Does FM19 employ anti-consumer DRM software "Denuvo"?

[themadsheep2001]

Just now, Barside said:

TBf I’m now starting to question whether Denuvo was used when I worked there, I hate to muddy the waters but it might have been first used on the version after I left.

Sorry.

No apologies needed. It would simply go to my point that then no one is able to talk credibly and thus people are getting pent up over supposition. 

[Spurs08]

1 minute ago, Matt Penfold said:

Since you are the one saying that is possible it is for your to offer evidence to support your claim. Without such evidence your claim can be dismissed without further consideration. 

No, as I'm not claiming it was causing an issue. Merely claiming that it may have caused an issue. For which the evidence is that devs of other games, and Barside here, have admitted it caused issues in previous versions, so it seems to be a possibility. Barside then contended it was impossible, which doesn't fit with that evidence.

1 minute ago, themadsheep2001 said:

No one can answer this, because to know 100% you'd have to be on the beta and to answer anything about would require breaking NDAs 

So it's possible, and just a question of likelihood.

[Guest]

Everything is possible but that’s no different to any other line of code that’s added to the game.

[themadsheep2001]

1 minute ago, Spurs08 said:

No, as I'm not claiming it was causing an issue. Merely claiming that it may have caused an issue. For which the evidence is that devs of other games, and Barside here, have admitted it caused issues in previous versions, so it seems to be a possibility. Barside then contended it was impossible, which doesn't fit with that evidence.

So it's possible, and just a question of likelihood.

Anything is possible. It could be possible that a cat ran over as keyboard, and deleted some code. Doesn't mean it happened. And trying to muddy the waters between fact and supposition helps no one. 

[CaptainSa]

Just now, themadsheep2001 said:

Anything is possible. It could be possible that a cat ran over as keyboard, and deleted some code. Doesn't mean it happened. And trying to muddy the waters between fact and supposition helps no one. 

How many cats are running about the SI offices does anyone know?

[Spurs08]

1 minute ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Anything is possible. It could be possible that a cat ran over as keyboard, and deleted some code. Doesn't mean it happened. And trying to muddy the waters between fact and supposition helps no one. 

Fair, but in that case reasonably likely. There are I presume no cats in the SI office. There is, within FM, software which has caused performance issues in other games, so it's not exactly fantastical to suggest it might do the same with FM forcing SI to spend time working around it.

[themadsheep2001]

Just now, Spurs08 said:

Fair, but in that case reasonably likely. There are I presume no cats in the SI office. There is, within FM, software which has caused performance issues in other games, so it's not exactly fantastical to suggest it might do the same with FM forcing SI to spend time working around it.

There's millions of lines in the match engine code alone. Any one those could cause a delay if something isn't right. And that's as likely a scenario you can, given the number of knocks on impacts that can be created.  Again muddying the waters between supposition and fact isn't useful. 

[Spurs08]

1 minute ago, themadsheep2001 said:

There's millions of lines in the match engine code alone. Any one those could cause a delay if something isn't right. And that's as likely a scenario you can, given the number of knocks on impacts that can be created.  Again muddying the waters between supposition and fact isn't useful. 

I haven't presented it as fact, merely a possibility. You're the only one muddying waters here.

[Kazza]

At least this is a reasonable debate related to peoples experiences, views and conjecture.

What it does highlight is that we can as a species, argue on any subject, at length, with and without knowledge and seemingly like Brexit have no agreement in place before the Beta arrives.

Love this forum. At it's best, it is definitely up there. At it's worse it's tin foil hat city.

[Menion]

Is this really a reason to not buy a game? It's pretty much standard practice for the majority of games that use the game sale as the main mode of profit.

[Rascanuvols]

10 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Anything is possible. It could be possible that a cat ran over as keyboard, and deleted some code. Doesn't mean it happened. And trying to muddy the waters between fact and supposition helps no one. 

If you just happen to adopt a cat that has done exactly that on several other studios where it has lived before, yeah, I might worry about it happening.

[Rascanuvols]

1 minute ago, Menion said:

Is this really a reason to not buy a game? It's pretty much standard practice for the majority of games that use the game sale as the main mode of profit.

I even bought it already.

 

People settling for it doesn't make it ok.

[forameuss]

Just now, Rascanuvols said:

I even bought it already.

