- If you have a problem with your payment method on a later game purchase, your account will be disabled blocking all your Denuvo games from working. Steam support is notoriously slow to respond so your account may be disabled for weeks or months. Supporting the ability of platforms to disable your entire game library is anti-consumer.
- Denuvo stops games from supporting Linux or OS X. Not only do the publishers not release ports, but using Denuvo means third parties like the Wine project can't support them either. Games like Inside, the sequel to Limbo, are an example of Denuvo stopping Linux support. Limbo supported Linux and OS X, and Inside is built using Unity engine which can easily make Linux builds. But because they are using Denuvo, it can't be played on any other operating system. Another example is Doom 2016. The beta version worked great on Linux when used with Wine project. But the final release came encumbered with Denuvo, effectively stopping Wine from supporting the game on Linux and OS X. Preventing games from working on other operating systems is anti-consumer.
- Denuvo games require reactivation if you haven't played them in a while or if you change any of your computer's hardware, and you must authenticate with Denuvo servers every time you receive an update (Simply allowing Steam to update is not enough. You must also open the game once while connected to the internet after each update). They don't require always online, but they do require sometimes online. Some people don't believe this, so here's proof: This is from a user that left it in offline mode for a week or so and didn't play it. This wasn't their first launch.
- Denuvo makes it difficult or impossible to play games without some form of internet connection. Sure lots of people have internet connections, but not everyone does. Requiring an internet connection for offline single-player games is anti-consumer.
- If your internet drops without preparing for offline beforehand you can't play your Denuvo crapware.
- If at some point in the future any part of their DRM service chain is shut down due to internet outage or a company going bankrupt, games will be inaccessible. Some people reply "but surely these companies will provide a method access if they are shutting down servers!" If a company is in bankruptcy and there's an outcry to get patches out for 15 year old games, I doubt they're going to make it a priority to devote resources and development time to creating patches. It wouldn't be the first time a library of DRM-encumbered crapware went poof. Remember the single-player game Darkspore? It is impossible for anyone to play it anymore. Neither pirates nor customers can play it. They didn't release a patch to make it work offline. Here's what it shows up as on Origin:
Supporting an ecosystem which could disappear your games is anti-consumer.
- In many cases after an online game has their servers shut down, modders can get the online portion working again by modifying the executable to work with a new master server list. With Denuvo, when EA says the online fun is over that's the end of it because modders won't be able to fix the game. That's anti-consumer.
- Having Denuvo on your games means that if a game comes out that's Oculus Rift only and has strong anti-tamper protections, you'll have no way to ever get it working on other VR platforms. Anti-consumer vendor lock-in.
- Denuvo locks you into your purchase platform for now to eternity. If you purchase a Denuvo game on Steam, you must use Steam forever or abandon your purchases to the wind. If your Steam account gets hacked or locked, your games are gone, because they were never really yours, and you never really even had a copy of them.
- You can't make playable back-ups of your games. This isn't helping the consumer.
- A large point of Denuvo is to enable vendors and publishers to lock down the functionality of their games and provide them with a simplified means of doing all the bad anti-consumer things they've always wanted to do. While Denuvo copy protection may not in and of itself do the something bad ("see Denuvo does nothing wrong!") it enables the publishers to do it.
