• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Both LiS: Before the Storm and Sonic Mania had highly successful launch on PC

D

dex3108

Member
After 2 days on the market Life is Strange: Before the Storm has 98,791 ± 10,656 owners, and after 3 days Sonic Mania has 97,590 ± 10,591 owners.

Life is Strange has amazing 96% positive reviews on Steam from 2,621 reviews, and Sonic Mania has 74% positive reviews from 2,736 reviews.

There are few things interesting about those two titles. First they both had amazing launch despite Denuvo. Second thing despite both having Denuvo Sonic Mania is getting way more negative reviews bombed (LiS is not getting negative reviews bombed at all). And third thing is when you take in consideration another recent lower priced game Hellblade we can notice that market really needed mid tier high quality games from bigger devs/publishers. We had and still have amazing indie games that kinda filled that whole but those mid tier games from big developers/publishers are welcomed because they allow them to experiment and be creative with less risk.

Prime example for this comparison is Agents of Mayhem that had horrible launch despite being developed by famous developer with high budget, but with less interesting gameplay and story than over the top Saints Row series. If that game was mid tier release with smaller scope and lower price i am sure that it would be doing way better than now.

All in all it looks like that Denuvo is rarely an issue for majority of buyers and if there is not big press coverage about it nobody is even noticing it (Life is Strange case). And we could potentially see surge of mid tier games that take risks from big devs/publishers in next few years and i am glad because of that.
 
S

sixteen-bit

Member
Congrats to Square and Sega on the success. Interesting to see Denuvo wasn't enough to dissuade folks, in addition to the Sonic delay (console versions dropped 2 weeks earlier).
 
S

Squire

Banned
sixteen-bit said:
Congrats to Square and Sega on the success. Interesting to see Denuvo wasn't enough to dissuade folks, in addition to the Sonic delay (console versions dropped 2 weeks earlier).
Click to expand...

Most people aren't going to take offense to D like folks on GAF/places like it will.

The LIS demo I would think especially doesn't care.
 
K

KHlover

Banned
Sonic fucked up with the implementation of Steam features, people wanting to play offline looked it up and of course everyone went straight to Denuvo's throat (unjustified, in this case). That's why it got so many negative reviews.
 
T

TB12

Banned
Good :)

At the end of the end of the day, gamer cared about the game! No one cared how it being protected by who or what...
All this fake outrage about "Denuvo" on every single denuvo topic its entertaining though :p
 
F

Fancolors

Member
In Mania's case it was likely because they had given no warning about Denuvo being implemented before launch.

That and trouble with refunding, likely because they gave Sonic 1 as a gift to people who pre-ordered.
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
Steamspy pages
Life is Strange BtS
http://steamspy.com/app/554620

Sonic Mania
http://steamspy.com/app/584400

TB12 said:
Good :)

At the end of the end of the day, gamer cared about the game! No one cared how it being protected who or what...
All this fake outrage about "Denuvo" on every single denuvo topic its entertaining though :p
Click to expand...

Here are 2 people on GAF, at least, that couldn't get Sonic Mania to run on their rig
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=247648820&postcount=7454
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=247650545&postcount=7458

Once Denuvo gets cracked on these games, and they will, the purpose of Denuvo in those games becomes moot and the funds wasted on Denuvo would be for nothing.
 
G

GhostTrick

Banned
The real difference is Sonic Mania was delayed two weeks to implement a DRM.

And while the loss in sales because of DRM is fairly limited, I believe it's still bigger than the lost sales because of piracy. Pirates wont decide to buy your game because of Denuvo. Heck, they're not the kind of people to pay 20 bucks just to play one week earlier.

People buy their games because they like the ecosystem and the convenience. Not because they're forced because of the DRM.
 
C

carlsojo

Member
Tizoc said:
Steamspy pages
Life is Strange BtS
http://steamspy.com/app/554620

Sonic Mania
http://steamspy.com/app/584400



Here are 2 people on GAF, at least, that couldn't get Sonic Mania to run on their rig
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=247648820&postcount=7454
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=247650545&postcount=7458

Once Denuvo gets cracked on these games, and they will, the purpose of Denuvo in those games becomes moot and the devs wasted funds on them for nothing.
Click to expand...

You think Deck 9 spent money on Denuvo? Isn't this a publisher thing?
 
S

snail_maze

Member
I think implementing DRM is a waste of time and ressources and just causes problems (damn you Securom!), but good games deserve good sales, so this is good to see.
In the case of games I own that are a bitch to get working because of their DRM, I don't blame the game (=devs) but the DRM (=pub for putting it in). So while I have a burning hatred for Securom of old and Ubisofts (removed) always online schemes, I don't blame things like Anno which suffered under it.
So glad to see them doing well, people should be warned about the DRM well in advance though
 
Deathknell

Deathknell

Member
TB12 said:
Good :)

At the end of the end of the day, gamer cared about the game! No one cared how it being protected who or what...
All this fake outrage about "Denuvo" on every single denuvo topic its entertaining though :p
Click to expand...

You just don't get it uh?
 
