Salzburg-based software company Denuvo first launched its anti-tamper DRM (digital rights management software) in 2014. Most game developers and publishers quickly chose to adopt Denuvo in an effort to protect launch sales with its hard-to-crack software.
However, its application led to several controversies. In some games like Tekken 7 and Sonic Mania Plus, the implementation of Denuvo weighed heavily on the CPU, leading to worse performance than versions of these games without the DRM. In other cases, like Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition, thorough testing exonerated Denuvo from causing any performance degradation.
The debate rages on to this very day, making most PC gamers very happy whenever a developer chooses to drop the DRM from its game. CAPCOM, for example, has a habit of doing that one to two years after launch, as we've witnessed with Devil May Cry 5 and Resident Evil Village.
However, Denuvo hasn't resigned to the idea of being the scapegoat of any poor PC port. In an interview published a couple of days ago on Ars Technica, Steeve Huin (COO of Videogames at Irdeto, the company that acquired Denuvo in 2018) defended publically the anti-tamper DRM.
Gamers almost never get access to the same version of a game protected and unprotected. Over the game's lifetime, there might be a protected and unprotected version, but these are not comparable because these are different builds over six months, many bug fixes, etc., which could make it better or worse. We put in the effort of applying the security and validating that the performance is as it was and is not impacted... In the case of anti-tamper, I think there is a clear statement that there is no perceptible impact on gameplay because of the way we do things.
Huin understands that their word is not enough for PC gamers. As such, he revealed that Irdeto intends to allow select outlets testing of nearly identical versions of a game with and without Denuvo.
Our voice is unfortunately not sufficient to convince people because we're not trusted in their mind as a starting point in that debate. You will see for yourself that the performance is comparable, identical... and that would provide something that would hopefully be trusted by the community.
The program, which is slated to begin in the next few months, should lead to independent benchmarks that Huin hopes will persuade PC gamers that Denuvo is not an issue when it comes to performance.
Needless to say, we'll contact Irdeto to request access to the program so that we may bring you this freshly announced independent testing whenever available.
Interestingly, Huin did admit later in the interview that Denuvo might slightly affect performance, to the tune of less than one percent. However, he was referring to the anti-cheat software, which is separate from the anti-tamper DRM and, as far as we know, also far less popular among game developers, who tend to use BattlEye, EasyAntiCheat, or Valve Anti-Cheat. id Software experimented with Denuvo Anti-Cheat in DOOM Eternal but removed it in Update 1.1.
Huin also mentioned that the company will focus more on anti-cheating technologies and their variations since they are pro-consumer. For example, Denuvo launched a bot detection technology called Unbotify earlier this year, which also monitors auto-aiming controllers and the like.
On the other hand, the interview did not touch upon the Nintendo Switch emulator protection software. Originally introduced by Denuvo in August 2022 (without the involvement of Nintendo), it doesn't appear to have taken hold, especially as Nintendo Switch games continue to be available on day one (or even before, in some cases) via PC emulators like Yuzu and Ryujinx.
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