Monday, October 14th 2024
Quick Denuvo DRM Cracks Cost Game Publishers 20% in Revenue, According to Study
According to a study by William M. Volckmann II from the University of North Carolina, we have received an insight into the financial consequences of digital rights management (DRM) breaches in the PC gaming industry. The research, titled "The Revenue Effects of Denuvo Digital Rights Management on PC Video Games," offers valuable insights into the relationship between piracy and game sales. The study's most striking finding reveals that when Denuvo, a popular anti-piracy technology, is quickly compromised, game publishers face an average revenue decline of 20%. Interestingly, the research suggests that long-term DRM implementation may be unnecessary. Volckmann's analysis indicates that games cracked after the first three months of release or those from which publishers voluntarily removed DRM protection after this period experienced negligible revenue loss.
The study also explored potential predictors for quick DRM breaches but found no conclusive indicators based on game characteristics. This unpredictability poses a challenge for publishers in assessing the risk of piracy for individual titles. Volckmann acknowledges gamers' concerns about DRM's technical drawbacks, recommending that publishers consider removing such protections after the critical initial three-month window. This approach could balance piracy prevention with user experience optimization. The findings present a compelling case for publishers to reconsider their DRM strategies. While protecting games during the launch period remains crucial, extended DRM usage may offer diminishing returns.
Source:
via Tom's Hardware
The study also explored potential predictors for quick DRM breaches but found no conclusive indicators based on game characteristics. This unpredictability poses a challenge for publishers in assessing the risk of piracy for individual titles. Volckmann acknowledges gamers' concerns about DRM's technical drawbacks, recommending that publishers consider removing such protections after the critical initial three-month window. This approach could balance piracy prevention with user experience optimization. The findings present a compelling case for publishers to reconsider their DRM strategies. While protecting games during the launch period remains crucial, extended DRM usage may offer diminishing returns.
136 Comments on Quick Denuvo DRM Cracks Cost Game Publishers 20% in Revenue, According to Study
so what, drm free games are losing 40% revenue then? they must be really dumb right, oh btw and my 40% figure is accurate, independantly of how good or bad the game is they are losing 40% of renevue cause they didnt buy denuvo protection
just seems to me like someone got paid to paint a very specific picture, there is so many variables you cant just say denuvo cracks is costing money to companies when the fact that using denuvo is also costing them money cause people despise it.
I love how the study can measure a multidimensional world here.
I don't think the study's conclusions in isolation are wrong. But they are wrong when applied to support the thesis that this somehow helps the bottom line of publishers. The study is simply incapable of measuring that, because the game didn't get released both with and without Denuvo, nor with and without a cracked Denuvo, at the same time.
Its really that simple.
And then there's this little nugget:
The bottom part of this says about games in layman's terms: 'good games sell anyway'. Even if you got it illegally, if you keep playing, you'll start paying. This relates strongly to emotional and ethical effects: it just doesn't feel right not to pay for something that you really like. You'll also consider that if you want more of it, you need to fund it. And the latter is the exact reason we have such a vibrant indie industry now. Its all purely based on goodwill and those studios barely even consider Denuvo, its far more profitable to get community support.
These games are most probably AAA games and have indeed lots to lose from piracy, because they are the top dogs.
On the other hand, fairly unknown, underdog and 'challenger' games would probably benefit from piracy, as a way to make their games known to a wider audience.
DRM, having always an active internet connection to run a game, windows only, no offline installer, not easy payment method, steam store are my main motivation to not buy any games.
One of the free AMD games I played had denuvo. The game constantly crashed and the graphic experience was low value in January 2024.
Star wars Jedi survivor: steamcommunity.com/app/1774580/discussions/0/4753075133423155267/
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All those studies are only valid for the database. My gaming is not in those statistics. I'm not a steam gamer. I do not always played on microsoft windows or microsoft device operating system in past 35 years of pc gaming.Many Gog titles have no drm.
I read sometimes that they have some garbage in them. I do not know which title. I read it on several games in the past.
-- In the past I paid for many games. I got a CD-Case or a floppy disk / with some paper and a nice box. A digital temporary license give me nothing to look at. I still have my old cds and I sometimes look at them.
-- Well my suggestion. A decent quality usb stick with 20 - 50 pages in paper in a nice box. All offline executeable. As Windows is not my main Operating system for a long time there is another big reason to not buy any game. Some Windows Games are not executable anymore.
You can get games during sales, there are sales on Steam every 2-3 months. My experience is that newly released game is sometimes so buggy that it is barely playable. A good question is why such bugged title was released at first place - in other words - why people have to pay for bugs, what the hell is quality assurance dept. there for. Having legal access to games on platforms like Steam will keep your games updated and that means playable (sometimes).
You may think that newest titles simply deserve to be pirated, as they tend to be bug-filled. Piracy as a punishment for developers. There are other reasons for piracy, too. Demos are no longer being published, gamers are actually buying a cat in the sack today as they can't try the game first. This specifically applies to goddamn microtransaction king Ubisoft. After having wonderful time with Far Cry 5 which I bought on sale for less than $15, I decided to buy Far Cry 6 just a month after release. Since then, I'm not buying games at the time of release and will wait until they are at reasonable price for what they offer. Far Cry 6 is a terrible arcade-like mess. Compared to FC5 it is even more hardware demanding game even with RT turned off, although I really can't see why. Maybe I'm blinded but FC6 looks way way worse than FC5 (clarity, level of detail, environment design), just take a look at water physics and you'll see. I am able to understand raising trends of piracy with newest titles, because gamers are often disappointed, meaning game experience and trailer/news differ dramatically.
