CTO of Machine Games on Piracy of Wolfenstein II: "you only proved that no drm is a bad idea"

[rare]

https://twitter.com/JimKjellin/status/924052643500216322

turns out we made a successful game
fuck you pirates for downloading a successful title. you only proved that no drm is a bad idea

Click to shrink...

I'm sure this is in response to the game getting leaked and cracked 2 days before release, and possibly about Denuvo not being included in either TEW2 or Wolf 2.

I'm not an advocate of piracy, but I do not support DRM like Denuvo.

 

[Deleted member 10629]

Well, gonna need receipts for his claims.

Pretty sure people have taken Denuvo cracking as a sport now, not because they actually want to pirate the game.

 

[Kthulhu]

He's not entirely wrong. I met a guy today who said he pirates games and only buys DLC or if the game gets a huge sale.

I told him he's part of the problem and he's why DRM exists and he told me he didn't care.

Fuck these people.

Edit: at the same time, DRM only ends up punishing the consumers who buy their games legit, so don't do it.

 

[Akoi]

With or without DRM pirates always find a way to crack or share games. DRM in the end just becomes a nuisance to the consumer and does not increase sales of a game.

 

[Deleted member 6573]

.

 

[statham]

but something needs to happen to make it harder for pirates. I pirated like crazy in my teens, if it was easy I would do it, harder, I may give up and buy it. <-- we talking over 20 years ago.

 

[Elfotografoalocado]

It's always the case that people equate a number of pirate downloads with an equal number of lost sales and that's... most probably not the case, as that EU research paper showed.
If pirates can pirate the game, they will. If they cannot, they will pirate something else or buy it when it's 3€ on Steam. The people who would buy the game at full price will do it either way.
I guess it's painful to see those numbers of pirates, but the fact it was succesful proves Denuvo is not necessary for success. (And, considering many people hate it, it could be quite the contrary)

 

[Emka]

 

[Deleted member 10629]

He's not entirely wrong. I met a guy today who said he pirates games and only buys DLC or if the game gets a huge sale.

I told him he's part of the problem and he's why DRM exists and he told me he didn't care.

Fuck these people.

Edit: at the same time, DRM only ends up punishing the consumers who buy their games legit, so don't do it.

Click to shrink...

But that carries the implication that people opted to pirate the game because it had no DRM protection.

It is more a cultural and utilitarian thing than malice. People who pirate will do it even if the game costs $1 USD.

 

[Robin]

I don't pirate video games period. I have a Google Music subscription so that covers me for music too.

 

[LightKiosk]

He's not entirely wrong. I met a guy today who said he pirates games and only buys DLC or if the game gets a huge sale.

I told him he's part of the problem and he's why DRM exists and he told me he didn't care.

Fuck these people.

Edit: at the same time, DRM only ends up punishing the consumers who buy their games legit, so don't do it.

Click to shrink...

The thing with that group of people is that no matter what they say/do, they put all of their effort into finding a leaked/cracked version of the game. I also never believe them when they say they purchase the DLC/game on sale. If they went through that effort to illegally obtain the game, they'll do the same for DLC.

That said there are still many games that do perfectly fine without any form of DRM, and putting DRM in won't magically make that group of people decide to just drop efforts and purchase it. They would rather wait on it at that point.

 

[Deleted member 5491]

Well there exist an EU survey with the conclusion that illegal game downloads don't effect the sales of a game.
Pirates will pirate because they don't want to spend money on a product.
And as proven with Denuvo, every security system can and will be cracked.

BUT: You can scare away some customers who are not willing to install another client or have internet problems
and all that stuff.

I do understand his anger. I would be pissed too if someone "steals" my work but DRM is not a solution

 

[Deleted member 7450]

Pirates are going to pirate regardless, in the end who is left with DRM? People who paid for it.

It sucks people not paying for your hard work, but cheer the people buying your stuff, stop chasing people who don't, it is useless.

 

[anyprophet]

no DRM scheme is ever going to stand up to hackers. it may take them longer to initially figure it out(as was the case with denuvo) but as soon as they do it's basically dead in the water. you just not going to solve the fundamental problem that at some point the content has to be decrypted so that it can run on the system and be displayed on a monitor. the solution to piracy isn't better DRM it's making things that people are willing to give you money for.

 

[JordanKZ]

Honestly, I'm kinda surprised to see such a completely unfiltered tweet from someone so high up in a company like this. People are going to pirate your game, regardless. Personally? I bought, and am loving Wolfenstein II.

 

[Calibro]

Eh, Denuvo is dead on arrival these days, I say blame the fucker who leaked it before release. After the release it would've been almost instantly cracked even with Denuvo.

Can't really win in this fight, gotta hope people won't be such cheapskates, think with their heads and reward great devs with both praise and money.

