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Assbadin's Creed Origins is one of the protected video games on PC with Denuvo. On Metacritic, the PC version marks 0.5 points less than the console version
(Image: Ubisoft)
Denuvo copy games get lower marks. According to one study, it is the revenge of vengeful software hackers.
Games protected from software piracy by Denuvo, the hard-copy copy protection system, get worse ratings from Metacritic than their unprotected console equivalents. That's what Zike Cao researchers from the Erasmus University Rotterdam describe in a recent study.
Cao was able to quantify the Denuvo Malus by watching many Denuvo games on his PC and comparing user ratings to Denuvo-free console versions of the same games. According to Metacritic, PC games with Denuvo average on the scale of 0-10 score between 0.5 and 0.9 points worse than their console versions.
Denuvo is an anti-sabotage technique that secures the protections of game service customers like Steam, Origin or uPlay. Denuvo implements test queries on random parts of the game program code. The software is unpopular among gamers, some would have a negative impact on the game as performance issues. The developers of Denuvo deny all the perceptible effects. Denuvo-protected games include Assbadin Creed Origins, Far Cry 5, Star Wars Battlefront 1 and 2, and FIFA 18. The list is quite long.
Are pirates warned?
At least, Cao does not believe that much of the alleged negative effects on the games are really the cause of the gap in the notes. In this case, he writes in the study document, PC versions equipped with Denuvo should also work less well in professional gaming testers. His badysis shows, however, that this is not the case. Metacritic keeps separate ratings of magazines and game users.
Cao sees frustrated hackers as the reason for the most negative ratings. Hackers could "sabotage" the ratings of the titles by inconvenience that Denuvo prevents the release of a cracked version, so playable for free. In this way, they want to harm the game, according to Cao.
This thesis is supported by several statistics: The researcher noticed that PC versions of Denuvo games are often rated with 0 or 1 point – militant negative ratings that do not reflect the quality of a credible game. The words "Denuvo" often appeared in the written commentary of these journals
Moreover, the notation gap was higher for older titles than for new ones. Denuvo is an effective copy protection measure – the first versions were considered "unbreakable" for a while. Meanwhile, cracker groups have found a way around the system rather quickly. As a result, it makes sense that games that have remained uninterrupted for a long time have caused more "revenge ratings".
Warning to Developers
For developers, this result is a warning, writes Cao. Although they could at least protect their game with Denuvo hackers, they risked negative reviews on the products. These rankings are important in the gaming industry, especially on Metacritic, as they are often the first point of contact for prospects. It can even happen that an editor promises developers a bonus based on Metacritic ratings.
Reviews of video game users are particularly unreliable – a problem that faces Metacritic as well as Steam. The phenomenon is called Review Bombing: if something does not fit in the past, for example, the statement of a developer on Twitter, a decision of the publisher in another game or a twist with a well-known Youtuber player Review pages with negative ratings. This often has little to do with the quality of a title.
(Dahe)
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