Number 1; two new items got introduced and are actually useful. Hitman fans dont like that:

Number 2; a guy on youtube was so mad the devs didnt patch a glitch he spent a year killing every target with it to prove how "easy" it was. Even made his own thumbnail:

Number 3; this: https://www.tumblr.com/cartoonishly/752660248450531328/happy-pride-month-2024-diana-voice

Number 4; actual hitman news:

Free new content. Another Celebrity ET is coming out (not Gary Bussy)

!g*mers !fightclub

According to Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter, the company is "taking a traditionally Japanese approach to reducing staff and sending workers to rooms where they are given nothing to do, putting pressure on them to leave voluntarily."

Oidashi Beya is a practice used by Japanese corporations to isolate employees by giving them no tasks, in an effort to get them to leave of their own volition, rather than be let go and receive severance.

In contrast, Japanese companies are barred both by societal and legal constraints that make it very difficult to fire employees. Historically, that led to the phenomenon of the madogiwazoku – literally, the tribe that sits by the windows.

Employees whose services were no longer needed, but that the company could not or did not want to fire, would be given a pleasant spot by the window to while away working hours by reading the newspaper.

The oidashibeya is in a sense madogiwazoku on steroids. Employees are typically placed in a room, often windowless, where they have nothing to do. In many cases their business cards are taken away, and they are forced to do menial, mind-numbing tasks, or given nothing to do at all.

Being excluded from the mainstream is particularly painful for those who have dedicated themselves to the company for many years, especially in the context of Japanese culture where murahachibu (ostracism from the group) is a traditional and strong form of punishment.

my heart is telling me !asians how much of this is true vs, and how much of this is reddit continuing to spread outdated 90s shit about Japan???

So after the pokemon leaks does that mean Joker was right… dawg wtf #pokemon #PokemonLeak #Pokemonleaks pic.twitter.com/9i2WHDr5BI

— Mexnator (@mexnator) October 14, 2024

where's all the sexy marsey literotica?

Is it good? Do I care about story?

That's why we're the GOATs ( I did the lifting )

cc : @Kang @Aba @RottenDonGER @Murdervann

Earn the "Kitten of Discord" Title in #Overwatch2 🐈‍⬛

This exclusive prestige title will only be available at Tier 175 of the Season 13 Battle Pass! pic.twitter.com/xRmTDCBJyO

— Overwatch Cavalry (@OWCavalry) October 14, 2024

!g*mers When did you stop playing Overwatch?

Never played - 56 votes

Still do - 4 votes

I’m still every now and then getting questions on whether we force DEI stuff into the games we’re making, so let me make it clear once and for all:

Absolutely Not. I find that entire approach perverted. I’m an artist, I would rather quit than have someone else tell me how we…

— thomasmahler (@thomasmahler) October 13, 2024

gaymers are mad

threads

https://old.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/1g3hxeq/pc_g*mer_welcome_to_the_2024_edition_of_the_pc/ MODE

https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1g3ia76/pc_g*mer_welcome_to_the_2024_edition_of_the_pc/ NO ONE SHOULD SEE HOW BAD JOURNOS ARE

The OG article The top 100 PC games

Balatro ranked 50 spots higher than Halo lol

Balatro @ #8

Games missing

• Age of Empires 2 - All journos must be killed just for this

• Terraria

• Fricking Factorio

• Civilization 4

• Path of Exile

• Subnautica

• Amnesia

• Kingdom Come: Deliverance

• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

• SOMA

• Dead Space

• Portal 2

• Dota or League or LOL or any moba but they have CS and R6 Siege

• No Fallout 3 or 4 but Fallout NV is there

Sneed and list the games you think they missed

Full List

fricking AI fricked up the list, just search in the https://archive.is/KbyyD page

What are you playing currently?

!g*mers

Previous Iterations:

2024

2023

Other rDrama vidya content

Last week's game: Katamari Damacy

Final Score: (10*20+9*6+8*0+7*1+6*1+5*0+4*0+3*0+2*0+1*2)/(20+6+0+1+1+0+0+0+0+2) = 8.97

All Previous Games:

Game to Discuss?