 

People settling for it doesn't make it ok.

So you're so angry about this absolutely totally anti-consumer practice, that you went and bought the product anyway.  OK.

[Rascanuvols]

Just now, forameuss said:

So you're so angry about this absolutely totally anti-consumer practice, that you went and bought the product anyway.  OK.

I'm not that angry. In fact, I'm not angry at all.

I'm just expressing my opinion. I don't think anybody here is arguing that it's the end of the world or that this is not purely a first world mild inconvenience, but we can still talk about it.

I would probably buy it even if Miles kicking me in the nuts was part of the price. Still not ok.

[santy001]

FM is one of the least intense games to run on your system out there. Even with the typical bloat of a save game that's gone to 2070 the game hasn't diminished much in speed for me. 

There's not a lot of resources used outside of match days, and surely it's not that likely that whatever DRM software may or may not be in use it does much other than on start-up and maybe some kind of periodic checking. I can still play FM on one screen and another game on the other just fine so there must not be that much to it in FM. Anecdotal I know, but considering recently I've been playing FM alongside WoW, Overwatch or Jurassic World Evolution simultaneously it's not much of an issue. The only game I haven't been able to play alongside FM was battlefield 1, and that's more on battlefield 1 being poorly optimised.

SI were pretty quick to move on from the legitimate anti-consumer DRM. That god awful code on the manual back in like 2008 was it? Jesus that was awful, not so much their fault, but the code was printed in a way that you couldn't distinguish between 0 and O as well as things like 1/I/L if I remember rightly, and then the verification server was down as well if memory serves correctly.

[Spurs08]

10 minutes ago, santy001 said:

FM is one of the least intense games to run on your system out there. Even with the typical bloat of a save game that's gone to 2070 the game hasn't diminished much in speed for me. 

There's not a lot of resources used outside of match days, and surely it's not that likely that whatever DRM software may or may not be in use it does much other than on start-up and maybe some kind of periodic checking. I can still play FM on one screen and another game on the other just fine so there must not be that much to it in FM. Anecdotal I know, but considering recently I've been playing FM alongside WoW, Overwatch or Jurassic World Evolution simultaneously it's not much of an issue. The only game I haven't been able to play alongside FM was battlefield 1, and that's more on battlefield 1 being poorly optimised.

SI were pretty quick to move on from the legitimate anti-consumer DRM. That god awful code on the manual back in like 2008 was it? Jesus that was awful, not so much their fault, but the code was printed in a way that you couldn't distinguish between 0 and O as well as things like 1/I/L if I remember rightly, and then the verification server was down as well if memory serves correctly.

I think the verification server was FM09 - everyone dead excited for the first game in 3D and it **** itself and didn't let anyone in for the first 48 hours This forum was apocalyptic.

[VP.]

Anyone else remember the very early CM's when you simply entered the attendance (or possibly score, can't quite remember) from an old league match at the back of the manual to let you play.

[Lucas]

6 minutes ago, SortitoutsiVP said:

Anyone else remember the very early CM's when you simply entered the attendance (or possibly score, can't quite remember) from an old league match at the back of the manual to let you play.

Classic copy protection that  

[Spurs08]

8 minutes ago, SortitoutsiVP said:

Anyone else remember the very early CM's when you simply entered the attendance (or possibly score, can't quite remember) from an old league match at the back of the manual to let you play.

Never quite understood the point of that one - surely anyone copying the game disk in the pre-internet age could find a way to copy and distribute the code as well?

[decapitated]

Do we actually know if FM19 uses this Denuvo in the first place? If fm18 used it as well, then it makes no difference and all this is a fuss over nothing.

[Just-Wool]

3 minutes ago, decapitated said:

Do we actually know if FM19 uses this Denuvo in the first place? If fm18 used it as well, then it makes no difference and all this is a fuss over nothing.

18 and 19, according to the wiki article on it.

[Lucas]

2 minutes ago, decapitated said:

Do we actually know if FM19 uses this Denuvo in the first place? If fm18 used it as well, then it makes no difference and all this is a fuss over nothing.

It says so on Steam Store. Steam Review Curators have already downvotes the game due to DRM, despite not playing it yet. 

[decapitated]

Just now, Lucas said:

It says so on Steam Store. Steam Review Curators have already downvotes the game due to DRM, despite not playing it yet. 

