DRM Developer Denuvo Says Their Goal is to Protect Initial Sales

If you’re looking for a well-loved company in the gaming world, Denuvo is not it. Perhaps the best-known DRM company in the business, they’re famous for producing invasive, clunky anti-piracy measures, making the bold claim that they’re basically uncrackable (which is to say, impossible to get around), and then having their DRM cracked in a few months, weeks, or in the case of Resident Evil 7 and Tekken 7, just a few days. While most people probably don’t mind that companies are trying to stop piracy, the fact that this particular DRM impacts performance and makes things just run worse makes it hard to support.

In any case, the Tekken/Resident Evil 7 thing really humbled the company, who would later admit that nothing is uncrackable. And recently, in talking with Gamesindustry.biz, Denuvo’s sales director Elmar Fischer explained a little bit more what it is they’re trying to do if they can’t stop piracy entirely.

"Our goal, and it's still the goal, is to protect initial sales. Of course we would like to have it uncracked forever, but that just doesn't happen in the games industry."

That’s an interesting argument, but it does loan itself to some flaws. For example: would someone who can’t pirate the game purchase it legally? Or would they just never play it if they couldn’t get it for free? For this, Elmar Fischer has no answer.

"You can see the piracy of the games, but it's really tough to tell how many of these would have bought the game. We can estimate, and even if you take a small percentage of this number then the revenue would increase dramatically… There's always a challenge in trying to determine how many people would convert from piracy to paid. There's certainly people out there who if they can get something for free they will do it. They never have any intention of paying. But there's always an element of people that if it's properly secured they will pay."

I suppose long-term it’ll be something companies have to decide for themselves, if that makes the cost of DRM worth it. If only there was some way to test it.