Factorio! The paradigmatic factory game, by which all others are judged. Sure, chinamen have their Dyson Sphere Program, r-slurs have Satisfactory, and nonverbalcels their Shapez, but those games would not exist without Factorio. What's the point of the game? To get a rocket to space, which may seem simple enough, except that rockets are pretty hard to build, and you have no idea how to build one, so you have to go off on this mad quest, for knowledge, bullets, and industrial capacity. It's a great game, and I thought it'd be best to see what people think of it now, on the eve of the release of its expansion, which will shake up a lot of the game, which has been mostly the same game for almost 10 years now. Voting is below, in the pinned comment.

October 20: Townscaper

October 27: Supreme Commander

November 3: Mudrunner

November 10: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

carp, capy, geto, donger pin please

So the Canalave library stuff about humans marrying Pokemon

was much worse in the original intent🗿 pic.twitter.com/sL77aO2KGu

— Gireum means oil (@GireumNewTown) October 13, 2024

!pokemon discuss

Rapidash, Typhlosion, Slakoth banged humans wtf

pic.twitter.com/CC7GRgfiGh

— Centro LEAKS (@CentroLeaks) October 13, 2024

i really wanna ping spam people about the recent leaks and maybe when pokemon pizza comes out we can all liveblog our playthroughs

i only need like 3.5k coins and ill pay people back as soon as i am able, guaranteed.

!g*mers !anime !furries !cuteandvalid !neurodivergents

edit: !pokemon is created tysm @loli_esports @AltAccountOkapi

all are welcome btw not gonna be picky

Thread locked.

!nms

I didnt expect my favourite games sub to be Islamophobic

So... Can you destroy planets in that game?

I found some star system with some weird inhabitants. ~1/3 of them think you gotta cut off a piece of your peepee just to hang out with the Atlas.

Sigh i expect some ignoarnt biased comments defending the perpetrator like always

Prior Israel sighting:

https://old.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyTheGame/comments/aby0hd/i_found_israel/

I found Israel too, Gek based system

Did you know the Gek controls a disproportionate amount of the Universe's Units and are probably the cause of all hostile sentinel planets?

$2 billion in revenue last year

strategic application of casino and family game mechanics to optimize the sales funnel

OPTIMIZE THE SALES FUNNEL

A recent "Financial Audit" guest admitted that they spent hundreds of dollars on "Monopoly GO!". Intrigued by how Monopoly, which doesn't seem like it would support intense monetization, was extracting money from destitute r-slurs, I googled. I was surprised to learn it made $2 billion.

This article describes it's many monetization strategies. I'm not very familiar with mobile gaming so learned alot . If you're a true !g*mers that's also not familiar with mobile this article will shed light on WTH is going down on phones atm. It's written by a grifter with admiration for the uber-grifting Monopoly GO! has achieved through various nefarious means.

It seems that Monopoly GO! is a slot machine which rewards you for getting others to play. You roll for properties and you roll to attack other's properties and you play monopoly sometimes too! The wide appeal of the Monopoly brand enables this game to spread across generations and demographics that games about collecting anime girls or gardening can't.

Owned by Saudis

the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, recognizing the transformative power of technology and entertainment in economic expansion, has made strategic investments in these sectors, positioning itself as a driving force in the digital landscape. Among its diverse portfolio lies Savvy Games Group, the company behind the groundbreaking acquisition of Scopely in July 2023. This acquisition, a bold move in the ever-evolving gaming industry, signals Saudi Arabia's unwavering commitment to user acquisition and its ambition to establish Monopoly GO! as a global phenomenon.

Mask the fact that it's a slot machine game by using Monopoly brand.

While the lifetime value (LTV) of slot machine users is substantial, the associated user acquisition costs are equally high, making it a risky proposition for game developers.

Monopoly GO!, much like its predecessor Coin Master, masterfully exploits this dynamic by cloaking a Coin Looter in the guise of a beloved family game. By tapping into the nostalgic appeal of Monopoly, the game lures players in with a sense of familiarity and comfort, disarming their defenses against the monetization tactics that lie beneath the surface.

Invite friends feature allows targetted advertising

Since the release of iOS 14 and the subsequent privacy changes, user acquisition for mobile games has become an increasingly complex and challenging endeavor. Traditional methods, once highly effective, have become less reliable, forcing developers to get creative in their approach. The developers of Monopoly GO!, however, appear to have discovered a novel and cost-effective solution – the game's social features. While seemingly innocent, the "Invite Friends" feature serves a dual purpose: expanding the user base and gathering valuable data for targeted advertising.

