It's hard to get some serious numbers on this. I mean, Witcher 3 was DRM-free from day 1 and still sold like hot cakes. But then it's also an exceptional game.

Also we all know DRM is not only about copy protection, but also customer retention and surveillance. If you have to use the client, you might impulsively buy something through it. And they know what you play, for how long, when and how intensive (achievements!). Perfect marketing tool - this data is worth real money.

^This. But I'm pretty pessimistic concerning that. When Epic opened their store every went "No, not another launcher!" (as before with UPlay and Origin). And then they all registered for the freebies... and then the exclusives...

Thanks to groups like this who removed DRM/copy protection from games years and decades ago, stores like GOG and Steam have been able to re-release those classics. If the games had never been cracked, they wouldn't be now on GOG or Steam.

Nah bro, it is more in line with "Now people can finally play their legally purchased game as it was intended". Which is sad and ironic to say the least. More intrusive DRM is just the cream on top of the toxic dump that the gaming industry in 2019 is. Cheers

If it was a big success at improving sales they'd have been making a big noise about the amazing sales figures of their latest games - especially if it had translated into the kind of figures that they repeatedly claimed were being lost to piracy prior to Denuvo's success. Plus most of these companies are publicly traded, so if Denuvo's success at stopping piracy had translated into increased sales the breakdowns of their financial data would likely have shown that.

It's traditionally been more about keeping as much control as possible over what users can do (SecuROM's tagline was even "get maximum control"), but more recently it has branched into customer surveillance and ensuring an audience for marketing DLC/microtransactions/other games/etc.

We'll see... it's one thing for people to grab the freebies, but another for them to actually start spending money there. Unfortunately, "There's a sucker born every minute"...

It does impact performance though. That same video by Overlord Gaming shows that the benchmark ran worse on the DRM-infected copy.

But who cares, that's fine, I don't even mind performance drops. What I mind is the idea of DRM, that I am treated like a criminal in the Minority Report world where I am being 'arrested' before I even committed the crime.

Never pirated anything, why do I have to be treated like a criminal?!

That video's testhing methodology is extremely suspect. I've seen teardowns of it across the web. He doesn't let shaders cache, for one thing. Other more reputable outlets like Digital Foundry have done more professional and scientific testing and found almost zero performance impact from Denuvo. I know people to prefer to trust personable amateurs saying what they want to hear nowadays though.

That said Denuvo is an anti-consumer cancer that should die in a fire, for other reasons.