According to @monkeywool 18 had it as well, and I noticed no slowdown in performance myself compared with 17 (if anything, it was slightly faster) so until I play the game and there's issues I'm unconcerned by this. Anyone who negatively reviews a game they haven't played (and isn't on general release yet) at all for any reason needs better things to do.

[westy8chimp]

1 hour ago, Barside said:

TBf I’m now starting to question whether Denuvo was used when I worked there, I hate to muddy the waters but it might have been first used on the version after I left.

But you seemed very specific before when saying the testing outcomes. So you were lying fairly massively... 

[Just-Wool]

9 minutes ago, decapitated said:

According to @monkeywool 18 had it as well, and I noticed no slowdown in performance myself compared with 17 (if anything, it was slightly faster) so until I play the game and there's issues I'm unconcerned by this. Anyone who negatively reviews a game they haven't played (and isn't on general release yet) at all for any reason needs better things to do.

Just checked the steam page and yeah it was on there for definite. As with all software, 3rd party stuff might adversely affect it, it might not. Denuvo doesn't affect every game, otherwise no one would use it.

[Neil Brock]

There's a fair bit of stuff being spouted in this thread which has no basis in fact. We work very hard to make sure the game is optimised to the greatest level it can be and any issues relating to how the game runs in the past has solely been down to how much optimisation we've been able to put into the game and the type of code used. We've been ramping up the AI intelligence for years and every time we do, the game speed potentially can take a hit. Thankfully our coding team is clever (and computers are getting faster!) so we've been able to largely negate this so each version is faster than the last one.  

Miles has commented on DRM within the industry before from a studio aspect (would suggest a search engine to find out his thoughts) but the game is not adversely affected by any third-party aspect, be that the Steam platform or DRM. 

The only things that can sometimes cause issues are some other specific programs/anti-virus programs interfering with the game, which is why we always include a list of these within our FAQ and details on how to make sure they don't cause any issues. 

[Guest]

43 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

But you seemed very specific before when saying the testing outcomes. So you were lying fairly massively... 

Here's the full post that you decided to cut, there was an issue that I identified & was fixed but what I am on refelction unsure of is which DRM software was being used at that time.

2 hours ago, Barside said:

TBf I’m now starting to question whether Denuvo was used when I worked there, I hate to muddy the waters but it might have been first used on the version after I left.

What doesn’t change is how the team reacted to the issue I found while working there m, albeit possibly on a previous DRM solution.

Sorry

[westy8chimp]

3 minutes ago, Barside said:

Here's the full post that you decided to cut, there was an issue that I identified & was fixed but what I am on refelction unsure of is which DRM software was being used at that time

Well you quoted someone directly, who said denuvo not drm, saying no one could tell the difference (benchmarking).... saying u had experience at si where the difference was tiny. Misleading to say the least. 

But apology for calling you a liar... And neil has now answered the issue 

 

P. S you may need an extinguisher for your pants 

[Guest]

I shall blame a combination of age and prescription medication for the misplaced time period of the memory.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

4 hours ago, Barside said:

I don’t get the hate for Denuvo, it’s impact on game performance can be considered negligible to the point of the end user not even being aware of the difference had the final product been DRM-free.

Yes there are examples of dev’s not optimising it correctly on final release & these get addressed through patching just like any coding error that impacts the final product would be fixed.

My issue with Denuvo is that it can stop legitimate customers from playing their copy of the game - if I can log into my Steam/Origin/uplay account I should be able to play my game however Denuvo can block you playing in certain circumstances as it doesn't like it when steam unexpectedly loses connection and drops into offline mode and will lock you out of games you haven't run recently whilst in offline mode (even though you are still signed into your steam account) and it also requires you to be online when you first run the game after it has been patched, which meant at Christmas (or it may have been the one before) when steam went down I was locked out of FM Touch as I don't really use Touch mode I hadn't loaded it up since the last patch and Denuvo wouldn't run it unless I put Steam in online mode which I couldn't as it was down. (Though I could still play normal FM as that had been run since the patch).

[White Flag]

Am I the only one who just doesn't care one way or the other ?

[Lucas]

3 minutes ago, White Flag said:

Am I the only one who just doesn't care one way or the other ?

Only issue I forsee with DRM is when the solution inevitably dies off and it renders a game unplayable in the distant future.

