LogInGotta blame somebody, otherwise it's all my fault.
As Kingdom Come: Deliverance II faces an onslaught of negative comments for adopting Denuvo and AAA game studios get rid of the controversial DRM or choose not to include it in the first place, Irdeto continues its PR campaign aiming to cleanse the name of its flagship software in the eyes of the community.
Having experienced no success with its Discord server, which was unable to manage the volume of negativity and had to restrict speaking rights just two days after launch, the company has now begun defending itself in interviews, following its promise to "stop letting every claim about our product go unanswered."
Deep Silver
Recently, the company's Product Manager Andreas Ullmann joined Rock Paper Shotgun for one such interview, attempting to defend Irdeto and explain why they believe they face so much hate online.
Speaking with RPS's Nic Reuben, Ullmann claimed that the two main reasons Denuvo is disliked are not due to reduced framerate or slower launch times, but rather because of video game pirates, who, in Irdeto's view, resent the DRM simply because it works so well, and gamers, who supposedly fail to recognize the benefits that game developers receive from adopting Denuvo.
"I think it's super hard for a gamer. I'm a gamer myself, and therefore I know what I'm talking about. I think it's super hard to see, as a gamer, what is the immediate benefit for me that a certain game developer, game publisher, is using our anti-piracy services," Ullmann said.
"If I, as a gamer, would read that, I see: okay, then these big corporations are just making even more money," Ullmann continued. "But in the end, it's not that easy. Especially currently, the gaming industry is going through a very tough time. Budgets for AAA games are in the hundreds of millions. The publishers and developers, they have to afford that upfront, and they need to get the money back within the first few weeks after release."
"So basically, I think the one question was: why don't the developers do these comparisons and post them publicly? That's something we cannot force them to do. There seems to be reasons why they are not doing it. And also, on the other hand, probably considering the toxicity of – especially the pirate community – they would probably not accept that anyway, because it could be rigged.
Second case is: we do it. We have the unprotected execute tables, usually, for the game. So we would have both available. We could do a direct comparison. But two problems there. First is we would need the approval from our customer to do that with the game. (It would be) a public post using their franchise, their IP, so we would need the okay for that. And the other one is: again, there will be claims that this is rigged. Nobody will believe us, as we are the evil ones here."
Finally, Ullmann addressed the numerous experiments and comments that claim and/or demonstrate Denuvo worsening performance, stating that while there are some valid examples, like Tekken 7, they are a minority compared to the overall number of games that feature Denuvo. In his final statement, the representative outright dismissed many of the tests, claiming they were conducted by "unknown YouTube channels" or "sources that are more related to or have relations into the piracy scene".
"Thing is, I think it's important to understand how our solution works. And it's also worth considering, because when these performance claims come up, it's mostly this Tekken case that is referred to. But considering that we are protecting 60 to 70 games every year, it's quite interesting to see that there is only – if even – a handful of games where there was an effective performance impact cost. That's really just a minority."
We highly encourage you to check out the full interview and decide for yourself whether Ullmann's arguments deserve your trust. Also, don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.