anxious_f0x:

Is there actually any hard evidence proving that Denuvo causes increased CPU load? Or is it one of those things that people decided to blame because of some poorly coded DX11 game running badly on PC? Feel free to link me to some tests or something.

There was an article a while back that provided some reasoning behind why the DRM was likely to blame. Ubisoft denied it, of course, but didn't provide any evidence to the contrary.

mikev190:

Think its an average of 3-5 days till it appears in your bank account

That't not so bad. I thought you'd say weeks 🙂

Netherwind:

Now, we don't have any statistics but I'm fairly sure that your situation isn't exactly common. I assume that a lot of pirates simply don't have the money to buy the game, maybe cause their parents prefer to buy alcohol for all the money, or just other reasons. Others assume that everything on the internet should be free and pirate due to principle. And some, like you, want to try the game before buying it. I actually did it myself a couple of times back in the days. I believe more in services like Steam who has this refund policy. You buy and try, if you are not content, you get your money back. This is better than Origin Access which costs money but since Origin is so crazy cheap, I assume it's OK. I hope more of the big publishers start using this practice since it saves money for the developers who don't have to create a specific demo for a game (probably costs a lot of money). Instead us customers can try the whole package and refund if we don't like it for some reason.

Well either way, if they don't have the money they're not going to buy it so it's a lost customer anyway. However, I forgot about Steam refunds; that actually makes for a good way of trying out games, valid point. Origin Access is not so bad either, what's bad about it however is their bullshit strategy. When you sign up for it it's (or at least used to be, not sure now) automatically set to renew every month. That's one of the main reasons EA has lost me as a customer forever. I paid more than half a year for Access without even knowing, and I was careful about renewal when I signed up; nothing was mentioned but I guess a freaking EULA is a bulletproof way of making sure you get away with it since few read it (myself included). And you know what? It's not about the lost money, $5/month is not a great amount of money. It's about the games I could have tried and about the idea of screwing people over. PLUS: every damn subscription I've ever had e-mailed me the invoice every time it was renewed. Not Origin Access. Because fck EA.

cryohellinc:

False. There is a whole plethora of statistics and researches made on this subject that speak the contrary. According to your logic, websites such as GOG should have went bust years ago, instead they grow and only get more popular. By modern standards each one of you here is a pirate, and in more than one way, however that doesn't stop people from buying games . I don't buy every game out there, neither do I play every game out there. My steam library is massive over the years, same goes for my GOG library. However the DISGUSTING recent trend of releasing half baked crap games (which includes AAA+ titles, majority of early access e.t.c.) and hoping that people jump on them and eat them while hot is not leading industry into the right direction. Back in the day we had Demo versions of games for a purpose - to Try/Test out a Product. Now for the most part term Demo is extinct. Which results in people first Pirating something to Try it out, only after they buy it. Normal Logic. You don't buy a car without test driving it, first you give it a try, you like it, only afterwards you Buy it. Not the other way around. Make good solid games, release demos for them, use Client oriented practices and people will Buy your Stuff.

I've never heard of such statistics, would you care sharing? I'm genuinely interested. And on the contrary, according to my logic platforms such as GOG should have grown; and they have. People don't like DRM, it's natural that a platform which sells games light on DRM will be successful. About the demos, Netherwind mentioned refunds which is a good way to try out games if you think about it; even though I'd argue they're a more inconvenient than a demo since you're going through the trouble of paying first and the potential waiting period for the refund. Transposing this into your car example, you don't buy a car and they get a refund if you don't like it. You try it out first. But I agree, that absolutely does not excuse publishers from releasing half-assed games just because some people like the title and instabuy no matter what.

asturur:

@xIcarus that is just wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Just wait a sale and buy it, if you can't afford it for any normal reason, ask someone to borrow you the game or just skip it.