NeoRaider

NeoRaider

Member
Congrats to developers of both games.
LiS success makes me really happy, and i will always support developers that are doing something new, fresh and interesting imo. They deserve all the success.

Like i mentioned in other thread LiS developers were open about Denuvo and announced it on Steam and their site.

Sonic was delayed so they can implement Denuvo, and they never mentioned it before the release...
 
C

CecilRousso

Member
dex3108 said:
All in all it looks like that Denuvo is rarely an issue for majority of buyers and if there is not big press coverage about it nobody is even noticing it (Life is Strange case).
Click to expand...

It's even less likely that it will play into the purchasing decision of the customers, when the publishers wait until the last minute, and like in Sonic Mania's case even after that, to tell about the inclusion of additional DRM like Denuvo.

dex3108 said:
And we could potentially see surge of mid tier games that take risks from big devs/publishers in next few years and i am glad because of that.
Click to expand...

You're not trying to make Denuvo the reason for that now are you?
 
D

dlauv

Member
Denuvo is the unfavorable meme of PC gaming right now.

Sonic Mania was delayed for two weeks and SEGA fucked up the offline play, so more people cared that it was implemented.

wazoo said:
No, piracy is and always will be. At least on the editor side.
Click to expand...

Piracy is probably as big of a problem to the publisher as DRM is to the end user, in that it isn't much of one.

I'm not saying DRM is great or anything, but for all of the people having horror stories with it, you have a similar amount of people complaining a game won't boot or whatever on their setup.

I'm just skeptical because I never run into issues.

IAmAnAgnostic said:
Holy hell, the original LiS has 4.85 million Steam owners, I didn't know it was that big!
http://steamspy.com/app/319630
Click to expand...

Ep 1 was free for a while.

Edit: Oh, it's perpetually free.
 
R

Randdalf

Member
sixteen-bit said:
Congrats to Square and Sega on the success. Interesting to see Denuvo wasn't enough to dissuade folks, in addition to the Sonic delay (console versions dropped 2 weeks earlier).
Click to expand...

Why would Denuvo dissuade people from buying a game? Honest question. Especially on Steam, why would it stop average joe Steam user from buying the game?
 
S

Sad Affleck

Member
First thought: Almost everyone was saying that the triple-A industry's all-or-nothing approach was unbelievably dumb. There are a lot of gaming niches out there, there's no reason why any publisher can't pad out its portfolio by funding and maintaining these smaller projects. Niche gamers are a reliable group, there's nothing wrong with creating a steady source of income that can help cushion the impact from a big AAA project disappointing in sales.

Second thought: Denuvo doesn't decrease game sales because currently it's not an inconvenience to the average gamer. I've bought a number of Denuvo games and although it probably will bite me in the ass in the future I haven't had an issue so far.

Third thought: The people fighting for Denuvo to be gone are right and I feel grateful that they are fighting for my benefit. DRM doesn't increase sales, good service and fair prices increase sales.
 
L

luff

Neo Member
Glad to see both of these games doing so well!

Also, Life is Strange: Before the Storm looks like it has already been cracked.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Yohane said:
Does steamspy count you as an owner if you only have ep1? (which is free)
Click to expand...

Yeah.

Edit: To illustrate this, I just added it to my alt account and used the Steam web API to generate a list of owned games:
Code: 
<message><appid>319630</appid><playtime_forever>0</playtime_forever></message>

319630 is Life is Strange. If Episode 1 were technically a demo rather than the base app, it'd have a separate app ID and wouldn't count.
 
AHA-Lambda

AHA-Lambda

Member
Second thought: Denuvo doesn't decrease game sales because currently it's not an inconvenience to the average gamer. I've bought a number of Denuvo games and although it probably will bite me in the ass in the future I haven't had an issue so far.
Click to expand...

This.
This.
This
1000 times this.

Denuvo compared to GFWL, SecuRom, Tages, UWP, or StarForce, has been pretty tame and hasn't yet actively inconvenienced me.
Future-wise yeah I do however completely share the concerns expressed before, and trust me I'd rather Denuvo wasn't there either.
But even that is a far cry from stuff we've had before like SecuRom or Tages - which had more immediate and finite activation limits.

As far as I am concerned though I made that choice of purchase for both Sonic and LiS having been informed of it, and it was made with my eyes open.

On the other hand however, those that would whine and say that it doesn't matter, or that a game shouldn't be punished for the actions of the publisher, the claims of "entitlement" that we've had in prior threads etc (ah yes, how dare a consumer take an opinion on how they spend their own hard earned money), are to me simply corporate apologists.
I'd be very curious to see if many of these same users actually regularly play on PC...
 
Y

Yohane

Member
JaseC said:
Yeah.

Edit: To illustrate this, I just added it to my alt account and used the Steam web API to generate a list of owned games:
Code: 
<message><appid>319630</appid><playtime_forever>0</playtime_forever></message>

319630 is Life is Strange. If Episode 1 were technically a demo rather than the base app, it'd have a separate app ID and wouldn't count.
Click to expand...

Thanks JaseC for the experiment!
 