 

[datschge]

Fuck pirates, fuck DRM, stop fucking consumers.

 

[Atraveller]

What the hell was he taking about? No DRM was a bad idea? Wolfenstein WITH DRM was cracked before release! What sort of jump of logic was this?

 

[HershelLinkton]

Well there exist an EU survey with the conclusion that illegal game downloads don't effect the sales of a game.
Pirates will pirate because they don't want to spend money on a product.

Click to shrink...

^this. I did it as a teenager. Not proud of it but you don't want to spend 50-60 bucks on a bad game. I bought a game for full price when I loved it and during sales when they were ok. Tbh, I only bought some games because I pirated them before and I know that I'm not the only one.

Some DRMs are the reason that sales are bad, not pirates. I started to boycott games with online drm after "Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands". Paid 40€ back then and it was impossible to play it without a crack.

 

[Conkerkid11]

Seems kind of premature to be making this complaint? Wait until sales numbers?

The game's showing up as being the biggest top seller on Steam right now, even beating out Assassin's Creed, which I'm pretty sure usually does pretty big numbers.

 

[Hektor]

So, it'd fine to pirate the game if it wouldn't have been successful?

I'm very confused about the statement he's trying to make.



Also, doesn't the fact that the game was successful despite having its Denuvo cracked before launch in most regions prove that the DRM solution in this instance was pointless to begin with and that the game would've sold no worse if it were DRM free

€: Oh, i have been bamboozled. Wolfie 2 didn't use Denuvo to begin with

 

[Dr. Caroll]

What the hell was he taking about? No DRM was a bad idea? Wolfenstein WITH DRM was cracked before release! What sort of jump of logic was this?

Click to shrink...

Wolfenstein II didn't have Denuvo. The Evil Within 2 didn't have Denuvo, either. (To be technical, TEW2 had Denuvo pre-release.)

 

[Deleted member 10293]

I think this is an incorrect statement on his part in all honesty. Like others have said, pirates will pirate regardless of whether something has drm or not. I've talked to friends about it and many of them admit they pirate because they either can't pay or are afraid of blowing 60 bucks on something they might not like so they use it like a demo. The morality of this is up in the air but I do see their point

 

[Sabretooth]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm kind of reading this tweet in a sarcastic light. If he was really salty, it would be if the title was not successful because everyone pirated it. If it's a successful title, it sounds like he's just ribbing on the pro-DRM crowd because as he points out indirectly, the game was successful despite there being no DRM.

 

[Hektor]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm kind of reading this tweet in a sarcastic light. If he was really salty, it would be if the title was not successful because everyone pirated it. If it's a successful title, it sounds like he's just ribbing on the pro-DRM crowd because as he points out indirectly, the game was successful despite there being no DRM.

Click to shrink...

Reading this tweet with a sarcastic tone actually makes a lot of sense, now i think you're right

 

[Mudo]

DRM as it is, is too intrusive for the vast majority of actual honest buyers of games. On top of the whole GAAS shit with loot crates and microtransactions in games (in general not this one), we do not also need DRM that makes the experience worse. It's a bad look. Pirates will ALWAYS exist. They WILL find a way to play your game without paying. I don't have a good answer for how to curttail this, but DRM like Denuvo is not the answer. So keep on whining dude - would hate for you to spend your time trying to find an alternative solution that doesn't fuck your honest customers over.

 

[Monogatari]

Yes because pirates give up as soon as they hit some DRM

The logic is the other way around. Pirates will strive through every hoop to play the game for free.

Paying customers will be put off and possibly refuse to jump through the intrusive DRM hoops.

 

[Atraveller]

Wolfenstein II didn't have Denuvo. The Evil Within 2 didn't have Denuvo, either. (To be technical, TEW2 had Denuvo pre-release.)

Click to shrink...

Oh, then the gaming news titles were wrong then. It didn't get cracked before release, it was merely distributed.

 

[Hatebringer]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm kind of reading this tweet in a sarcastic light. If he was really salty, it would be if the title was not successful because everyone pirated it. If it's a successful title, it sounds like he's just ribbing on the pro-DRM crowd because as he points out indirectly, the game was successful despite there being no DRM.

Click to shrink...

Pretty sure that you're correct - I get the same vibe from it.

 

[Chamaeleonx]

I hope the game is successful!
Wolfenstein is such a classic franchise.

They might have a higher pirating rate due to the right wing hating their campaign.
Just look at
https://www.resetera.com/threads/vi...s-pissing-off-the-alt-right.1973/#post-141039

Given that these people might contain some of the people that would simply pirate a game then buy this connection may be correct.

