Denuvo wants to prove it’s not the culprit of game slowdowns

Irdeto, the owner of Denuvo’s game protection technology, set out to prove that its product is not as bad as it is portrayed in the media. To do this, she will launch a special program in which “trusted media” will be able to compare the performance of games with and without Denuvo.

Denuvo is one of the most hated forms of digital rights management (DRM) used by video game publishers. It is designed to protect games from hacking and piracy, but is often criticized by gamers. Many claim that Denuvo slows down game performance, causes activation and compatibility issues, and limits the rights of customers to use their games.

Irdeto – the company that acquired Denuvo in 2018 – has traditionally not commented on any criticism leveled at its DRM protection software, but this is about to change. Irdeto’s chief operating officer for video games, Steve Huyn, explained that his company is well aware that Denuvo is perceived in a negative light by both digital pirates and the gaming community.

Hewyn says he’s not surprised that pirates and crack developers hate Denuvo, pointing out that software technologies like Denuvo make it possible for studios to earn money from their work and allow them to invest those earnings into creating new games. He also wants gamers to understand that Denuvo was created by gamers out of a deep love for gaming “with the intention of making the industry better and stronger.”

However, it doesn’t take long to search the internet for evidence that most players don’t see Denuvo as the positive force for good that Huyn describes it as. When Intel launched its Alder Lake processors, Denuvo made life difficult for many gamers for months. Developers sometimes find it difficult to get Denuvo to work well with their games, which is why some of them, such as Square Enix and Capcom, even decide to remove it from their titles after the first wave of sales has passed.

Denuvo’s default activation limit can make it difficult for hardware reviewers who want to test CPU and GPU performance on multiple machines without waiting for the 24-hour timer to reset. And don’t forget that any problem with Denuvo’s activation servers can prevent paying customers from playing their games. Some people trying to play games on Steam Deck through Proton have also run into issues when playing Denuvo-protected titles.

However, Huynh is more concerned about claims that Denuvo has a significant impact on performance, especially in those games that rely heavily on the CPU. At times, the developers themselves have blamed the controversial software for frame rate drops and other issues. Huyn says that public comparisons between games with and without Denuvo are impossible without access to a secure and non-secure copy of the game, and the matter is made more difficult by the fact that games usually receive several patches after their release.

As a result, Irdeto intends to put an end to such claims by developing a special program whereby “trusted media” will receive both eligible copies of the game to see if there is any significant performance difference between the one with Denuvo and the one without. . Independent testing will definitely help build a more complete picture of Denuvo’s impact on a particular game, so we’ll wait and see. Huyn says the company plans to launch the program later this year, but there is no firm date yet.

Performance issues aside, it’s hard to deny that Denuvo has a good reputation for protecting games from piracy. This is not a perfect solution, but it often prevents or at least delays the release of cracks for games. According to the CrackWatch subreddit, a typical Denuvo-protected game would receive about six months of effective DRM protection. And of the 127 Denuvo-protected games released since 2020, about half have yet to be cracked.

Irdeto also plans to promote anti-cheat technology developed under the Denuvo brand. Huyn says the company has an innovative approach that builds on the work done with anti-tamper technology. However, he does not reveal the details of this approach and claims that it will not have any impact on performance or user experience.