G

gtvdave

Member
I am happy to see Denuvo protecting games like this. It definitely forces certain group of people to buy games instead of pirating them. A few days of protection is a big deal.
 
T

texhnolyze

Banned
gtvdave said:
I am happy to see Denuvo protecting games like this. It definitely forces certain group of people to buy games instead of pirating them. A few days of protection is a big deal.
Click to expand...

In the first years of Denuvo, that may be right. But after their protected games got cracked left and right shortly after release, that's not the case anymore. People now that they can just wait for a few days or maybe weeks, even hours in some cases.

Denuvo has fallen, and it's baffling that publishers are still embarcing it.
 
Deathknell

Deathknell

Member
gtvdave said:
I am happy to see Denuvo protecting games like this. It definitely forces certain group of people to buy games instead of pirating them. A few days of protection is a big deal.
Click to expand...

A few days of protection and a potential expiration time on your game.

Fucking beautiful.
 
P

Paragon

Member
It's almost like DRM has virtually no effect on sales whatsoever, since there are a number of high-profile games that use Denuvo which have sold poorly.
The majority of gamers don't care about anything long-term with their purchases.
They're happy to continue supporting consoles that no longer include backwards compatibility and reward companies by buying "HD Remasters" of games they've already bought.
Though disappointing, it shouldn't be surprising that the majority of people on Steam don't care about this either.

The majority of people that pirate everything they play are not going to suddenly buy your game because it has DRM, and for every sale that is gained as a result of DRM, there is probably one lost from the anti-DRM consumer.
It's not like Denuvo is doing much to protect games these days anyway - Life is Strange: Before the Storm was cracked in less than a day.
Meanwhile I, as a legitimate customer, have been unsuccessful in my attempts to mod in ultrawide support (a feature they said would be in the game) since touching the executable with a hex editor at all prevents it from starting due to Denuvo.
The original game only used Steam DRM, which did not prevent this type of modification.

Oh, and count yourselves lucky that you haven't been inconvenienced by Denuvo yet, if you're in the group that doesn't care - whether it's preventing you from modding a game, playing a game offline, or saying you have too many activations in a 24hr period for doing nothing wrong.
 
S

Sir_Crocodile

Member
gtvdave said:
I am happy to see Denuvo protecting games like this. It definitely forces certain group of people to buy games instead of pirating them. A few days of protection is a big deal.
Click to expand...

What's the percentage of denuvo games that remove it after the first week? Or first month?

This crap does not benefit people who buy games.
 
J

JustSomeone

Member
For starters, LiS's pc version wasn't delayed in 2 weeks for adding fucking denuvo. That's why the difference in the reviews
 
AHA-Lambda

AHA-Lambda

Member
And we could potentially see surge of mid tier games that take risks from big devs/publishers in next few years and i am glad because of that.
Click to expand...

Yes, that would be nice, and indeed we're already seeing that more and more now.

But what in the blue cheese has this got to do with Denuvo or DRM?

Denuvo games still get cracked super quickly these days, and no DRM is suddenly going to make a business idea viable where it wasn't before.
 
P

Paragon

Member
Sir_Crocodile said:
What's the percentage of denuvo games that remove it after the first week? Or first month?
This crap does not benefit people who buy games.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately the list of games which have previously used Denuvo and have since removed it is very small: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo#List_of_games_formerly_using_Denuvo
If companies would commit to its removal after a certain period of time, or perhaps as part of a game's final patch, I would have far less of a problem with it.
It can still be very inconvenient at times, but if there was at least a guarantee that it would be removed so that the game has a long-term future, I'd be a lot less concerned.
I'm not convinced that publishers are implementing this as a way to combat piracy, as much as they are implementing it to put a time limit on the game - intentionally hurting long-term preservation.
Why would any publisher want the game to still be playable 10-20 years from now? If it's a success, they can sell it back to you repackaged as a "remaster" at full price again.
 
O

Offline

Banned
To my knowledge they both did not have physical releases right? I think that format as well as digital benefits console sales specifically not that it takes away from their success on PC.
 
D

dex3108

Member
AHA-Lambda said:
Yes, that would be nice, and indeed we're already seeing that more and more now.

But what in the blue cheese has this got to do with Denuvo or DRM?

Denuvo games still get cracked super quickly these days, and no DRM is suddenly going to make a business idea viable where it wasn't before.
Click to expand...

As i said before, nothing. That is just another thing that those games have in common. Hellblade was success, Uncharted The Lost Legacy is success and i hope that Dishonored The Death of the Outsider will also be success.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Another game suffering from success: Last Epoch director admits his optimistic launch expectations 'aged like milk' (Currently 198K CC players)
2
57
4K
Bry0 replied
High on LIfe Steam sales skyrocket alongside PC Game Pass success
4 5 6 7 8
381
18K
feynoob replied
Botany Manor | Review Thread
Analysis Review
3
572
Punished Miku replied
Alone in the Dark | Review Thread
Analysis Review 2 3
136
7K
Alan Wake replied
Outcast: A New Beginning | Review Thread + |OT|
|OT| Analysis Review 2
51
3K
Gordon Freeman replied
Top Bottom