If you borrow the game from someone it's exactly the same thing as pirating, but on a lower scale. Someone is giving you access to a game you didn't pay for. In piracy, that's the crack publisher. In your example, that's your friend. The end result is that you're playing a game without paying in both of these scenarios. The fact that a crack publisher gives you the game instead of your friend is simply not a relevant distinction.

asturur:

I agree that the point is just that game pirating is not punished in any way. As always the stupid comparing, but is true, is that you would steal a car with this way of thinking if no one could see/punish you, and at the end when you used it, you would go back and say `it was usefull, now i have the money, i would like to pay for it` this is not accepted from our society yet. Creating a good game takes time and money and investments, if you want to use it , enjoy it, you have to pay back the time that people spent over it. Same is for movies / music and all the things that you can create a digital copy of it. On the other side there are tons of free to play games around, just use those. .

Yes, but as pointed out by cryohellinc it's not that black and white. You can go to the dealer/seller and ask for a test drive when you wanna buy a car, don't you? That's a demo. We don't have them anymore. Our only legal way of having a demo is to buy the car and then refund it if you don't like it. Is that acceptable in a normal society? No, that's not either. And that's the thing, I want to pay people back for their effort. I just don't trust them. Imagine if the guy you're buying a car from has a history of selling bad cars, cars which seem ok at first glance but a lot of stuff isn't actually working well when you drive it. Would you buy a car from that guy? That's exactly what EA is doing. See, it's not that simple. A middle ground needs to be reached, and we aren't there yet.

i do not think borrowing a game to a friend is pirating. WHen you have it, he cannot play it. that's it.

xIcarus:

Well either way, if they don't have the money they're not going to buy it so it's a lost customer anyway. However, I forgot about Steam refunds; that actually makes for a good way of trying out games, valid point. Origin Access is not so bad either, what's bad about it however is their bullshit strategy. When you sign up for it it's (or at least used to be, not sure now) automatically set to renew every month. That's one of the main reasons EA has lost me as a customer forever. I paid more than half a year for Access without even knowing, and I was careful about renewal when I signed up; nothing was mentioned but I guess a freaking EULA is a bulletproof way of making sure you get away with it since few read it (myself included). And you know what? It's not about the lost money, $5/month is not a great amount of money. It's about the games I could have tried and about the idea of screwing people over. PLUS: every damn subscription I've ever had e-mailed me the invoice every time it was renewed. Not Origin Access. Because fck EA. I've never heard of such statistics, would you care sharing? I'm genuinely interested. And on the contrary, according to my logic platforms such as GOG should have grown; and they have. People don't like DRM, it's natural that a platform which sells games light on DRM will be successful. About the demos, Netherwind mentioned refunds which is a good way to try out games if you think about it; even though I'd argue they're a more inconvenient than a demo since you're going through the trouble of paying first and the potential waiting period for the refund. Transposing this into your car example, you don't buy a car and they get a refund if you don't like it. You try it out first. But I agree, that absolutely does not excuse publishers from releasing half-assed games just because some people like the title and instabuy no matter what. If you borrow the game from someone it's exactly the same thing as pirating, but on a lower scale. Someone is giving you access to a game you didn't pay for. In piracy, that's the crack publisher. In your example, that's your friend. The end result is that you're playing a game without paying in both of these scenarios. The fact that a crack publisher gives you the game instead of your friend is simply not a relevant distinction. Yes, but as pointed out by cryohellinc it's not that black and white. You can go to the dealer/seller and ask for a test drive when you wanna buy a car, don't you? That's a demo. We don't have them anymore. Our only legal way of having a demo is to buy the car and then refund it if you don't like it. Is that acceptable in a normal society? No, that's not either. And that's the thing, I want to pay people back for their effort. I just don't trust them. Imagine if the guy you're buying a car from has a history of selling bad cars, cars which seem ok at first glance but a lot of stuff isn't actually working well when you drive it. Would you buy a car from that guy? That's exactly what EA is doing. See, it's not that simple. A middle ground needs to be reached, and we aren't there yet.