When players invite friends, they unknowingly grant the game access to valuable data points such as their friends' contact information and potentially even their gaming preferences. This data can then be used to create targeted advertising campaigns, reaching out to potential players who are more likely to be interested in Monopoly GO! based on their social connections and gaming habits.

This ingenious approach to user acquisition allows Monopoly GO! to circumvent the limitations imposed by recent privacy updates and reach new players in a cost-effective and organic manner. By harnessing the power of social interaction and leveraging the trust between friends, the game has carved out a unique path in the ever-evolving user acquisition landscape.

You can attack other players using money. I feel like this might be the feature stolen from Clash of Clans?

The game's social feature, allowing players to attack each other's properties, further blurs the lines between family game and Coin Looter. This mechanic, while seemingly lighthearted and competitive, fosters a sense of urgency and encourages players to seek revenge, driving them to spend real money to gain an advantage.

By allowing players to attack each other's properties, the game injects a dose of chaos and competition into the mix. This mechanic, while seemingly lighthearted, triggers a primal urge for revenge, driving players to seek an edge. Here's where the seemingly simplistic design reveals its brilliance. When a player gets attacked and loses hard-earned resources, the game strategically places a Call to Action (CTA) right in their path. This CTA might offer additional dice rolls, allowing them to quickly recoup their losses and launch a counter-attack, or it might entice them to purchase in-game currency to upgrade their properties and become more resilient against future attacks. These strategically placed CTAs capitalize on the emotions of the moment, subtly nudging players towards spending real money to fuel their virtual real estate empires.

Limited Time events to induce FOMO

Furthermore, the game masterfully utilizes a "fear of missing out" (FOMO) tactic to further enhance player engagement. Limited-time events and special offers create a sense of urgency, encouraging players to log in and participate before the opportunity disappears. This strategy keeps players on their toes, constantly checking back to see what new challenges and rewards await them. The combination of social interaction, competitive gameplay, and strategically placed CTAs transforms Monopoly GO!'s seemingly simple design into a powerful tool for engagement and, ultimately, monetization.

You're prompted to buy more dice rolls if you lose

These CTAs appear at opportune moments, taking advantage of a player's emotional state to nudge them towards spending real money. Imagine this: you're on the cusp of victory, just one property purchase away from securing a monopoly and dominating the board. However, your dice roll lands you on an empty space, leaving you one agonizing property short of your goal. Frustration washes over you, and just as you contemplate conceding defeat, a strategically placed CTA appears on your screen, offering you the option to purchase additional dice rolls. This CTA capitalizes on your desire to win, subtly influencing your decision-making process and making the prospect of spending real money seem like a small price to pay for ultimate victory.

Another article, not as good, but has this great picture

https://www.pocketg*mer.biz/decoding-the-live-ops-strategy-of-monopoly-go/

>The player rolls the dice

>The player receives

>The player rolls the dice

>The player receives

>The player rolls the dice

>The player receives

NEW BETA POKÉMON pic.twitter.com/0NkTXNvrnY

— Centro LEAKS (@CentroLeaks) October 12, 2024

Lmao the rotom shitter

Edit: way more shit in the feed. Apparently beta mudkip was a water bunny instead. This leak will be long af.

Some of the older g*mers here might remember a certain walking simulator game called Only If.

Here's Jim Sterling's old playthrough of the game.

The best thing I can say about the game is that at one point, one of the characters drops a soft R. Otherwise, it's average in every regard.

It's still free on Steam though. So whatever

The game's developer, Tarek Ghandour, also known as FromFame or River, then went on to release another free game called OLDTV before leaving the industry.

Until the year of our lord 2021.

Then he returned and decided to release a DLC he had planned for OLDTV as a fully-fledged paid game.

That game is called BACK OF SPACE, and it's out on Steam early access.

Even though the game has a "Very Positive" rating on Steam, some of the more recent reviews have taken issue with the opinions the developer has expressed in public. You see, it appears that the developer went full chud in recent years.

Here's what I found on his Groomercord:

Apparently, the guy whose music he was using is a little woke b-word or something

And you get the gist of it. Here's the link to his Groomercord so you can get more of this.

