
XPG Precog Studio gaming headset review
Latest in News
The TikTok app with Donald Trump ranting behind it.
Trump says the United States is already talking to potential TikTok buyers: 'We're dealing with four different groups, and a lot of people want it ... all four are good'
Corsair launches Custom Labs in Europe
Corsair's Custom Labs is now available in Europe, allowing you to make your gear as cute or ugly as you want and no-one will stop you
A masked man with an axe in the woods
Rebellion CEO seems kind of awed by major studios making massive videogames: 'How do you organize a game that has 2,000 people working on it?'
A young witch watering a smiling mushroom in a magic garden
Here's a roguelite dungeon crawler Steam reviewers call 'a botanical Diablo' and 'like Cult of the Lamb' except you manage a mystical garden
Destiny 2 Rite of the Nine: The Emissary, massive, ominously standing at the edge of a water basin.
Oops! Bungie rolled out Destiny 2's Rite of the Nine event three weeks early, and new loot is already dropping
Chatacabra from Monster Hunter Wilds
The latest Monster Hunter Wilds event quest gives piles of Armor Spheres for hunting a Chatacabra, making this a very bad week to be a frog in the Forbidden Lands