Dig in, there a lot on Google. https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537 https://twitter.com/Senficon/status/910483224731820033/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgizmodo.com%2Fajax%2Finset%2Fiframe%3Fid%3Dtwitter-910483224731820033%26autosize%3D1 https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/13/does-online-piracy-help-boost-sales.aspx If you speak Russian I can give you even more Russia based studies.

cryohellinc:

Dig in, there a lot on Google. https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537 https://twitter.com/Senficon/status/910483224731820033/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw&ref_url=https://gizmodo.com/ajax/inset/iframe?id=twitter-910483224731820033&autosize=1 https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/13/does-online-piracy-help-boost-sales.aspx If you speak Russian I can give you even more Russia based studies.

But also there is a problem with price and tax... music and movies have seen their price fall down once online, it's more easy to accept to pay 0.99 Euro for a single than 5 Euro for the same thing on single CD, or 5 Euro for a VOD movie, than 15 Euro for a sit at cinema (even worse with big family). Personaly, i wouldn't get AC: Origin at 80 Euro, hopefully we have changed the HDD of the server for Seagate and get AC:Origin for free as bundled with each HDD... as AC:Origin is useless for work we have kept the code for us 🙂 And no the DRM doesn't feel so hungry

asturur:

i do not think borrowing a game to a friend is pirating. WHen you have it, he cannot play it. that's it.

And also they dont lie to you, it's in the licence of most company: -borrow game is forbiden -2nd hand game is forbiden etc etc... what is not cool at all it's what EA have made with hardware change limit...

drwoodcomb:

Steam as well as most other online game distribution platforms allow you to return a game if you dont like it.

You can't do this every time. If you treat the refund system as a way to demo games and do it all the time, you are going to get banned from future refunds.

cryohellinc:

Dig in, there a lot on Google. https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537 https://twitter.com/Senficon/status/910483224731820033/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw&ref_url=https://gizmodo.com/ajax/inset/iframe?id=twitter-910483224731820033&autosize=1 https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/13/does-online-piracy-help-boost-sales.aspx If you speak Russian I can give you even more Russia based studies.

I'm confused. I said that piracy is not so bad; those studies you posted support what I was saying, I've even seen them before and they're the reason I have this view about piracy. Yet you said I was wrong. Did you change your mind or did I miss something?

drwoodcomb:

I dont pirate games and I'm not here to judge but for you to say that the only reason you pirated Witcher 3 was because you wanted to try it out seems like a pretty ridiculous excuse. Steam as well as most other online game distribution platforms allow you to return a game if you dont like it. Its nice that you decided to support them after playing it but why was it necessary for you to pirate the game in order to try it out?

Like RealNC said, I'd rather not abuse the refund system as I can get banned from it. And I'm going to repeat this for the 3rd time, as long as we don't have a real way of trying out the product before buying I'm always going to pirate if I'm unsure about a game. I have the feeling people here have preconceptions against piracy. It's not even remotely as bad as you people seem to think. I hate to say this but I think big corporations have been successful in their mad rants against piracy and about how much money it's supposedly making them lose. Just gaze over the articles cryohellinc posted. I'm very surprised that as consumers, you're worried about corporations losing money. Or rather, inflating their own asses about how much money they're losing.

xIcarus:

I'm confused. I said that piracy is not so bad; those studies you posted support what I was saying, I've even seen them before and they're the reason I have this view about piracy. Yet you said I was wrong. Did you change your mind or did I miss something?

You asked for statistics, there they are. Stop confusing yourself. 😎

cryohellinc:

You asked for statistics, there they are. Stop confusing yourself. 😎

Let me remind you what you wrote.

cryohellinc:

False. There is a whole plethora of statistics and researches made on this subject that speak the contrary.

None of your statistics support that.

xIcarus:

Let me remind you what you wrote.

No need, I know what I wrote. Seems like you just want to pointlessly banter.

xIcarus:

None of your statistics support that.

They do, as I mentioned earlier, dig in yourself and do the research.