For games like FM thats not really an issue for me (only legacy games I've gone back to are CM3 and 9798), but it would bother me for other games.

[Ouroboros_66]

Here's a list: https://whyisdenuvobad.github.io

So apparently Denuvo is the reason for stopping Mac and Linux support.

Wow, that is disappointing. I ordered without even considering that this could happen.

[Lucas]

12 minutes ago, Ouroboros_66 said:

So apparently Denuvo is the reason for stopping Mac and Linux support.

 

Nope. Load of rubbish. FM still supports Mac. I'm sure there's other examples.

Linux gets dropped because it doesn't sell enough, at least in FM's case it wouldn't cover QA cost, let alone dev cost: 

 

 

[Piperita]

Is there any reason that the game is still Steam exclusive when there is another, more effective type of DRM with the game? To be blunt, had I not been duped while vacationing across the channel and been too stingy to let the game lie around, I would have never bought FM and stayed with my ten year old version of the inferior management game.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, michaeltmurrayuk said:

My issue with Denuvo is that it can stop legitimate customers from playing their copy of the game - if I can log into my Steam/Origin/uplay account I should be able to play my game however Denuvo can block you playing in certain circumstances as it doesn't like it when steam unexpectedly loses connection and drops into offline mode and will lock you out of games you haven't run recently whilst in offline mode (even though you are still signed into your steam account) and it also requires you to be online when you first run the game after it has been patched, which meant at Christmas (or it may have been the one before) when steam went down I was locked out of FM Touch as I don't really use Touch mode I hadn't loaded it up since the last patch and Denuvo wouldn't run it unless I put Steam in online mode which I couldn't as it was down. (Though I could still play normal FM as that had been run since the patch).

Never experienced any issues myself although these days I don't put Steam on offline mode anywhere near as much as I used to but that would be understandably annoying 

[michaeltmurrayuk]

5 minutes ago, Piperita said:

Is there any reason that the game is still Steam exclusive when there is another, more effective type of DRM with the game? To be blunt, had I not been duped while vacationing across the channel and been too stingy to let the game lie around, I would have never bought FM and stayed with my ten year old version of the inferior management game.

What other clients could they use? Well in an ideal world they'd use gog, but the days of stand-alone physical copies are pretty much over (I actually I cannot remember the last PC game that didn't require you to link your game to a client).

The move to Steam was more about the other features that Steam offer - it's easier to patch as they only need to produce one patch which is automatically downloaded for the user unlike in the pre-steam games where it was a mess as they had to produce about a dozen different patches and get users to download the correct one. Steam also allows them to offer the pre-release beta as well as offering various community features that gamers want.

Though of course with the way that publishers are going you might want to be careful about what you wish for as about the only way the game would untie it from steam is if SEGA launched a SEGA client and forced all games to go through that.

[mersk]

11 hours ago, herne79 said:

Still generalising, not being specific to FM.

See barside's reply above .

This seems a bit disingenuous. You specifically stated that anecdotal evidence wasn't interesting, but apparently it is as long as it supports your viewpoint?

 

As for why Denuvo is bad, there are several general points to raise, of which some are obviously relevant also to FM, and only very few of them have anything to do with performance. Not only is it anti-consumer in its very nature, but it also costs quite a lot of money. For a top-selling title like FM, we're talking €100.000 which could've been spent on development rather than a condom with huge holes in it.

 

In case you weren't familiar with it, the European Commission ordered a study in 2013 on how piracy affects sales of music, books, movies and games in the EU. The study concluded that there was no evidence that piracy affects copyrighted sales, and in the case of video games, might actually help them. I'm assuming this is the study OP linked to.

 

This study, along with the huge costs of implementing Denuvo, are alone enough of an argument to be completely against Denuvo. Sure, you could argue €100k isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things, but it's still money. And it's being spent on something that has no adverse effect on sales. It's literally throwing money out the window. Hell, CD PROJEKT RED had absolutely no DRM on TW3 and even openly mocked the usage of such software.

[FrazT]

7 hours ago, White Flag said:

Am I the only one who just doesn't care one way or the other ?

Nope!

[qaz]

I've never bought a game other than FM that has denuvo out of principle. 

But damn it, I like FM too much.

That doesn't mean I don't think far less of any publisher that lowers itself to use denuvo