Amidst news of Denuvo joining the ESIC coalition, the company's new owner, Irdeto, revealed that the company will be expanding its controversial anti-piracy methodology onto cheating as well, with the solution said to be launching soon.
Denuvo's decision to join the Esports Integrity Coalition apparently stems from the Irdeto Global Gaming Survey, which found that 61 per cent of users in UK and Germany have had their online multiplayer gaming experiences negatively impacted by cheaters.
Irdeto's research also revealed that 74 per cent of Brits and 68 per cent of Germans "are likely to stop playing multiplayer online games if they feel that other players are gaining an unfair advantage through cheating." Peculiarly enough, I seem to be hearing this exact claim from my squad almost every night, even though they didn't participate in the research.
The Survey was conducted in the first half of March and included a test group of 9,436 adult persons, 5,911 of which are apparently gamers. The countries in question are UK, Germany, US, China, Japan and South Korea and the "figures have been weighted appropriately to be representative of adults in each country", with "even weighting for each country to produce an 'average' value."
So basically, we're talking about very exact and infallible science here, especially since 9,436 is enough of a test sample to measure the pulse of any planet, let alone the Earth's measly approximation of 7.5 billion. The test group featured no professionals from the field, which is yet another bonus, since gamers rarely accuse other gamers of cheating, especially when they wipe the floor with them. Plus, they said they were adults.
On a more serious note, Denuvo's controversial anti-piracy methods have been discussed at length, seeing as how they impose on users the choice of sacrificing hardware horsepower and/or individual game performance for the illusion of anti-piracy.
I'm saying illusion because everything gets but Denuvo tends to last the longest, leaving developers and publishers a precious few days in which the game cannot be pirated. And as long as users are the only ones paying for these choices, it's perfectly fine, right?
Most, if not all games eventually get rid of Denuvo's protection via post-launch patches, which really says enough about how practical the solution is. However with Voksi, the Bulgarian who ultimately cracked Denuvo, now behind bars awaiting trial, we're likely to have to put up with it for a while more. Let's just hope that their anti-cheat solution isn't as taxing as their anti-piracy efforts.