Here are the reviews that some of the more sensitive folk on Steam left for this game:

https://steamcommunity.com/id/lauramouras/recommended/714590/

game is good

with that being said

As you can see on the rest of the reviews, the developer constantly complains about "woke" agenda, offends trans people with no reason at all and on his groomercord on the pronouns page he says "my pronouns are available as a pdf file" Terrible human being, thank god I got it for free.

Our hero, not being one to take this lying down, replies with:

Can you be a little more honest for frick's sake?

"I inserted myself into the Dev's personal life, twice, & dm'd him demanding he removes a joke on his personal groomercord bio, he said no and to leave him alone, so I swore at him, and came here to call him a terrible human and leave a "game review" that has "nothing to do with the game" all because he doesn't share my political opinions on groomercord"

Another reviewer says:

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198272070931/recommended/714590/

I used to think the game is cool (and visually it does), but the dev behind this game "River" is an extremely hateful person. They spam bigoted, anti-trans and anti-gay stuff in their groomercord announcements and will insult people for seemingly no reason. While this game is good, I think the Dev should consider selling the IP before they put propaganda in their game.

River replies to this with:

another "you're not allowed to have different opinions on social media" review, instead of a reviewing the product.

1. We foster civil debate on the server, show me where i "insult someone in particular" and then show me how "it's for no reason"

2. How is sharing evidence of the critical issues surrounding important political matter "spamming bigotted anti-trans anti-gay". Our mod is literarily trans and I was gay in my teens. Read the studies I share before making baseless claims. None of my trans or gay friends identify with the political vehicle that is the LGBTQ, and that's okay.

3. No I won't be selling my IP you have no idea what you're on about and spewing nonsense. I am driven by evidence while you seem to be driven by utter tribalism. Have a civil exchange with me on the server if you'd like to understand what the criticism and evidence being shared is about.

This one made me chuckle:

https://steamcommunity.com/id/anastasiaa_/recommended/714590/

dev is a trans and homophobe as well as racist

Oh wow, a trans homophobe. You don't see one of those every day.

The dev responds:

And sexist*

And, lastly, let's finish with this one:

https://steamcommunity.com/id/IDRIVECARBEEPBEEP/recommended/714590/

Great game, but effectively abandoned while barely being 10% of the way complete, dev is also a colossal turbo virgin that would rather cry about trans people on a daily basis than work on the game (refer to the reddit handle /u/FromFame for more information).

Just hand the game over to literally anybody else FromFame, you and your clown show certainly won't be finishing this ♥♥♥♥ any time soon.

dev responds:

bet

The woketards are being whiny as usual, however, the dev does come up as a bit of an butthole tbh. He seemed to have deleted his Reddit account, so I can't really say for sure what he said on Reddit, but he has a YouTube channel under the same handle, where, at one point, he randomly calls BigFryTV fricking stupid at the end for his take on Unity charging per installs. Even though he admits that Unity was not clear enough about their policy:

So yeah, it's a relatively small drama, but hey, it's not like I have anything better to do than post about obscure chimpouts on Steam, so there you have it.

I only just now learned that you can't romance the girls in Metaphor. That I can't have my knife-eared ginger wife.

Atlus has fallen. pic.twitter.com/r8TvLwwSNc

— E;R (@EsemicolonR) October 12, 2024

https://nitter.poast.org/hundsnus/status/1845027836081401963

Whaaat? I wouldn't pay for this but I considered pirating it. Now I don't know if I'll even do that

Bro cant even play an rpg

https://nitter.poast.org/vxrHana/status/1844981746636300311

Fat women hate "male-oriented" romance subplots so yeah it got removed

Non fat men dont need male oriented romance

https://nitter.poast.org/KKSN03/status/1845006306807005407

Considering the Sweet Baby and DEI consulting allegations I am not surprised

SBI inc made SMT "the less sociable older brother of Pedosona" be about gameplay and religion rather than high school anime rp

https://nitter.poast.org/DenmanKenneth/status/1844967334349300017#m

Wait..an ATLUS game with no romance subplot!

This is who calls you a tourist btw ^^

https://nitter.poast.org/theapropos/status/1845053422313292169

This was know even before the release. In fact they will remove all romance from all games going forward. Bye atlus

Persona removing the dating elements would kill it because pedosona fans hate rpgs, stories, and video games. They only care about rizzing up 16 year old girls.

https://nitter.poast.org/Enigma_Kage/status/1845122519964995614#m

You couldn't romance in SoulHackers either...

