Denuvo To Prove Its DRM And Anti-Cheat Doesn’t Negatively Impact Game Performance: Will It Convince Gamers Or Publishers?

Irdeto, the digital security company that bought Denuvo in 2018, has repeatedly claimed that its anti-DRM and ani-cheat software is not responsible for poorly performing games.

Anti-tamper and anti-piracy safeguards are pretty common in modern-day games. However, these intermittent gatekeepers to prevent bootlegging and cheating in games, are often blamed for poor performance. Denuvo claims it will soon prove that its products do not bring down performance.

Games With Anti-Cheat And Their Pirated Versions Shouldn’t Be Compared

DRM-enhancing anti-piracy technology has become a necessity for gamer developers and publishers. However, any technology that places itself in the middle of a game and the gamers is hated by gamers.

Irdeto, the company that owns and operates Denuvo is keenly aware of its image in the wider gaming world. “In the pirating/cracking community, we’re seen as evil because we’re helping DRM exist and we’re ensuring people make money out of games,” Irdeto Chief Operating Officer of Video Games Steeve Huin said.

Huin claimed that comparisons using cracked versions of games that oftentimes load faster and run more smoothly are inaccurate. This is because they’re rarely based on the exact same version of a game.

“There might be, over the game’s lifetime, 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.”

How Will Denuvo Prove Its Anti-Tamper Doesn’t Hamper Performance

Denuvo will be viewed as the company that brings down game performance, lamented Huin. “Our voice is unfortunately not sufficient to convince people because we’re not trusted in their mind as a starting point in that debate.”

In an attempt to prove that Denuvo’s anti-cheat products have negligible, if any, performance hit in games, the company will offer media outlets two versions of games to benchmark independently, with and without Denuvo Anti-Tamper. Gamers and publishers would be able to realize that “the performance is comparable, identical” between both.

There are innumerable posts on Reddit in which gamers blame anti-cheat and anti-piracy software for every framerate hitch they experienced. However, people should realize that not every glitch, frame skip, lag, or other issue is due to anti-tamper safeguards.

It is not clear if Denuvo’s efforts to exonerate its anti-cheat products will be successful. However, gamers will always view these products with disdain and skepticism as they prevent any modification to the game, good or bad.