 

[Lunatic]

Sarcastic or not, I have the feeling that pirates likely wouldn't have bought the game if it were protected or waited until it was eventually cracked anyway. The DRM might have affected legitimate purchasers though

 

[Avitus]

Denuvo would have bought them maybe 24 hours. It's a dead DRM scheme. I understand why he is upset but there's really no hiding from pirates and it's best to ignore them.

 

[Deleted member 10675]

Fuck you CTO, I wouldn't buy the game if it had Denuvo.

 

[shimon]

Pirates gonna pirate. Don't punish your consumers.

Also this:

I wouldn't buy the game if it had Denuvo.

Click to shrink...

Many people think like that and you can't blame them.

 

[gcwy]

With or without DRM pirates always find a way to crack or share games. DRM in the end just becomes a nuisance to the consumer and does not increase sales of a game.

Click to shrink...

Couldn't have said it better myself. He probably said this to appease the shareholders.

 

[GrrImAFridge]

The game leaked ahead of release because a reviewer shared the review build of the game. With Denuvo being blown wide open and cracks surfacing mere hours after release, nothing would have changed even if it were present. The end result would have been the same, just a wee bit later down the track.

 

[Speculawyer]

Fvck pirates. Buy the game if you want to play. If it is too expensive then wait.

Piracy is what will kill single player gaming. Multi-player is much more easily controlled with codes.

 

[Jimrpg]

The game leaked ahead of release because a reviewer shared the review build of the game. With Denuvo being blown wide open and cracks surfacing mere hours after release, nothing would have changed even if it were present. The end result would have been the same, just a wee bit later down the track.

Click to shrink...

They should take that reviewer off their review keys list.

 

[Deleted member 5028]

I always find the argument that piracy isn't a lost sale to be disingenuous. If someone's playing a game they've pirated then he's, that's lost revenue that can keep developers fed, working and energised about making more games.

Even if it languishes on a hard drive somewhere and isn't played then maybe the argument is content theft but piracy does absolutely hurt sales the moment someone boots that game and starts playing, then subsequently enjoys it.

Enjoyment of a product illicitly gained is absolutely piracy, and if you derive pleasure from that product then the argument that you were never going to buy it so no lost sale shouldn't be a convenient way to handwave off any discussion about the benefits of DRM.

 

[Deleted member 8196]

Even if it had DENUVO, in 24 hours or less, the cracked version will be live for pirates so having DENUVO or not is pointless now. Look at Shadow of War and WarHammer 2, both games with DENUVO cracked day one and they both are close to 500.000 units.
Just, fucking wait, i love Machine Games and Wolf, but this statement is bullshit.

 

[GrrImAFridge]

They should take that reviewer off their review keys list.

Click to shrink...

Any identifying information was likely scrubbed. This situation has the very real potential to turn into a case of "This is why we can't have nice things" and compel Bethesda to stop providing review keys for the PC versions of its games, at least until another DRM method surfaces that can reasonably ensure a relatively long period of protection, as Denuvo originally did.

 

[noctix]

At this point Denuvo is dead. I think we will be seeing a worse implementation in the form of always online or UWP like Microsoft is doing soon.

 

[Deleted member 2809]

People supporting piracy won't be allowed to whine when 90% of games are online-only multiplayer-only DLC lootbox shitfests.

 

[Deleted member 2625]

hey was the PS3 ever cracked?

Denuvo was considered pretty scary DRM. just trying to think of examples where the protection worked, or at least worked for "long enough" (maybe the PS3 example).

 

[Deleted member 5028]

People supporting piracy won't be allowed to whine when 90% of games are online-only multiplayer-only DLC lootbox shitfests.

Click to shrink...

Dark Souls Battlegrounds
Call of duty Battlegrounds
Wolfenstein Battlegrounds
Cooking Mama Battlegrounds
Madden Battlegrounds

 

[HellofaMouse]

drm doesnt make a difference for pirates. it just makes the lives of ur legit customers more difficult.

 

[GrrImAFridge]

hey was the PS3 ever cracked?

Click to shrink...

Yep.

 

[A New Beginning]

Pc audience doesn't see value in singleplayer games. The true potential for pc game sales can be seen by games like csgo which sold over 30 million copies which is more than any console game yet still most AAA games sell 3x better on consoles.

The other problem are people who cry "we don't want microtransaction in our SINGLEPLAYER games". So extra monetization is ok in games that make the most money but not in games that make the least? You see why Gaas is the most tempting for publishers?

 

[Max Payne]

Wolf2's selling numbers could be a great analytical tool for measuring the modern impact of piracy on the overall success of a game. It's a pure SP game, it has a good metascore and it was available for pirates from day one. If this game won't sell well in comparison with other games where Denuvo was cracked some weeks ahead if it's release, that actually could prove something. Even though the twit very likely is meant to be sarcastic.

 

[Deleted member 1476]

.