Almost like thats not a pedosona game

!g*mers pedsona tourists discover that not every atlus game is persona

!chuds why do you like dating sims so much? I sentence you to 100 hours tokeimeki memorial forever with you since yall seem to like high school dating sims so much. Have fun neurodivergentally managing 9 randomized stats and randomized events to get your dream waifu rather then just choosing a few dialog boxes from the menu.

The music playing was hilarious. The sharing cheese at a fireplace in a dungeon talking about dbz, iconic.

CONTEXT:

https://www.eurog*mer.net/dragon-age-the-veilguard-wont-have-an-arachnophobia-mode-because-it-doesnt-have-a-single-spider

Apparently the uber soys working on DA4 deliberately avoided the use of spiders as enemies, in order to avoid offending the sensibilities of those with arachnophobia.

The news of this going along the grapevine is just many tiny titbits of news, making even the most braindead slopconsuming DA fans hesitant about being excited regarding the upcoming Dragon Age 4 in less than a month - especially since 3 months ago, Bioware had released a trailer which garnered a large amount of dislikes from people for a myriad of reasons.

The reason for the backlash or dislike or lack of positive feedback are many, including the great fracturing of the fanbase - but most of it was also to due with the context within which the DA4 trailer was released. For the past 2 years gaming has seen spectacular mega-blockbuster game failures from AAA developers and publishers, stuff like Redfall and GOllum, Forspoken and Suicide Squad and Skull and Bones, Saits Row 2022 reboot and so on.

ALL of these uber AAA games had immediate uncertainty and pushback upon their trailers, Saints Row 2022 reboot's trailers back in 2020 & 2021, had immediate backlash from the core Saints Row fanbase, whom had gotten used to the dark humor and morally abhorrent but likeable protagonists of the series.

The student soyboys protagonists of the reboot, left many with uncertainty as to the quality of the rest of the game, if the developers could seemingly miss the previous tone of the series so badly to SUCH an extent. Even Saints Row 4, the batshit insane matrix alien invasion parody title, held the dark humor and moral abhorrence of the protagonists to old standard, even if Saints Row 2 fans hated the zany story.

Instead it gave the fanbase a fear that the developers of the Saints Row 2022 Reboot legitimately hadn't actually played the games, or legitimately didn't comprehend them and their themes.

In the ensuing months past its release in 2022, the /r/saintsrow sub was a perpetual battleground, where shitlibs wokes and soys tried to gaslamp everyone into believing the game was good or even of acceptable quality - yet this time, the spectacular critical and financial failure vindicated the detractors of the Reboot, in that their fears all the way back in 2020 were well founded - in that if the developers could not even hold the same writing tone of the previous titles, whether through incompetence or agenda pushing, then there was very little chance that the other aspects of the game would be up to par.

A similar phenomenon had occurred in the trailers, and pre-release period of many uber high profile failures. Forspoken to Gollum, to Redfall. And although a bad trailer is never a guarantee of a predictor of the quality of a game, these specific high profile failures, each so close to each other, each vindicating detractors from teh moment the trailers dropped, demonstrated that much could be inferred by veteran gaymers or even normies ESPECIALLY negatively if the writing tone of specific series was different, if woke girlboss or woke seeming modern contemporary politics were present within the trailer, like a canary in the coalmine,

or just corpospeak and obvious trendchasing. The now infamous Concord failure was another such prediction by detractors as much as 2 years ago, since many Hero Shooter genre corposhit trendchaser soulless games have already lost millions for their demented out-of-touch CEOs. In fact Concord WILDLY exceeded even the worst predictions of failure as we now in the present know with hindsight.

I had an exchange with @Losercel 3 months back (can't remember the comments) where he exclaimed it was foolish for dramatards and other detractors to already be so negative with regards to a game still 4 months away, and I espoused that in isolation this might be true, but within the context of so many high profile failures, the negativity was warrented.

ON SPECIFICALLY THE PUSHBACK ON THE DA4 BIOWARE TRAILER:

Again many reasons for the negativity, but basically 3 months ago, the pushback could be boiled down to 2 main factors.

Many peeps immediately despised the artstyle of the trailer, declaring it too be "too cartoony", and appearing to be targeting the zoomer or Fortnite or Hero Shooter fandom.