Say what now? I dug into the subject even before asking you for statistics, on your recommendation. The reason I asked you to post them is because I couldn't find anything that proved me wrong. You on the other hand said I'm wrong and posted something which proves me right; and now it's up to me to prove myself wrong? If you have evidence that proves me wrong, go right ahead and post it because so far your claim has 0 substance. All you did was beat around the bush. Your accusation about pointless banter is also ironic since you're avoiding to back up your claims.

xIcarus:

Origin Access is not so bad either, what's bad about it however is their bullshit strategy. When you sign up for it it's (or at least used to be, not sure now) automatically set to renew every month. That's one of the main reasons EA has lost me as a customer forever. I paid more than half a year for Access without even knowing, and I was careful about renewal when I signed up; nothing was mentioned but I guess a freaking EULA is a bulletproof way of making sure you get away with it since few read it (myself included). And you know what? It's not about the lost money, $5/month is not a great amount of money. It's about the games I could have tried and about the idea of screwing people over. PLUS: every damn subscription I've ever had e-mailed me the invoice every time it was renewed. Not Origin Access. Because fck EA.

I understand your frustration but HBO/Netflix and most other subscription companies are the same 🙂 Try one month and then your subscription is automatically renewed each month. You are right that EA is crap which is why I feel sorry for the few good games that are on Origin - like Titanfall 2. Everyone says the campaign is really good. I first thought about buying one month of Origin just to finis the campaign but now I think I'll buy the whole game so Respawn gets their share.

Netherwind:

I understand your frustration but HBO/Netflix and most other subscription companies are the same 🙂 Try one month and then your subscription is automatically renewed each month. You are right that EA is crap which is why I feel sorry for the few good games that are on Origin - like Titanfall 2. Everyone says the campaign is really good. I first thought about buying one month of Origin just to finis the campaign but now I think I'll buy the whole game so Respawn gets their share.

Well Netflix at least makes it quite clear that you're on a recurring subscription; my gf had a one month Netflix subscription a while back and she knew right from the get go that she has to cancel the sub before the month is over. And yes, it's pretty sad about the games that are actually good which get published by *bags like EA. You want to support the developer and have no choice but to support EA as well.

xIcarus:

Seriously, people who pirate your game don't want to buy your game. However people who pirate your game and enjoy it may buy your game if it's good, because they want to support you and perhaps because of some extra online features. This is exactly what I'm doing with Witcher 3, those guys just deserve my money even though I've already finished the pirated game. I pirated it because such RPGs are usually not my thing and I wasn't even gonna try the game, let alone buy it. Yet CDPR turned me from a pirate of their game into a customer simply because their game is more than great.

You're part of the problem, the main problem, you're pirating games. You don't have a right to pirate a game & then only pay for it once you deem it worthy. The reason why companies are applying DRM is because of people like you, if you lack moral compass or the self control to buy the game when on sale, then that's your problem, don't make it everyone else's by pirating the game.

vonSternberg:

The companies could also provide demos, you know...

Yes, that would be good if it was more common practice, but I find that reading reviews of games is a good enough indication to me whether I will like a game or not - I very rarely have buyers remorse. And as someone else said in this thread, on the rare occasion that you realise you don't like a game (after doing the research of game reviews before hand), then you can get a refund if you've played under X hours of the game. I don't really see a problem, but I do see the problem of pirating. Pirating is causing the issue, I don't think there are any excuses for it.

Robbo9999:

You're part of the problem, the main problem, you're pirating games. You don't have a right to pirate a game & then only pay for it once you deem it worthy. The reason why companies are applying DRM is because of people like you, if you lack moral compass or the self control to buy the game when on sale, then that's your problem, don't make it everyone else's by pirating the game.

