There are a couple of statements or questions that you could posit to a large group to get discussions going: asking about favorite teams and sports, noting controversial political figures eschewing integrity for personal gain, or whether or not Denuvo’s Anti-Tamper causes frame loss and bloated file size.
It’s a sure-fire way to get people really into the thick of the debate, quoting esoteric websites and half-baked theories relying heavily on anecdotal and empirical data that ultimately has no clear-cut winner.
On some titles, the inclusion of Denuvo has offered a measurable loss of frames on PC titles. On other titles, it’s nearly non-existent.
Yet measurable results come along few and far between, so it’s worth taking note when they do: Square Enix has just pushed an update to Trials of Mana that removes the Denuvo anti-tamper from the executable resulting in a net file size loss of 554.34 MB.
It’s not drastic by any means, especially when considering that titles are quickly approaching the 1TB mark while fans wonder what in the world is going on with development pipeline; we’re discussing roughly half of a GB with this. Others are noting that it’s far larger than they’re willing to accept with an anti-tamper being included in the software that they legally own from purchase.
Denuvo got removed from Trials of Mana, and the exe became half a gig lighter as a result. Remind me again why it isn't considered bloatware by more people ? pic.twitter.com/y55b10ChFN
— Bondforged Osha 🏳️⚧️ @osha.bsky.social (@Oshamoff) August 26, 2020
The size is likely due to obfuscation techniques and multiple calls to and from the software that ensures the game remains untampered; it’s worth noting that the game was cracked within a day of its arrival on market, and pirates were playing the game while users still were dealing with Denuvo.
This is the crux of the issue: if Denuvo does identifiably worsen the game experience, then pirates receive a far better version of the title than paying consumers.
This also rings true when developers (and Ubisoft is notorious for this) piecemeal a staggering amount of content across multiple methods; pre-orders, varying editions that all contain different content for different price points that offers consumers a headache when attempting to figure out precisely how much they need to invest into a title to actually receive the experience they are attempting to pay for.
As Gabe Newell stated, ‘One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue’.
Performance comparing the two versions with complete benchmarking has not been conducted as of yet; it will surely make the news regardless of how well it fares in comparison to with, and without, Denuvo Anti-Tamper.