That does not apply to Gen Z gamers, they will pay for any P'o'S (e.g. Battlefield 2042).
Ubisoft deserves to be pirated, that's for sure. EA too. I stopped being a pirate due to mentioned reason regarding updates.
1- It's based on self-report surveys.
2- The 24% figure has a 22% standard error (so real value could be 2% for all you know).
3- The explanation the authors guessed(?) tell a different story to what you're getting at. To quote: "This positive effect of illegal downloads and streams on the sales of games may be explained by the industry being successful in converting illegal users to paying user." In other words, it could be used as a proof against the claim that those who pirate weren't going to pay to begin with (if you were willing to look past that this is, again, a guess).
(I say guess because my attention span ain't long enough to go through 10 pages atm, leave 307. :|)Again: No data, no analyses = opinions.
I'm inclined to agree to the bolded part tho. As a matter of fact, the study silentbogo cited sings a similar tune. To quote:
"When interpreting the estimates, it needs to be kept in mind that the estimated effects are averages. In particular, there is a difference between people illegally downloading or streaming large and small numbers of creative content. If the sample is restricted to people with large numbers of illegal transactions (above 100 tracks for music and above 20 transactions for films/TV-series, books and games respectively), zero displacement rates can be concluded for any model specification"
Do, however, keep in mind that serial pirates are not the average pirate. And that anecdotal evidence is no evidence.
Pirating doesn't cost publishers a damn thing, because I can guarantee that 99% of people who pirate games would still not buy those games even if pirating wasn't an option.
I hope no offensive taken.
1)
www.gog.com/forum/general/no_mans_sky_isnt_fully_drmfree
2)
Same issues which annoys me with epic game store. Some game crash here when they have no active internet connection
It's up to discussion if another software is drm or not. in my point of view the software had some sort of constraint.
reddit
3)
reddit 2
I just hope they'd mostly keep their mission statement and stay available, unlike most other DRM-free storefronts of the 2010s.I would not go so far as that.
If a game is freely installable and playable air-gapped offline minus the online features, it is DRM free in my book.
what often happens is that games start dropping price and people are more willing to be paying customers, but it is definitely correlated with piracy and probably not easy to make statistics on it.
maybe this is an idiotic idea but i think studios should start focusing more on obtaining reliable statistics instead of obsessing on stopping people from playing the game because the unequivocal fact is that when a product is good it also sells independently of drm. personally and i think most people would say yes if they were presented with the option of choosing whether they want to provide anonymous statistical data to the developer when pirating, but probably also paying customers to some extent
i think there is so much potential in this, and yeah im aware its definitely already kind of a thing, i just dont think being valued. i would argue that its kinda already being proven, windows is technically a paid product but its virtually avaliable for free (genuine activations) and microsoft knows about it and microsoft doesnt seem to care, "MAS" has been on github for many years and there never been a problem. this would be again a whole other story with lots of influencing factors.
If buying is not owning, piracy is not stealing and is morally justified. At least this slowly changes, both in law and in people's minds.
This is what makes me sceptical about the study's result, 20% sales when a game is not cracked within 12 weeks?
I cannot imagine the group that would buy a game close to launch if it is not cracked. But otherwise would not is large enough to account for 20% revenue loss.
We are only talking about a subset of pirates, so either that subset has to be really large or the majority of players would have to be pirates. I don't think either is true.
According to pc gamer 35% of the surveyed pirate,
www.pcgamer.com/pc-piracy-survey-results-35-percent-of-pc-gamers-pirate/2/
According to kommandotech 21% pirate games
kommandotech.com/statistics/software-piracy-statistics/
If these studies are true, a majority of these would be buying the game if it's not cracked I high doubt that.
Alternatively statistics may be scewed towards drm protected single player games in that study being more popular among pirates but even then it would be a stretch.
Shame the original study is not easily accessable.
So please stop with that nonsense.Except that the conclusions of that article are without merit.
So, if pirates are aimed by Denuvo's implementation, that's not about money but just to try to stop them (pirates) being able to play, at which cost, 20% ?
DRM protection looks empty of sense, since games cracked work and are downloaded by guys that won't buy anything anyway.
There's also not a single study that takes into account a difference in behavior in two situations: a game has a gameplay demo/time trial, or no demo is available. Cause I'm sure most of the so-called pirates download illicit copies of the game just to "try it out", and later convert to a purchase if the game is good.
Not advocating for piracy, but given a recent trend of not only cutting demos out of equation, but also delaying proper reviews and using NDAs and strict "review guidelines" to enforce it, no wonder gamers look for "alternative" sources instead of taking devs and publishers at their word (or paid gaming media outlets giving 11/10 bestgameeva-a-a to every cookie-cutter open-world piece of crap that comes out every month)
I wanted to buy and play SW Outlaws, on first week.
But Region lock saved me from doing this.
During 1st week I saw game reviews and vids, and figure out that the game is garbage and changed my mind not to buy the game at all.
So this DRM is kinda had an effect on me for the first week.
But 1 week later I decided that game is crap and its no longer relevant if game has cracked version or not.
So I wonder, how DRM effects on Good games, not on typical AAA and AAAA games.