Oh boo fucking hoo, now I'm a monster because I want to avoid getting ripped off? Did you catch the part where an AAA game is 12% of a Romanian's average salary? Yeah, I have the feeling that if you had to pay so much for just one game you'd be more careful with your money. If games were reasonably cheap like they are for Americans (2% of an average salary) I'd buy them right off the bat and not even regret it. It would be like pocket change. And I have no idea how you can compare demos to reviews, for example there are many games with a high score on metacritic which I absolutely don't like. Diablo 3 is the best example, I absolutely loathe that game. I'm just supposed to buy the game to try it out? Hell no. Instead, Need For Speed 2015 had a demo. Played it. Didn't like it. Appreciated the fact that a demo existed. Saved 60EUR. Mass Effect: Andromeda had a trial on Origin Access. Bought Origin Access for 4EUR. Played the demo. Didn't like it. Saved 54EUR. Other games that I was actually interested in I bought right off the bat, like DX:MD. You see, demos are the best method of trying out a game. In their absence, piracy fulfils the exact same role; it doesn't matter if the big corporations convinced you that they're losing a crapton of money. There's absolutely no proof that's the case, quite the contrary. Piracy seems to somewhat help sales, probably due to the fact that people discover new games which are out of their comfort zone and end up buying them just like I did with TW3. You know, I don't think I'm part of the problem; I think you are. You think that it's ok to just bend over and accept whatever they throw at you. Let me ask you something, why do you think demos barely exist anymore? I'll tell you why, it's because they can work less and get away with more. And you can't think past your silly moral high ground imposed by the corporations. You say I don't have the moral compass to not pirate games, but where's the fucking moral compass in their loot boxes bro? Kids are buying that shit and spending all their pocket money on them because they're addicted. And you're defending them from people like me? Good lord! Would you buy a house before going to see it first? No? Good. Then why are you judging people who want to try out games before they buy?

xIcarus:

Oh boo fucking hoo, now I'm a monster because I want to avoid getting ripped off? Did you catch the part where an AAA game is 12% of a Romanian's average salary? Yeah, I have the feeling that if you had to pay so much for just one game you'd be more careful with your money. If games were reasonably cheap like they are for Americans (2% of an average salary) I'd buy them right off the bat and not even regret it. It would be like pocket change. And I have no idea how you can compare demos to reviews, for example there are many games with a high score on metacritic which I absolutely don't like. Diablo 3 is the best example, I absolutely loathe that game. I'm just supposed to buy the game to try it out? Hell no. Instead, Need For Speed 2015 had a demo. Played it. Didn't like it. Appreciated the fact that a demo existed. Saved 60EUR. Mass Effect: Andromeda had a trial on Origin Access. Bought Origin Access for 4EUR. Played the demo. Didn't like it. Saved 54EUR. Other games that I was actually interested in I bought right off the bat, like DX:MD. You see, demos are the best method of trying out a game. In their absence, piracy fulfils the exact same role; it doesn't matter if the big corporations convinced you that they're losing a crapton of money. There's absolutely no proof that's the case, quite the contrary. Piracy seems to somewhat help sales, probably due to the fact that people discover new games which are out of their comfort zone and end up buying them just like I did with TW3. You know, I don't think I'm part of the problem; I think you are. You think that it's ok to just bend over and accept whatever they throw at you. Let me ask you something, why do you think demos barely exist anymore? I'll tell you why, it's because they can work less and get away with more. And you can't think past your silly moral high ground imposed by the corporations. You say I don't have the moral compass to not pirate games, but where's the fucking moral compass in their loot boxes bro? Kids are buying that crap and spending all their pocket money on them because they're addicted. And you're defending them from people like me? Good lord! Would you buy a house before going to see it first? No? Good. Then why are you judging people who want to try out games before they buy?

I still disagree, I don't think there are any excuses for piracy, I've said all I have to say in my previous 2 posts.

Robbo9999:

I still disagree, I don't think there are any excuses for piracy, I've said all I have to say in my previous 2 posts.

It's ok to disagree and I respect your decision. I just don't think justifying piracy by means of morality is logical when there's 'blood' on both sides' hands.