With an additional 15 years worth of build up disdain for Marvelesque dialogue and writing

Additionally peeps decried the tone for being waaaaaay offbeat, too similar to Disney/Marvel or too light hearted, in comparison to the previous entries of the series having been relatively grimdark in tone type Dark Fantasy, with certain portions of of ALL 3 games having had sections which were borderline horror in tone and theme. (The Broodmother quests in Origins, the female Frankenstein quests in DA2, and the MINDRAPE quest or Fade in Inquisition) Even inquisition could have many dark moments despite its more colourful palette compared to its progenitors

"This is what Tevinter Magisters saw in Golden City."

Anyways it's just a whole comment section meming and lamenting the fear that the feel of the game was too different from its predecessors.

Additionally since 2019-2024, another phenomena had occurred, a relative mainstreamification of chudtubers and anti-woke media critics on Youtube, for example the most infamous currently being guys like the Critical Drinker.

Born from many chuds, to eventually even normies having had no outlet to voice their discontent of modern Hollyweird woke slop from both Disney and Hollywood greater, in which race-bending of white european characters from traditional medieval periods, to disliked girlboss chars, to the perception that modern contemporary politics had found its way into escapism fiction.

These anti-woke critics/youtubers still wouldn't sway any liberally minded peeps, and their reach was still only a fraction of normies, but even IRL in my real world experiences, around the office water cooler, or worksites or between trusted friends or family, I have noticed explicit anti-woke sentiment or talking points espoused by peeps i would consider super normie and apolitical, with regards to modern Hollywood media

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/star-wars-lord-of-the-rings-bridgerton-toxic-fans-hollywood-response-1236166736/

Even Hollywood writers have actively written that detractor fandoms have started to have an actual word-of-mouth effects upon their bottom lines! With many blame being laid upon the feet of the myriad of anti-woke or chudtubers which had sprung up.

This exchange between @SpookNarca and @eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee best sums it up.

https://rdrama.net/h/vidya/post/307335/sweet-baby-inc-purged-its-client/7151111#context

https://rdrama.net/h/vidya/post/307335/sweet-baby-inc-purged-its-client/7151188#context

NO SPIDERS!

Back to the no Arachnophobia thing

Basically in the past 3 days Biowarefans have been slapping about how this is totally a non issue maaaaaaaaaaan, to this is another straw on the camel's back in terms of redflags

"On it's own, the lack of spiders is not an issue. The problem is quickly becoming all these small things that wouldn't really be an issue "on their own", they add up. No more spiders, only 3 choices (this is an issue on its own), only 2 companions, can't control your companions etc etc etc... DAV is quickly becoming unrecognizable."

"It's a sign that this game is going to have no teeth to it; it's going to be modern Marvel levels of Slop"

"Exactly, people like this would piss and shit themselves if Sten was a companion, or other character like Javik or Regill"

"I'm scared of spiders like most people but this is weird. This reminds me of a mod that replaced spiders with mabari. But they still spawned in by coming down from a web which is way FRICKING scarier than a spider doing that lmao"

<insert eyerolls="" here=""> </insert>

"I'm afraid of water. REMOVE THE OCEANS!!"

"To me this sort of thing raises concerns. These sort of changes feel more like "what we can do to appease the audience" whereas I don't think anyone who is creating a very good story would be worried about that because they know the game/story itself is enough that people will be a part of it and enjoy it regardless. Or it's just one less piece of art they have to design which would be in line with the Keep changes and scaling back scope."

This is especially noticable as ingame characters have joked at the amount of ingame spider enemies killed!

Spoilerstrags frick off. Last planet is finally here, looks really good.

!g*mers

!neurodivergents

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/10/the-true-cost-of-game-piracy-20-percent-of-revenue-according-to-a-new-study/

Throughout the game industry's short history, there's been ample debate about how much piracy actually impacts a game's legitimate sales. On one side, some publishers try to argue that every single pirated download should count as a "lost sale" that they would have logged in a theoretical piracy-free world. On the other side, some wiseacres argue that most pirates would never consider paying for a legitimate version of the game in the first place or that piracy can actually be useful as a word-of-mouth promotional tool.

While the true effect of piracy on sales revenue is likely somewhere between those two extremes, piracy's precise financial impact on a game has always been hard to nail down. Now, though, a recently published study uses post-release cracks of Denuvo's DRM protections as a sort of natural experiment on games sales in pre- and post-piracy worlds. The results "imply an average proportionate loss of revenue of around 19 percent in each week of release if a crack is available," according to the study, suggesting that effective DRM can actually have a significant impact on a publisher's bottom line.

The data dance

In "The Revenue Effects of Denuvo Digital Rights Management on PC Video Games," published in the peer-reviewed journal Entertainment Computing, UNC research associate William Volckmann examines 86 different Denuvo-protected games initially released on Steam between September 2014 and the end of 2022. That sample includes many games where Denuvo protection endured for at least 12 weeks (when new sales tend to drop off to "negligible" amounts for most games) and many others where earlier cracks allowed for widespread piracy at some point.

A majority of Denuvo games studied remained uncracked during the crucial 12-week sales window after release. Credit: Entertainment Computing / William Volckmann

Crucially, the presence and/or specific timing of a crack's availability couldn't be effectively predicted by characteristics like pricing or critical review scores. That makes the existence of a crack "a practically exogenous event" that can be used to effectively segregate a game's revenues in a no-piracy world (i.e., before the Denuvo crack is available) and a piracy-filled world (i.e., after the crack's release). The variable timing of different crack releases also helps the relative analysis, since "revenue is highest close to the release date, and therefore a crack that appears close to the release date has a disproportionately large effect on revenue," Volckmann writes.

Unfortunately, the lack of good publicly available sales data for most games makes it difficult to measure these revenue effects directly. To estimate a Steam game's relative sales decline in each week after release, Volckmann uses a proxy that combines the number of new Steam user reviews and, for single-player narrative games, the game's average active player count. While Volckmann acknowledges that these imperfect estimates represent "the biggest limitation of this study," any estimated biases away from actual sales data seem likely to cancel out across the various games in the sample.

"The no-crack counterfactual"

After applying some complex statistical models to the underlying data, Volckmann finds that, unsurprisingly, relative revenues in the weeks following a crack's release are lower than the baseline expectation for uncracked games in the same time period. These negative effects of a crack on revenues—which are highly statistically significant (p<0.01)—"impl[ies] that the appearance of a crack reduces revenue relative to the no-crack counterfactual," Volckmann writes.

The longer a game's DRM lasts, the fewer new sales are left to be affected by piracy. Credit: Entertainment Computing / William Volckmann

Just how much money a publisher can expect to lose from a Denuvo crack, though, depends heavily on how quickly the game is cracked, Volckmann finds. A Denuvo-protected game cracked in the first week after release can expect to make about 20 percent less revenue than if the DRM had remained in place, according to the study, while a crack six weeks after a game's release only costs an estimated 5 percent of theoretical total revenue. After 12 weeks, new sales are so negligible that "developers could eventually remove unpopular DRM schemes with minimal losses (and possible gains from strongly DRM-averse consumers)," Volckmann suggests (and some publishers have done just that after Denuvo is no longer effectively protecting new sales).

Volckmann's data lines up with public statements that Denuvo-maker Irdeto has made regarding the need for DRM to protect a game's crucial post-launch window. "We don't position Denuvo Anti Tamper as being uncrackable—no anti piracy solution is," Denuvo VP of Sales Robert Hernandez told Ars in 2017. "However, our goal is to keep each title safe from piracy during the crucial initial sales window when most of the sales are made."

The difference between a week 1 Denuvo crack and a week 6 crack can be significant amounts of revenue. Credit: Entertainment Computing / William Volckmann

Overall, according to Volckmann's data, Denuvo is doing just that. The median Denuvo-protected games lose almost no sales to piracy, Volckmann suggests, because the protection "more often than not" goes uncracked in that initial 12-week window. In a world with no DRM, on the other hand, Volckmann projects those games could expect 20 percent less revenue at the median.

Whatever you think of DRM schemes like Denuvo, the potential to protect against that kind of revenue hit is something that major publishers might find hard to ignore. And there are signs that Denuvo's protection is becoming more crack-resistant in recent months; the CrackWatch subreddit lists 28 Denuvo-protected games released so far in 2024, 26 of which remain uncracked and two of which were cracked well outside the 12-week release window. As we see in this study, that kind of robust protection can be worth a significant amount to a piracy-wary game publisher.

Hey, here's a radical idea: make good games again and people will buy them again. Continue making shit and people will continue to not buy it.

!g*mers